Apply the Five Steps to the robotics-club budget example. Follow Carla's demonstration, pause to make your own attempt, and compare your check with the result.
Your activity / Right here
Bring a notebook. Begin below.
The activity is included on this page. Work on paper or in your own document; keep your first attempt and the evidence you checked.
AI Lab: Five Steps With a Data File
Robotics club fundraiser data - made-up example. All amounts are in dollars.
| Fundraiser | Budgeted Sales | Actual Sales | Actual Costs |
|---|
| Car wash | 400 | 520 | 60 |
| Bake sale | 300 | 285 | 95 |
| T-shirt sale | 900 | 1140 | 610 |
Use only an AI tool your instructor approves and that allows users your age. Check its minimum age and parent-permission rules first; an adult's permission cannot override an 18+ limit. Follow your school's rules, and do not share personal information. Use only the made-up club data from this chapter. About 35 minutes.
1. Make the file. Type the robotics club table above into a spreadsheet and save it as a CSV (comma separated values) file named 2026-11-01_Robotics_Club_Fundraisers_v1.csv. Type numbers without commas (1140, not 1,140). Or use the file your instructor provides.
2. Role, before any files. Write a role prompt that ends with "Do not do anything yet."
3. Objective. State your goal and lock the workflow: "I will upload one file next. Confirm and wait."
4. Context. Upload the file. Say what it contains and why it is there. Ask the AI to list the actual sales and actual costs for each fundraiser before it calculates anything.
5. Force verification. Ask: "Walk me through exactly where you got those numbers." Compare every number with the table above. Circle any mismatch and correct it.
6. Task. Ask for profit and profit margin for each fundraiser, with the formula, the exact inputs, and why those are the right inputs.
7. Challenge (optional). Ask for two fair benchmarks and a plan for answering pushback. Decide which benchmark you could actually get real data for.
8. Verify: Recompute every profit and margin yourself with a calculator. Check the AI's inputs against the table one more time. Log every AI error in your AI Audit Log, even a small one.
9. Record your AI use: which tool you used, each prompt you sent, and what you kept from the answers.
Own It
No AI. About 15 minutes.
Make your prompt card set by hand, on index cards or a folded sheet of paper.
• Cards 1 to 5: One card for each of Dr. Q's Five Steps, with a fill-in-the-blank starter. Example for Role: "You are a ______ helping a high school student with ______. Do not do anything yet."
• Card 6, the file card: "I uploaded ___ file(s). This file is ______. Before anything else, list its key numbers and sections."
• Card 7, the audit card: "Walk me through exactly where you got that."
Then finish this sentence: "The step I skip most often is ______, and next time I will ______."
Portfolio piece: Prompt card set.
Context File Upgrade
Add a section to my_context.md so your AI knows how you work, even when you forget a step:
## My Default Five Steps
- Role: Unless I say otherwise, act as a patient tutor for a high school student.
- Objective: If I forget to state my goal, ask me what I am trying to do.
- Context: If you are missing context, ask me one question. Do not guess.
- Task: Follow my steps in order. When I say "Confirm and wait," confirm and wait.
- Audit: Show where your facts and numbers came from, and say when you are unsure.
Skeptic's Corner: What Kind of Statement Is This?
These statements are exercises to classify and check. Do not assume every statement is true.
Use the six labels from Chapter 1: Fact, Idea, Rob's Story, Made-Up Example, Rule, Prediction.
1. "Microsoft's help page says prompts can include four parts: the goal, context, expectations, and source."
2. "Audit AI output with professional skepticism, the way you would review a teammate's work."
3. "The AI read the T-shirt sales from the Budgeted Sales column."
4. "By 2030, nobody will need to write prompts."
5. "Use only an AI tool your instructor approves."
6. "Google's guide says the prompts people try are usually less than nine words."
Bonus: what is wrong with this claim? "If you use the Five Steps, the AI will always be right." Nothing makes an AI always right. The first four steps shrink the error. Step 5 exists because some error is always possible.
Read the video transcript
Read along, pause, or return to an idea. This transcript follows the selected lesson video.
I'm Carla, an AI avatar.
Today I'm helping Mike's robotics club decide which fall
fundraiser to run again.
The club and the numbers are made up,
but the method is real.
It's adapted from the classroom prompt sequence in Rob's
teaching slides.
Six moves, one at a time.
By the end, you'll see why move four matters most.
Here's the file.
One file, three rows, four columns.
Three fundraisers: car wash, bake sale,
T-shirt sale.
For each one, budgeted sales, actual sales,
and actual costs, in dollars.
Notice there are two sales columns.
Keep an eye on that.
Why go one move at a time?
Because one giant prompt gives the AI room to rush,
and rushing is where mistakes hide.
Move one: frame the role before any files.
Act as a careful assistant to a high school club treasurer.
You'll compute profit and profit margin and explain which
numbers you used.
Do not do anything yet.
Move two: set the objective and lock the workflow.
My goal is to find which fundraiser had the highest profit
margin, so the club can plan the spring.
I'll upload one file next.
Confirm and wait.
It confirms and waits.
Good.
That's the lock.
Nothing happens until I say so.
Move three: insert one asset.
I upload the file and say what it is.
Then, before any math: list the actual sales and actual
costs for each fundraiser.
Here's its list.
Car wash, five twenty and sixty.
Bake sale, two eighty-five and ninety-five.
T-shirt sale, nine hundred and six ten.
Looks clean.
Move four: force verification.
Walk me through exactly where you got those numbers.
There it is.
For the T-shirt sale, it pulled nine hundred from the
Budgeted Sales column.
Actual sales were eleven forty.
The answer looked clean, and it was wrong.
I correct it: use the Actual Sales column for every fundraiser.
T-shirt actual sales were eleven forty.
And I log the error in my AI Audit Log.
Move five: compute with transparency.
Profit is actual sales minus actual costs.
Margin is profit divided by actual sales.
Show the formula, the exact numbers,
and why they're the right inputs.
Car wash, eighty-eight point five percent.
Bake sale, sixty-six point seven.
T-shirts, forty-six point five.
I check every one with a calculator.
Every single one.
They match.
Now think about what almost happened.
With the budget number, the T-shirt margin would have
looked like thirty-two percent.
The club might have dropped the fundraiser that made the
most profit.
That's why move four matters most.
An auditor never takes a number on faith,
and neither do you.
Move six: benchmark and prepare for pushback.
Suggest two fair ways to judge these margins,
and tell me how to answer if our advisor asks why T-shirts
rank last on margin but first on profit.
It suggests last year's numbers and volunteer hours.
Good ideas.
But I'll have to find those real numbers myself.
The AI can't know them, and a benchmark only helps if it's real.
One more thing.
I never uploaded the club's bank records,
names, or emails.
One file, only what the job needed.
Last, I record my AI use: which tool,
each prompt, and what I kept.
The AI did the arithmetic.
I did the checking.
And the decision belongs to the club.
Your turn: open the AI Lab and run all six moves with the same file.
Before you use an AI tool
Follow your course or institution's rules. Use an instructor-approved tool that permits your age, and meet any required consent conditions. Keep names, contact details, school records, and other private information out of prompts. Use fictional examples when you can.
Learning without an AI account
Follow the demonstration, pause before each answer, and do the reasoning on paper. Discuss what you would ask, how you would check it, and which decisions would remain yours.
About the characters and voices
This course uses AI-created characters and synthetic voices. Carla is an AI avatar. They help tell the story; they are not real students sharing testimonials.
Designed for high-school and community-college learners. Choose examples from your classes, work, and everyday life. Keep your completed work in your course portfolio.
