🧜‍♀️ The AI Collective Hampton Roads

## 🚀 Build & Demo Nights — Where Hampton Roads Ships Real AI

Something's building here. Every Month, the AI Collective turns into a working garage: laptops open, ideas flying, and real projects taking shape in the room. This isn't a lecture or a watch-along. It's a build night.

Here's how it works:
Come with an idea, a half-finished project, or just curiosity. Spend the night building — solo or on a team. Then we demo. Show what you made, get real feedback, and see what everyone else is shipping. Working demos beat perfect slides, every time.
Andrew and a crew of experienced devs will be in the room the whole night — to pair up, debug with you, talk architecture, or help you scope something you can actually finish by the end of the session. Stuck? We'll get you unstuck. Just want to talk through an idea? That's what we're here for.

### 👇 But here's the bigger picture

These nights aren't the finish line — they're the on-ramp.

• 🔧 Build & Demo Nights → sharpen your skills, form teams, and get a project off the ground.
• ⚡ Hackathons → take those teams and projects into focused sprint competitions and ship something real in 24–48 hours.
• 🏆 Regional & National Stages → the strongest projects go on to compete at events like the Startup World Cup (global pitch competition, $1M grand prize) and SCSP's AI hackathons ($50K+ prize pools, frontier-AI & national-competitiveness focus) — and whatever comes next.

Local reps → competitive teams → a shot at the biggest stages in tech. The people who show up to build on a random weeknight are the same people who'll be repping Hampton Roads at a national final. That path starts here.

### Who should come

• Developers who want to build more, and build faster
• Founders & entrepreneurs with an idea to prototype
• Designers, PMs, and "non-technical" folks who want to team up with builders
• Anyone AI-curious who learns best by doing

You don't need to be an expert. You don't need a team. You don't even need an idea — plenty of projects need hands, and plenty of builders are looking for teammates.
Bring: a laptop, a charger, and something you want to make real.

Come build. Demo something. Then let's take it to the world stage. 🌎

ℹ️ Other bits of info & FAQs

• This is a free community event
• Drinks or food are available for purchase depending on the venue
• Photos or videos may be taken for community and marketing purposes
• Come solo or bring a friend
• ​​​Is there free parking in the area? Yes. They’ve got lots of spots available in their parking lot.
• ​​​Is this free? Yes, but space is limited. Make sure to RSVP.

🤝 Organizers & partners

New AI tools are dropping every week. Bookmarks are piling up. “To-be-studied” lists are growing faster than we can keep up with.

Sound familiar?

Peninsula Builders Study Group is a local initiative for students and developers of the Peninsula area who want to stop meaning to learn and start actually doing it—together.

There’s no pressure to be an expert, and no bootcamp intensity. Just a consistent habit, a room full of curious people, and the accountability that comes from showing up.

Things to bring:

• Laptop

Session details:
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Christopher Newport University (Luter 170)
🔁 Frequency: Bi-weekly (Tuesdays)

Stay connected:
Join Slack: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflVL1WYj3NpiSZ2o7QjJW17-HojU3wPyeeQVIWhKI_4OtFPQ/viewform?usp=dialog

New AI tools are dropping every week. Bookmarks are piling up. “To-be-studied” lists are growing faster than we can keep up with.

Sound familiar?

Peninsula Builders Study Group is a local initiative for students and developers of the Peninsula area who want to stop meaning to learn and start actually doing it—together.

There’s no pressure to be an expert, and no bootcamp intensity. Just a consistent habit, a room full of curious people, and the accountability that comes from showing up.

Things to bring:

• Laptop

Session details:
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Christopher Newport University (Luter 170)
🔁 Frequency: Bi-weekly (Tuesdays)

Stay connected:
Join Slack: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflVL1WYj3NpiSZ2o7QjJW17-HojU3wPyeeQVIWhKI_4OtFPQ/viewform?usp=dialog

New AI tools are dropping every week. Bookmarks are piling up. “To-be-studied” lists are growing faster than we can keep up with.

Sound familiar?

Peninsula Builders Study Group is a local initiative for students and developers of the Peninsula area who want to stop meaning to learn and start actually doing it—together.

There’s no pressure to be an expert, and no bootcamp intensity. Just a consistent habit, a room full of curious people, and the accountability that comes from showing up.

Things to bring:

• Laptop

Session details:
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
📍 Location: Christopher Newport University (Luter 170)
🔁 Frequency: Bi-weekly (Tuesdays)

Stay connected:
Join Slack: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflVL1WYj3NpiSZ2o7QjJW17-HojU3wPyeeQVIWhKI_4OtFPQ/viewform?usp=dialog