01What is a MADE chapter?

A supervised place where students use AI openly, and are then held accountable for understanding what they produced.

A chapter is a school club, run like any other. Members work in small teams on real projects. The name is the method, and every project runs through all four steps:

• [✓]Make. Build something real. AI use is expected, and done in the open.
• [✓]Audit. Check the work for errors, weaknesses, and bias, then sign what you found.
• [✓]Defend. Answer hard questions about it, live, from people trying to find the holes.
• [✓]Explain. Walk someone outside the team through how it works and why each choice was made.

The premise is that AI is now part of how work gets done, so the useful question is no longer whether a student used it. It is whether they understand it, checked it, and can stand behind it. The chapter treats live explanation, rather than the finished artifact, as the evidence of learning.

02What does it cost, and what are you agreeing to?

Starting a chapter costs nothing. The ask is the ordinary one: a faculty sponsor, a room, and normal club approval. There is no subscription, no software to buy, and no equipment beyond what students already use.

The sponsor's job is deliberately small: sign one form, be present for club activities, and let students run the meetings. They do not coach, do not teach the material, and do not need to know anything about AI. The one-page memo for teachers sets out exactly that commitment, and nothing beyond it.

The only thing that ever costs money is optional. Entering a sanctioned competition starts at $250, which pays for the room and the materials, and is normally fundraised by the students against a specific date. A chapter that never enters one is never asked for anything.

03Who supervises it, and who is liable?

The honest answer starts with what the league is not. As of today MADE is an unincorporated association. It carries no insurance, and it is neither a 501(c)(3) nor an LLC. It intends to incorporate with an adult officer of record, and this page is amended whenever that changes.

Approving a chapter asks you to rely on none of that. A chapter by itself is an ordinary school club: it meets on campus, under your policies, with your faculty sponsor present. It handles no money and involves no travel.

The liability questions arrive only if students later choose to enter a sanctioned competition, and that moment is not left to improvisation: no sanctioned competition runs until the league has a legal entity, insurance appropriate to the event, and named adult officers. Until those exist, there is nothing for a chapter to enter. Any event held away from school would follow your standard permission and field-trip procedures.

04How does this sit with our AI policy?

It is built to sit underneath whatever policy you already have, not beside it.

• [✓]District policy governs. Students use only tools and accounts permitted under your rules and the relevant age requirements.
• [✓]Chapter work is separate from coursework. The chapter changes nothing about how any teacher sets AI rules for their own class.
• [✓]Disclosure is the norm, not the exception. Every use of a tool is written down as part of the work, which is the opposite of the quiet use that policies are usually written to catch.

There is a second benefit worth naming. A school working out its position on AI needs evidence about where these tools genuinely help and where they fall down. Chapter members produce exactly that, every week, and can report it to whoever is doing that thinking.

05What about student data?

Projects do not use personal information about students or staff. The league collects a name, a school, a grade, and an email from students who register for an optional event, and nothing else. That data is never sold, and never handed to a sponsor or any other outside party.

Sponsors may fund events and be visible at them, as at any robotics or debate competition. No sponsor may name an event, shape a rule, select a judge, decide an award, or receive anything at all about your students.

06What do students get?

Practical skill with these tools, plus the speaking and reasoning that demonstrate real understanding.

• [✓]Hands-on building on real projects, not worksheets or tutorials.
• [✓]Critical judgement about AI. Auditing teaches students to find mistakes, gaps, and bias in AI output instead of trusting it.
• [✓]Communication and poise, closer to debate, Model UN, or a science-fair interview than to a class presentation.
• [✓]Open to all. No coding experience required. Students interested in business, health, design, or writing contribute alongside technical students, and the audit round needs both.

The league also plans to keep an individual defense record for each competitor over time, similar to debate points, which a student could cite for college or work. That record does not exist yet. It begins at the first event.

07What does the school get?

A positive and visible model for AI use, supervised, at no cost. Instead of students using these tools quietly and alone, a group of them uses them in the open and is held to account for understanding the result.

There is also a founding advantage that expires. MADE is new, and the first chapters help decide what the activity becomes: the format, the standards, what gets rewarded. A school that joins now helps shape a new activity rather than adopting a finished one.

08What happens next?

Nothing is being asked of the school today. The founding form is under review before it is put in front of anyone, so there is no document to sign yet. Students can register interest now, and the league comes back when the paperwork is ready.

When it is, the shape is ordinary: the students find a faculty sponsor, the sponsor signs one page, and the chapter runs like any other academic club. Meetings are on campus, the officers are students, and the sponsor provides oversight.

If it does not work out, dissolving the chapter is one email. No penalty, no notice period, and nothing follows the school for having tried.

Questions this page does not answer are worth sending. They get answered publicly rather than privately, so the next school gets the same answer.