teaching

Overview

I care about making complex ideas feel simple and useful. I teach math and AI fundamentals and mentor students through hands-on projects that build confidence, curiosity, and real skills.

FIRST LEGO League (FLL) — Mentor

2024 – present

• Coach middle school teams on strategy, robot design, and innovation projects.
• Break down topics like sensors, perception, and basic ML into friendly lessons.
• Guide teamwork, iteration, and clear communication.
• Help students present their work with demos, visuals, and short write-ups.

SAI Classes — Proprietor and Teacher

2016 – 2020

• Taught Linear Algebra, Calculus, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision to 100+ undergraduates.
• Led a team of 10+ instructors and built a consistent teaching toolkit: lecture notes, problem sets, solution keys, and grading rubrics.
• Focused on linking theory to practice with short projects and open-book assessments.
• Coached students on study plans, internships, and project portfolios.

Selected course units

• Linear Algebra: vector spaces, eigenvalues, SVD, applications to PCA and image compression.
• Calculus: optimization, gradients, constrained problems, numerical methods.
• Machine Learning: supervised learning, basic evaluation, data prep, model selection.
• Computer Vision: image filtering, feature extraction, segmentation, detection, tracking.

Teaching principles

• Clarity first: start with an example, name the idea, then generalize.
• Active practice: short problems before long homework.
• Feedback loops: small checkpoints and quick corrections.
• Show the “why”: connect every topic to a working demo or real use case.

What I am doing next

I am expanding my mentoring materials into short, reusable modules:

• Python notebooks for math and ML intuition
• Starter kits for robotics projects
• Presentation templates for student showcases

If you would like the materials or want me to mentor a team, reach out at omkarchittar@gmail.com.