Papert Lab

Manifesto

In 1962, Douglas Engelbart outlined his vision of "Augmenting Human Intellect," a framework for using computers to facilitate complex problem solving. Similarly, Seymour Papert recognized that computers necessitated a dramatic change in traditional education, such as using computers to develop projects that elicit "powerful ideas." This vision of computing and learning, however, has been largely misinterpreted and underexplored, with most institutions viewing computers as a means of "democratizing" existing (failed) learning paradigms.

Many efforts to use AI to support this vision of computing are misguided and misaligned with the past 50 years of cognitive and learning science research. The connection between learning science and AI systems is not merely analogous: understanding how humans learn enables the development of better intelligent systems. Papert Lab solves nontrivial problems in learning science and artificial intelligence through a cognitive science lens, fostering the relationship among computers, researchers, and students that Engelbart and Papert envisioned over half a century ago.

About

Papert Lab is an applied cognitive science research nonprofit that uses experiments to model how humans solve problems and explores the implications for designing computational mediums that augment memory, learning, and curiosity. We do this through designing intelligent tutoring systems and exploring new interaction paradigms between artificial intelligence systems and humans.

Our current research focuses on characterizing how novices design specifications when interacting with agentic coding systems. We ground these empirical findings in previous theories of scientific discovery and productive struggle. We submit to HCI and computing education venues, run qualitative think-aloud studies, pilot new pedagogical paradigms in undergraduate courses, and host weekly discussion forums on augmenting cognition with computers.

Papert Lab was founded in 2025 by Hudson Mitchell-Pullman, an independent researcher and high school student. Hudson collaborates with and is mentored by David H. Smith, Annapurna Vadaparty, Qianou Ma, among others.

Donors

Emergent Ventures — $20,000 grant for collaboration with Virgnia Tech on CS Education research
Foundry10 - $500 grant to support participant stipends

If you'd like to support our work, please reach out at
hudson [at] papertlab [dot] org. All grants are tax-deductible :)