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fast.ai Practical Deep Learning
By fast.ai (Jeremy Howard). Visit fast.ai Practical Deep Learning
Desk research from the maker's own pages. Not yet tried by us. Checked 2026-10-24.
A free video course that teaches people who already code how to build and train deep learning models. Part 1 has nine lessons of about 90 minutes each, recorded at the University of Queensland; part 2 goes from foundations to Stable Diffusion. Learners write Python in free cloud notebooks on Kaggle or Paperspace, train image and text models, and publish small apps. A free book goes with it.
Our take: One of the best free routes into real AI for a strong teen coder; not for beginners.
Checked in a browser
A browser check on 2026-10-25: what loads, the ads and trackers we saw, and what a child meets first. Not a hands-on test.
| Child safety: 4 out of 5 | No ads or chat; many links out to coding and AI sites (Kaggle, Hugging Face, OpenAI, Twitter, YouTube). |
|---|---|
| Data: 5 out of 5 | No ad, tracking or analytics networks; only GitHub and Google static file hosts, and no cookies. |
| Ease: 3 out of 5 | A long text page for adult coders; a 'Start watching lesson 1' link is clear, but it is not built for young children. |
| Cost honesty: 5 out of 5 | Free, with no upsell seen. |
What we found
- Contacted 3 third-party sites (githubusercontent.com, googleapis.com, gstatic.com); 0 cookies set.
- No ads or trackers.
- Nine lessons of about 90 minutes each; the course asks for some coding experience.
- Links out to 22 sites, including Kaggle, Hugging Face, OpenAI, PyTorch and YouTube.
From the test: A free, ad-free and tracker-free deep learning course for teens and adults who already code.
| Ages it suits | about 16+ (needs a year of coding) |
|---|---|
| What its terms say about age | The course site has no terms or age rule. The Kaggle notebooks it uses bar under-13s, and Kaggle says users 13 to 16 need verified parent consent before using it. (terms) |
| Price | Free. Free course and book; uses free tiers of Kaggle or Paperspace (Oct 2026). |
| Works on | Web |
| Account | No account needed |
| Ads | None |
| In-app purchases | None |
| The AI in it | Teaches how to build, train and deploy AI models with PyTorch, fastai and Hugging Face. |
What's good
- Free, deep and hands-on
- Only high school math needed
- Real projects you can share
Watch for
- Needs about a year of Python first
- Part 1 was recorded in 2022, so some tools have moved on
- Depends on third-party notebook sites with their own age rules
Data and privacy
The course site itself asks for no account. Kaggle (owned by Google) does not knowingly collect data from under-13s and requires parent consent for ages 13 to 16. Read the privacy policy.
Does it work?
No independent study found; the maker's own claims only.
In the Big Index
- On the list 16 AI activities for teens (projects, courses and competitions)
- On the list 18 gifts for teens who love AI
- On the list 23 best free online courses for teens
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Where these facts come from
Prices, terms and features change. Nobody paid to be listed, nothing here is an affiliate link, and Peabody never rates itself. Where we and the maker disagree, the maker's own pages are the ones to trust.