AI Collective Hampton Roads

You came to the meetup. Now get unstuck between them.

The chapter's online home: a study group at Christopher Newport University every other Tuesday, Build and Demo Night in Virginia Beach, and a room of local people who have already hit the error you are stuck on.

Find out where you actually are

Part of The AI Collective, a non-profit. Volunteer-run. No ticket, no tier, no upsell at the door.

The part nobody warns you about

Every one of these is normal, and every one of them is faster to fix with people in the room than alone at 11pm.

  • You installed the tool, opened it, and had no idea what to type first.
  • It works on your machine and you cannot get it in front of anyone.
  • The error message may as well be in another language.
  • You learn a lot and ship nothing, month after month.
  • There is nobody nearby who does this, so there is nobody to ask.
  • You are doing this for work, and everyone else seems to already get it.

Who runs this

The AI Collective, Hampton Roads chapter

A non-profit chapter, run by volunteers, meeting on the Peninsula and in Virginia Beach

The AI Collective is a non-profit network of local chapters for people building with AI, and Hampton Roads is one of them. The chapter runs the Peninsula Builders Study Group at Christopher Newport University every other Tuesday, and Build and Demo Night in Virginia Beach, where anyone can take a five minute slot to show what they made. Nothing here is a funnel into a paid tier. The events are free because the chapter is a non-profit and the people running it are volunteers who wanted the room to exist.

What changes once you are in

You stop being stuck alone

Paste the error into the Stuck channel. Someone local has hit it before. This is the single biggest difference between the people who ship and the people who quietly give up.

You get a deadline that actually works

The Ship It cohort runs four weeks, one night a week, and you demo what you built in week four whether it is polished or not. The deadline is the point.

You have somewhere to put the thing you made

The Build Log channel takes screenshots and half-working demos. Polish is not required. Most people badly underestimate how much this one habit helps.

You meet the people doing this near you

Hampton Roads is small enough that the same faces show up twice. That is the whole advantage of a local chapter over a Discord with forty thousand strangers in it.

What you get

Free

Always. The chapter is a non-profit and every chapter event is free to attend.

  • The Peninsula Builders Study Group, every other Tuesday at Christopher Newport University, 6:00 to 7:30 PM
  • Build and Demo Night in Virginia Beach, with prizes
  • Six channels, including Stuck, Build Log, and Intros
  • A library of starting points, including the twenty minute install-and-ship walkthrough and the CLAUDE.md templates
  • The Ship It cohort: four weeks from install to deployed
  • Founding Member status for the first fifty people, which is not for sale and will not be offered again
Take the two minute check first

Questions people actually ask

Do I need to be a developer?
No. The room is a mix of developers, business owners, students, and people who have never written a line of code. The study group exists precisely because people arrive from different starting points.
Is this actually free, or free until it is not?
Actually free. The AI Collective is a non-profit and the Hampton Roads chapter is volunteer-run. There is no ticket, no paid tier, and no upsell at the door.
I am already building things. Is this too basic for me?
No, and the chapter needs you. Take a five minute demo slot at Build and Demo Night and tell the room what broke on the way. That is consistently the most useful talk anyone gives.
Where do you actually meet?
The Peninsula Builders Study Group meets at Christopher Newport University, Luter 170, every other Tuesday from 6:00 to 7:30 PM. Build and Demo Night is in Virginia Beach. Both are on the chapter calendar once you are in.
What is the check for?
It takes about two minutes and it tells you where you actually are, which decides what is worth doing first. It also tells us what the room needs, so the chapter teaches the right things.

If it turns out not to be for you

Then leave, and nothing happens. There is no card on file, no tier to cancel, and no sequence that keeps emailing you after you unsubscribe. The chapter only works if the people in it want to be there, so we would much rather you find that out in a week than sit on a list for a year.

Two minutes, and you will know where to start

The check tells you where you actually are and what is worth doing first. Then join the chapter, free.

Start the check
Start the check