Lori Green Smith Portfolio

https://github.com/lorigreensmith06/AIML_Capstone

For my final project in the AI & Machine Learning certification program, I created a prototype for an e-commerce platform called BuyIt! — a tool designed to help customers find vendors at local markets, like farmers’ markets and small stores. I chose this problem because of my strong interest in small businesses and my desire to help people connect locally.

I also wanted to explore how AI can be used to classify images, and this project gave me a chance to dive into computer vision for the first time. I’m proud that I gained a solid understanding of how AI works — and even more excited that it was so effective in solving the problem.

Algorithms I Tested

I implemented and compared the following classification algorithms to determine which best classified product images:

• Decision Trees
• Logistic Regression
• K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN)
• Support Vector Classifier (SVC)
• Neural Networks
• Transfer Learning (fine-tuning a pre-trained MobileNetV2 model)

Despite some challenges with the dataset — including noisy labels and uneven class distributions — I was able to achieve 87% accuracy using transfer learning. By fine-tuning MobileNetV2 on my custom image set, I was able to significantly boost performance while reducing training time.

I further improved accuracy to 92% using ensemble methods, combining several of the simpler models that performed well in specific categories.

Reflection and Future Work

While all of this might not seem directly related to my previous work, I was genuinely curious about AI and wanted to explore it more deeply — because I’m certain it will play a major role in our future. I hope that I may have a place in that future too, especially by helping people find ways to insert their creativity into AI.

I’m especially interested in the overlap between computer graphics and neural networks, and I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. This project was a starting point, and I’m excited to keep going.

I’m back with some new skills! I just completed an AI & Machine Learning program through Berkeley Engineering and the Haas School of Business.

This 6-month course was a real challenge — we started with foundational models and worked our way up to neural networks. After 24 weeks of hands-on programming, modeling, and learning, I finished with a Capstone project and earned my certificate just yesterday.

It feels like a huge accomplishment, and I’m excited to build on what I’ve learned.
Here’s the certificate — and I’ll share more about my Capstone project in the next post!

Continuing to create images and now 3D models with AI.
In this example I created a fairy image in with deepai.org using prompts.
The video below the image shows a turntable animation of the 3D animation model that was created with a model found on Hugging Face.
https://huggingface.co/spaces/JeffreyXiang/TRELLIS

It’s been a while since I’ve posted but now I have something fun that I made.  This is made with AI.  I asked ChatGPT (with DALL-E) to make a Matisse like image of a book with flowers, birds and an open book.  Then I took it into Photoshop and played with editing certain sections of the image with the Generative Fill command in Photoshop.  I’m pretty happy with how it’s turning out.  It would have taken me a long time to make something that intricate, but I’m happy with the result and it’s close to result that I was trying to get.

I’m working on a character design for a leaf troll that I imagined.  Here’s something that I worked on.  This character may end up in a game eventually.

This is artwork I created for my sister’s school.  She asked for some people holding hands in a heart shape.  They plan to use this artwork for t-shirts, cups, and posters.

Here is my final project for the latest graphic design class that I took – Typography.   It was interesting that the instructor taught us to research the type to get a better idea of the history of it and in what context to use it.

This is the final project of my Fundamentals in Graphic Design class. Here is a poster that I made using all of the ideas of image making, color, font, and composition.