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High School Capstone⏱ 4–7 hours
Design Your Sovereign Stack
Design an AI setup you would genuinely own and control.
Your mission
Design a personal AI setup layer by layer, deciding deliberately where to own and where to rent — and defending your trade-offs.
What you'll need
- A computer with internet
- Research on open models and self-hosting
- A design document
Your step-by-step plan
Define your need
State what you want your AI setup to do for you.
Design each layer
Choose the model, compute, data storage, and transparency — like the Sovereign Stack lab.
Decide the trade-offs
For each layer, justify owning versus renting, weighing cost, effort, and control.
Write the plan
Document your stack, its sovereignty score, and what you would do if a provider vanished.
Make it yours
- Actually try one self-hosted tool, with permission.
- Compare your stack's cost to an all-rented one.
How you'll know you succeeded
- Every layer has a deliberate choice.
- Trade-offs are justified, not assumed.
- The plan handles a provider disappearing.