Long Night of Research Station U27 University of Klagenfurt 17:00 to 23:00
Filed from the lab floor
Six hours of hands-on station — what came out were dice rollers, platform games, racing games, drawing tools, weather dashboards, quizzes, and more.
At the Long Night of Research 2026, the Software Engineering Research Group hosted Station U27 in room S.2.42 at the University of Klagenfurt. Clemens Bauer, Johann Glock, and Martin Pinzger were there to support the visitors — answering questions, untangling ideas, and helping visitors turn what they had imagined into playable webpages.
The goal: make today’s AI programming tools tangible. Every computer ran the same simple loop. Visitors described what they wanted in plain language. The AI wrote the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, saved it as one file, and opened it in the browser. If something was off, the visitor said so — like any conversation, as a back and forth between visitor and AI.
Some things worked impressively fast. Others showed the limits just as plainly. The room stayed active and curious, especially when kids realized that a passing idea — a dice game, a quiz, a small tool of their own — could become a working webpage within minutes. By the end of the evening, over ninety pages had been built — a visible archive of the night.
Over the evening, 91 webpages were created. This index gathers 39 creations that open well, feel distinct, and tell the story of the night. Very similar drafts, problematic topics, and shaky attempts stayed off the page.
Three stacks of task cards sat on the table: easy, medium, hard. Each card gave visitors a concrete starting point and a short checklist for judging the result. And if you came with your own idea, you could of course just start with that.
Build a webpage where you can roll dice.
Build a game that tests how fast you can click when a color changes.
Build a quiz about a topic you like (Austria, animals, sports, movies...).
Each computer ran WebStorm1 with the Claude Code plugin2. Visitors typed what they wanted in plain language. Claude3 wrote HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, saved everything to a file, and opened it in the browser. If something was off, changes were discussed with Claude in plain language — or visitors took a look behind the scenes at the source code.
Before visitors arrived, Claude got a little instruction sheet: what kind of event this was, how to name files, and how to keep the experience friendly for people without programming experience. In developer terms this was a CLAUDE.md file. At the station it was simply the house rules for the assistant.
# LNF 2026 — Station U27
You are helping a visitor at a science outreach event. They have NO programming background.
They will describe what they want in natural language (German or English). Your job: build it.
## Rules
- ALWAYS produce a single standalone HTML file (all CSS and JS inline, no external dependencies)
- ALWAYS name files with the timestamp first, then a descriptive name (e.g., `20260524-1823-dice-roller.html`)
- ALWAYS open the HTML file in the default browser after creating it
- When the visitor asks for changes, modify the file you already created — do not start a new one
- Ignore any other HTML files in the directory — they belong to previous visitors
- Respond in the same language the visitor uses
- Keep your explanations to 1-2 sentences max — the visitor wants to SEE the result, not read about it
- Do NOT explain the code unless the visitor asks
- Do NOT use npm, pip, or any package manager
- Do NOT create a server (no Flask, no Express, no http-server)
- Do NOT use external CDN links or API keys
- For weather/data tasks: use the Open-Meteo API (https://api.open-meteo.com) — free, no key needed
Ten words inspired by Klagenfurt and the Long Night of Research. The cells flagged in red, read in the numbered order, spell a hidden word.
We are with the Software Engineering Research Group (SERG) at the University of Klagenfurt.
This Gazette gathers what Station U27 tried, discarded, repaired, and saved between 17:00 and 23:00.