# Manuel Cárdenas Prieto

> MS at Stanford. I fine-tune small models and build AI for learning. Previously Computer Science at TUM, math teacher, and EdTech founder.

manoletre.com is an interactive terminal: the text appears only after you type a command, so the same content is available here as markdown. Hi there! I'm Manu (Manuel Cárdenas Prieto), currently finishing an MS @ Stanford in Learning Design & Technology. Did every elective in AI/ML.

## Pages

- [About Manu](https://www.manoletre.com/index.md): background, studies at Stanford, why small models, founding two startups and teaching math
- [Projects](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md): Small-model fine-tuning, AI agents, and research on AI and learning at Stanford. Previously an EdTech founder and math teacher.
- [ChessLLM write-up](https://www.manoletre.com/chess.md): Teaching small models to play chess: SFT, GRPO with a curriculum and a process reward, then Liquid's d1-omni-600M, which beats Stockfish 1700 62.5% of the time with a small search.
- [Everything in one file](https://www.manoletre.com/llms-full.txt)

## Projects

- [Coversatio: an AI interview simulator](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#coversatio)
- [DRC Explorer: a fully local AI agent (LFM 2.5 2.6b)](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#drc-explorer)
- [How AI assistance affects learning across Bloom's taxonomy](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#ai-and-learning)
- [ChessLLM: teaching small models to play chess](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#chessllm)
- [brief: a shared memory that keeps you accountable](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#brief)
- [explainer-video: A Claude Code skill that turns a paper into a narrated explainer video.](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#explainer-video)
- [Teaching a small model to make math animations](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#cs234)
- [Predicting school performance from satellite imagery](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#cs231n)
- [Predicting when a small LLM hallucinates](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#cs229)
- [Hablo.pro: a voice-first language tutor](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#hablopro)
- [Educo: generative AI for teachers](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#educo)
- [Math teacher](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#teaching)
- [Techdalo: financing technical education for Colombian youth](https://www.manoletre.com/projects.md#techdalo)

## Contact

- Email: [hi@manoletre.com](mailto:hi@manoletre.com)
- CV (PDF): [https://www.manoletre.com/cv.pdf](https://www.manoletre.com/cv.pdf)
- GitHub: [github.com/manoletre](https://github.com/manoletre)
- Hugging Face: [huggingface.co/manoletre](https://huggingface.co/manoletre)
- LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/manoletre](https://www.linkedin.com/in/manoletre)
- X: [@manoletre_](https://x.com/manoletre_)

## Optional

- [Play chess against d1-omni-600M](https://www.manoletre.com/chess/d1): Play chess against d1-omni-600M, a small decision model I fine-tuned, running in your browser.
- [Chess tagger demo](https://www.manoletre.com/chess/tagger): A 230M-parameter model that reads chess commentary, finds every move, square and claim, and checks each claim against the board. Runs in your browser.
- [CV (PDF)](https://www.manoletre.com/cv.pdf)