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EDWartens UK

Free course · AI and machine learning

Prompt Engineering for Engineers

A course for engineers on writing AI prompts with checkable output and testing them on a golden set. Free to learn; the certificate is optional and paid.

See the modules

Free to learn. Verifiable certificate £19 when you pass the final exam (optional, VAT included).

Level
Beginner
Modules
12
Video
13 hours
Price
Free

Outcome

What you will be able to do

Write prompts with role, task, context, format and constraints; use few-shot examples, chain of thought and decomposition; separate system and user prompts; get JSON and CSV out reliably; assemble the right context; generate engineering documents and code from data tables with rules that stop invention; use Copilot in Excel safely; and build a tested prompt library entry with a golden set and a score.

  • Write a five-part prompt with a refusal rule that turns invention into a visible blank
  • Fix output format with few-shot examples and get JSON with a schema at temperature 0
  • Make calculations checkable with chain of thought, and run the arithmetic as code
  • Generate a FAT report section, a procedure or an I/O description column from a data table without invented facts
  • Prompt for code with pinned versions and run everything; use Copilot in Excel safely
  • Test a prompt against a golden set, iterate to a score and write a library entry

Software

Any chat tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot) or Google Colab with a free OpenRouter key.

Hardware

None.

Syllabus

12 modules

Each module has video lessons, notes and a short quiz. The final exam closes the course.

  1. 1A prompt is a specification3 lessonsLab
  2. 2Zero-shot, one-shot and few-shot examples3 lessons
  3. 3Thinking step by step3 lessons
  4. 4System prompts and roles1 lesson
  5. 5Structured output: JSON and tables2 lessonsLab
  6. 6Context engineering2 lessonsLab
  7. 7Engineering documents from data tables1 lessonLab
  8. 8Prompting for code3 lessons
  9. 9Prompting inside Excel, Word and email2 lessons
  10. 10Evaluating prompts and the prompt library2 lessons
  11. 11Safety, confidentiality and injection2 lessonsLab
  12. 12Final assessment0 lessons

How it works

How this course works

  1. Watch the video lessonsOne module at a time, at your own pace.
  2. Take the module quizA short quiz at the end of each module shows what stuck.
  3. Keep your notesWrite in My notes beside each module and ask the trainer if you are stuck.
  4. Practise in the labOptionalTry a task from the module in the EDWartens Lab, in your browser.
  5. Sit the final examPass it once you have been through the modules.
  6. Certificate, if you want oneOptionalPaid, and only after you pass. Anyone can check it online.

EDWartens Lab

Practise this in the EDWartens Lab

Write real prompts and test them: get exact JSON for ten emails, stop the model inventing a missing fact, and defeat an instruction hidden in an email.

Works alongside Prompt Engineering for Engineers. The Lab is ai for industry practice in your browser: no install, no hardware, free to use. Sign in as a learner and it opens with your account.

Open the free lab See the Lab
AI for industry: Build AI models.

Levels to try with this course

Optional. Skip it whenever you like: it never blocks your progress or your certificate.

Why practise in a lab

Technical work is judged on what you can do: wiring, commissioning, finding a fault. Doing a task yourself teaches more than watching it a second time, and a lab lets you try it safely before you meet real equipment. It does not replace working on real hardware.

  • Practise safely, so a mistake costs nothing.
  • The lab checks your work like a site test, so you know when it is right.
  • Free, in your browser, with nothing to install.

Certificate

An optional certificate when you pass

Learning is free. Pass the final exam and you can have a certificate for £19, including VAT, with a number employers can check online. It records that you completed a free online course; it is not a regulated qualification or a CPD certificate.

  • Your name, the course, its study time and your final exam score
  • A unique certificate number and a QR code to its verification page
  • Issued by Wartens Ltd; add it to your LinkedIn profile in one click
  • Pay now or after you pass: it is issued the moment you pass the final

How the certificate works

Sample certificate for Prompt Engineering for Engineers

Credits

Who made the lessons

The video lessons belong to their creators. EDWartens wrote the study plan, notes, quizzes and the final exam.

Questions

About this course

Is prompt engineering still a useful skill?
Yes, but the useful part is not clever wording: it is defining what a correct answer looks like and testing the prompt against it. Anthropic's own documentation for Claude says that before prompt engineering you should have a clear definition of the success criteria for your use case and some way to test empirically against those criteria. That is the habit this course builds, ending with a prompt that is checked against a golden set and given a score.
How do you test whether a prompt works?
Run it against a fixed set of inputs whose correct outputs you already know, and score how many it gets right. OpenAI's developer documentation calls these tests evals and describes them as testing model outputs to ensure they meet style and content criteria that you specify. In the course you test a prompt against ten or more cases with known answers, iterate to a score, and score a tag-list converter by exact match.
How do I stop an AI model from inventing values in engineering documents?
Give it the source data, tell it to use only that data, and give it an explicit way to say that information is missing. Anthropic's guide to reducing hallucinations recommends allowing the model to say "I don't know", grounding answers in direct quotes and verifying claims with citations, and notes that these techniques reduce hallucinations but do not eliminate them. The course applies the same idea with rules that stop invention when documents and code are generated from data tables, so you still check the output before you trust it.
Is this just tips for ChatGPT?
No. It works in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot or any model through an API, and the point is the discipline — specifying, constraining and testing — not the tool. Every module ends with a prompt you keep.
Do I need to code?
Not for ten of the twelve modules. The scoring examples use a few lines of Python that are given to you; if you have never coded, paste them or score by hand in a spreadsheet.
What is the project?
You take one document you actually produce — a FAT report section, a procedure, a fault-code guide — build the prompt that generates it from a table, test it against ten or more cases with known answers, iterate to a score, and write it up as a prompt-library entry a colleague could reuse. A second short project scores a tag-list converter by exact match.
Do I need a paid AI account?
No. Any free chat tool works for most modules, and the scoring modules use OpenRouter's free models with a free key.
Is the course really free?
Yes. Every module, practice task, project and assessment. You create an account so your progress is saved and the assessments can be marked. The certificate is the only paid item, and only if you want it.
What certificate do I get?
An EDWartens Certificate of Completion, issued when you have finished the modules and passed the final assessment (the project is optional practice), with a verification code anyone can check. It is not a vendor credential and is never described as one.
Who made the video lessons?
The creators named in the Credits block at the foot of this page, on their own YouTube channels. EDWartens did not make the videos and the creators are not affiliated with EDWartens. What EDWartens wrote is the study plan, the notes, the practice tasks, the projects and the assessments.

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