You can read this post in the original Hungarian here: http://agondolkodasorome.hu/2016/11/20/techtabor-2/
Mid-November brought around the second session of the Tech Camp. (You can read about the goals of the program in this post about the first session.)
This was an intense, 8.5-hour-long session, with only about 90 minutes low time in between activities. Based on the experiences of the first session we made a few changes, which resulted in some significant improvements: both kids and mentors had overwhelmingly positive feedback, reflected by the buzzing, enthusiastic atmosphere.
The venue was particularly pleasant: Logiscool didn’t only provide a room, but welcomed us with pizza, cookies, beverages, and the kind company of their colleagues.
Activities
This time we paid particular attention to the following two principles:
- We shall choose activities that are directly applicable to the projects.
- We shall make all activities centred around problem solving.
As a result, the content mostly centred around web apps and networking, and we prioritised interactive formats.
Chrome Extensions. We started the day with a presentation of the Chrome Extentions prepared in the past month. The creators enjoyed presenting their work, and the audience was inspired by the possibilities. These extensions are available on our Github.
- DownloadTimer - With certain internet subscriptions, it is preferable to download large files during the night. This extension lets you kick off your download at a particular time.
- Trumpizer - Swaps all pictures to a photo of Donald Trump.
- PageTroller - Recolours all letters and backgrounds, and introduces flying images.
- RandomPage - Redirects you to a random useless web site.
- Novowels - Removes all vowels.
- PalantirFans - Swaps web page headers to references to tech companies and camp leads.
Planning. It is difficult to get started with larger projects even for more experienced software engineers - however, there are numerous techniques, to make planning easier. We talked about the “north star” as a planning concept, milestones for splitting a project into manageable chunks, and the idea of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). In the second half of the session, each team defined their north star, MVP, and December milestones together with their mentors. There was a vibrant atmosphere as blurry ideas took on more concrete forms.
Git dojo. Version control is a fundamental tool in industry projects - and it makes life much easier even for small teams of two. As a result, we decided to introduce Git early in the academic year. We took a problem-oriented approach: pairs had to create a simple program in pairs. However, they had to tackle simulated problems: removing certain files from the repository, recovering a deleted project, and resolving code conflicts.
This session clearly highlighted how problem-solving sessions both are more exciting and lead to deeper understanding.
Networks. We started to build out theoretical support for building web apps. How does the internet work? How does a browser connect to a server on the other side of the world and how do they communicate? We discussed IP, DNS, routing, and HTTP as well.
Feedback. Just as last time, we closed the day with a feedback session - giving again extra points for constructive feedback.
What’s next
By the December session, teams will have started implementing their projects. By now each team has an assigned mentor, who provides continuing support throughout the next 4-5 weeks. The next session will start with the presentation of the current states of projects - we’re excitedly looking forward to it!
Miklós Danka, Gábor Szűcs
camp leads
You can read more about the foundation on The Joy of Thinking Foundation website. You can also support the foundation's work on its projects browser.
