Hello everybody, we are Raluca and Thuy, located in Berlin, Germany.
Raluca: When I moved 3 years ago in Germany with my family, I also decided to change my career, from Assistant Manager to Developer. I struggled a lot, but being geek helped me to learn by myself Python and Java. Last year I discovered the neat world of Ruby, and I love it since. I am also volunteer at Rails Girls Berlin, to whom I thank because they helped me discover I am part of a large community, and not alone.
Thuy: I was working as an IT-buyer and a project manager in the design and tech industry before I decided to dive deeper into coding (first with html/css and a bit javascript). Apart from Rails Girls Berlin Team I volunteer in a few other non-profit projects focusing on Black and People of Color communities.
We have a Nuremberg based mentoring team of three people (Stella Rouzi, Christian Bruckmayer & Henne Vogelsang) in which Henne has the main role. And of course, we also have a team of coaches: Robert Siemieniec, Gustavo Guimarães and Hackership coaches.
When we applied for the Rails Girls Summer of Code 2015, Hackership offered us a spot to stay and code, along with interesting workshops and talks during their summer batch in Berlin. Everything happens under the supervision of Qian Zhou who is currently located in Helsinki/Finland.
As you see, we have a lot of great people to help and to support us. Thank you all, and thank you, Rails Girls Summer of Code, for the chance to take part in this program.
Why “Ruby’n’Bugs” ?
Well, first of all, it is funny :). And because Ruby and Bugs is like Ying and Yang, cannot have one without another. Well, maybe you can have bugs without Ruby, but where is the fun in that?
How did you hear about the RGSoC and why did you apply?
Raluca: I found out about RGSoC program during a Rails Girls Berlin beginners workshop. Lisa from Rubycorns presented the project with so much of enthusiasm and passion, that I entered the website to check what it is about. When I saw that it implies having mentors to guide you, working with experienced developers, and above all contributing to open source project (the dream of any beginner developer), I knew I have to try to be part of this program.
Thuy: I know about the RGSoC program since last year but didn’t consider to apply because I was working in full-time and coding was just a ‘nice to know’ occasion for me next to my daily job. Since I decided to intensify my coding skills this year and Raluca asked me 1 week before the application closed, I thought: why not trying, you never applied for a grant or scholarship in your life and the Ruby community is the most welcoming environment for beginners!
Within a week, we were a full team, with coaches and a coach company.
What project are we working on?
The Project we are working on is called Open Source Event Manager.It is an event management tool tailored to Free and Open Source Software conferences, which helps event organizers with call-for-papers submissions, scheduling, marketing and analytics. Since we are also co-organizers of events, the reason we have chosen this project is obvious.
What are we most looking forward to this summer?
At the beginning of this program, we thought that learning and contributing as much as we can to the project are the main goals. Meantime, we discovered another equal important goal: to learn how to work as a team. Having different backgrounds and interests is not always helping us to keep the team spirit. Not mentioning the lack of self-confidence, or stress, or a pesky bug to stubborn to be solved quickly. Perhaps the ultimate goal of this summer is: learn how to deal with any issue may occur, social- or code-related.
If you want to read more about our benefits, challenges & learning lessons of working as a team, please find it here.
Instead of “THE END”
Our journey just started, and we have a lot to share on the way. If you are curious about our progress, about our achievements and our struggles, please follow us on Twitter: @rubyandbugs, on the Teams App, and read our Medium blog posts from time to time.
Team Hackrgirls consist of two crazy coders from Cochin, Kerala, India namely –Nidhiya and Anjaly the two engineering students who believe in the awesomeness of “OPEN SOURCE“. Anjaly Elizabeth is a good front end developer and a passionate designer and Nidhiya – a developer who loves to experiment with front end technologies. To an added merit, although we are students we have been working on various commercial projects. Being open source enthusiasts, we actively volunteer for Mozilla. We consider RGSOC as one of our greatest achievement and we have already fallen in love with the amazing experience of learning, experimenting and the ultimate pleasure of fixing the bug ;)
The term Hacking has always excited us and it pumps up adrenaline (dunno why :D). Since we are the girls who loves to code and chill out we thought of naming our team as Hackrgirls – cute and nerdy name indeed right ? ;)
What are you working on ?
We are really excited to take up the impress.js ( a 3D presentation tool) as our RGSOC project with Bartek as its mentor ! :D . First few weeks we tried to digest the code and started playing around. When we started to code, it was more like learning. We really enjoyed what we did daily and the learning experience is beyond explanation. And of course our mentor and coaches guided us well. Currently we work on various demo and the most recent one is a Solar system demonstrated using impress.
What will we do next for the project?
The main challenge is to implement the sub steps and we need to work on the various issues in the current system. By analyzing the user preferences we are trying to modify the tool to make it more creative and useful. Also, the preview models are under consideration.
If we could code anything in the world, what would it be?
If we can end a war/disputes while running lines of codes, we would like to program such an algorithm and use it for the world peace :) . It may seem like an impossible task for any of you, but we would like to make it happen at least in our imaginary world
What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Since it’s not summer in our region, we would love to make use of this monsoon to code for our future via RGSOC 2015. We look forward for having more challenging bugs in our codes. Our team is grateful to have Bartek as mentor and we are thankful to have wonderful coaches like Harisankar, Manu and of course can’t miss out our lovely supervisor Katrin :)
We are Evy and Sofi from team
RubyGirlsQuito and, as you might have guessed, we are based in Quito, Ecuador. We are
working on Project LEAP Encryption Access Project – Webapp. We’re a group of two
passionate young students who, oddly, love to learn about
cryptography.
Team Ruby Girls Quito! (Image: Ruby Girls Quito)
Who we are?
Sofi: My passion for coding comes from a very young age. When I was 15, I started
learning html, javascript and MS-DOS, and, as you might have guessed, this was a
breath-taking experience. I also have a bachelor degree on classical music and I’m
currently working on my Literature thesis (about an argentinian writer –Jorge Luis Borges-
and a French philosopher –Jacques Derrida-). When it comes to coding, I love everything
that has to do with encryption (and that, among others, is the reason why I love working
with LEAP) and I have taken many courses in that area. Peculiarly, I’m also very fond of
philosophy, especially, philosophy of mathematics.
Evy: And me? I come from the dark side of the business -haha-. I´m a business Engineer and
I work as a University Professor (well, I´m starting and learning). Currently, I´m
involved in researching, but I want to work with projects on Technology Management: I love
innovative projects. So, as you can imagine, I didn´t know absolutely nothing about
programming until recent years when due to my permanent atraction to the technology world
-even though I always thought that it was too late for me to study something technical-
I started to get involved on that world. My story starts exactly one year ago: one day
there was the opportunity to work with a project about e-learning, but the thing is, I
didn´t understand about what they were talking (all about developing), so I was a little
bit frustrated. Suddenly this event called Rails Girls appeared and I went there and met
incredible girls (Sofi included :) ), ate a lot of delicious food -haha-, practiced and
understood code; and that’s how history begin! I started to love it and now I´m here with
all of you in this amazing RGSoC ;)
How did we hear about RGSoC?
Our long-time coach, Batman (yeah! that is his nick name –pretty awesome, uh?-), told us
about this program. He said that this was an exquisite experience and a way to meet
awe-inspiring people (of course, he was not wrong). We took his advice and experience has
proven itself not to be wrong. After all, how can an advice be fallacious if it comes from
our silent guardian, our watchful protector: the Dark Knight.
We think that RGSoC is the epitome of what coding society is like. It is a group of
passionate people committed to create a better world where knowledge is shared in an
equal manner between everybody. It is a way of creating a world where one can freely
help each other… so why does someone wouldn’t love to be involved in it?
What project are you working on?
We will be working with LEAP Encryption Access Project. LEAP, which is a project devoted
to give all Internet users access to secure communication. We will dedicate our summer
to implementing bitcoin payments to the app (pretty splendid!). Of course, we chose LEAP
as it is a project working on security, encryption, and, on a theoric level, with
cryptography. So far, it has been an awesome experience (yesterday, for example, we
learnt about Salt or random data used in cryptography) and we have loved working with our
mentors, who we usually refer to as “crypto mentors” or “the suicide squad” (even though
they still don’t know their names and, yes, we love comic books!).
What are our expectations for this summer of code?
We have really high expectations but the principal, among others, is to learn how does
an app built in rails work. We also expect to meet awesome people and so far we have done
so (we even get in touch with an Erlang’s maniac, with a Homebrew’s contributor and with
lovely Team Tessie).
If we could code anything in the world, what would it be?
Sofi: Definitely, something about cryptography, implementing zero-knowledge proof seems
awesome to me. Also, I’ll love to create an app that somehow helps with building massive
online education systems, as in my country, many people doesn’t have the resources to
attend universities. That’ll be a Good Thing.
Evy: Definitely I would like to code music, I love music!! And in fact, there is
people who do that… but I would like to learn it first.
Follow us on @zeroknowledge9, @claucece and @evy_navarrete
Quick advice for anybody that wants to start coding to do awesome things and think that
it is really difficult:
“sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do
the things no one can imagine”
(Alan Turing)
Long life inspiration: Alan Turing (Image: Wikipedia
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
LITTLE GAME
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Hello! We are Angela and Lina from Barranquilla, Colombia. During our summer, we will be working on a Project which is called “Rubygems Adoption Center”. For this project we have an incredible team working with us. Our coaches are Sebastian Sogamoso and Alfonso Mancilla and our mentors Nick Quaranto and Benjamin Fleischer. Our supervisor Ramon Huidobro. They have been very helpful for our growth and progress throughout the project because every day we have feedbacks that help us to complete our tasks in the best way possible.
The amazing people of Team Binary
Why Team Binary?
The name was chosen thinking about the binary system and its importance in the computer science. The system, although, is apparently easy for being composed of only two digits is able to process complex instructions. Even though, we are a trainee team, we are capable of performing complex tasks and move forward with this project.
How did you hear about the SoC and why did you apply for it?
Angela: I started learning Ruby on my own one year ago influenced by a friend who is Rails evangelist. After I started with the basics and learned some Ruby microframeworks I decided to learn Rails. At that time I heard about Rails Girls workshop in my city so I decided to go and learn from them. I got a lot of knowledge and there I met Lina. Whom presently is my partner in this Project. In the workshop, Paola and Melissa, two participants of last SoC, talked about the Rails Girls Summer of Code. The following year I prepared myself and studied hard and this year I took the decision to apply to be part of this wonderful experience. Lina: My beginnings with Ruby was in the university. I started with Web development. In the class, I could learn the basics and got interested. Then, I decided to participate in the workshop that was organized in my city and a year later I had the opportunity to enroll in the SoC with Angela (whom I met in workhsop). I became interested to participate in SoC because I met and became quite close with a friend who was a participant in 2013 and told me about the program. I took this opportunity as the beginning of a new stage in my professional life and the opportunity to acquire new knowledge. Today I’m happy to be working on this project with an excellent workgroup
What project are you working on?
Our project was born from the need to maintain an updated gem and all those who are forgotten by an owner, unable to continue keeping it. The project is named “Rubygems Adoption Center”. It consists of an application in which an owner that can’t continue maintaining or updating a gem, then he will be able to publish it for adoption and receive applications from people who can take the gem, the owner may accept or decline these requests. It is a project of the Rubygems organization and we are very excited to work on it.
What are you most looking forward for this summer?
Angela: Is hard to say only one goal, this is my first time working on a big and important project, making it exciting and of course, I would like to continue contributing. I want to absorb all the experience of my coaches and mentors, I have learned many new things, I feel very comfortable in this community because all the people I have met here is really friendly, RGSoC is a great family. Lina: Primarily keep learning. The opportunity to participate in this Project which I have seen always as the beginning of something new and great in my life, so I would like to follow this way, now I’m relying on my team, and later I want to implement projects that allow me to improve my skills and background.
Our team twitter account is @TeamBinaryRG.
Follow us too in our blog.
##Introducing Exercistas!
(Image: Team Exercistas)
###Who are we?
Sarah: I am a biologist turned bioinformatician turned developer. I studied marine biology (coral reefs genomics) in college and grad school, and eventually decided that computers were more fun than endless nights in the lab. I am the organizer for Geek Girls Carrots Seattle and run a free project-based programming workshop for women, called Code Carrots. I’m originally from France, lived in Texas for a while, and am currently enjoying life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Recently, I have been learning to make my own cheese. The way to my heart is through puns, Star Trek quotes, and facts about obscure invertebrates.
Mixolidia: Miami transplant to Seattle, move to Seattle to become full-stack developer. I have a Bachelor in Fine Arts Photography. I’ve also worked in fundraising for the arts and community based organizations. Before deciding to become a developer, I worked in marketing and advertising. Software Development brings together the two things I love to do: problem-solving and making things.
###What project are you working on?
We are working on exercism.io (Github), a platform for crowd-sourced coding mentorship. Our mentor is Katrina Owen, kytrinyx.com . Our main goal for Rails Girls Summer of Code is to streamline the exercism.io onboarding process. We are making help and information pages on exercism.io. These pages will inform users of the available languages on exercism.io and how to access them.
###What have we achieved so far?
We’ve implemented a drop-down menu on exercism.io’s home page. This drop-down menu lists all the languages available on exercism.io and links to their corresponding help pages. This was a very interesting process. Our first week, we had to dive in, head first into exercism.io’s code base. We learned how to make our logic work with the existing code. We learned about exercism.io’s various APIs, how to use them to create the drop-down menu and link to each of the language’s help page. The new languages drop-down menu is dynamic. Meaning as exercism.io adds more languages, they will automatically appear on the languages menu.
###What will we do next for the project?
We are currently working on two things: a detailed roadmap of the on-boarding process and language information pages for each language. For the road map, we are working through the steps a new user would take to start using exercism.io. With this exercise, we hope to find what will work best for users. For the information pages, we are again working with exercism.io’s APIs to dynamically create the information pages from the APIs.
###If we could code anything in the world, what would it be?
Sarah: An easy-to-use collaborative lab notebook platform for scientists, with functions like data import/export, data visualization widgets in R, maps, and sample and protocol tracking.
Mixolidia: An app that visually interprets sign language to sound for those who don’t understand sign language. This app would make conversations between sign language users and non-users more organic.
###What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Sarah: Getting experience working on a live project with a team, dealing with existing code, and the freedom/limitations of open source.
Mixolidia: Completing the goals we’ve set for exercism.io this summer. Working with the open-source contributors supporting exercism.io and the Rails Girls Help Desk has been amazing. I think I’ve already achieved some of my goals which are to understand the open-source community better and learn how to contribute. Work with a live app that has checks and balances (Travis!) Learn how to take features from ideas to being live on an app or website.
We’re also looking forward to attending conferences. Rails Girls Summer of Code is helping, by giving us tickets to Madison+ Ruby! But we still need help with travel and accommodations. If you would be so kind to visit our GoFundMe campaign, we’d really appreciate it. Every bit counts. Sharing is caring, so please share it with your friends. Thanks!
(Image: Team Exercistas)
Follow us on Twitter at @exercistas.
Read our blog on WordPress.
