On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Aaron Meurer <asmeu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone. > > Google has announced again that they are running Google Code In, and > has invited mentoring organizations to participate. For those of you > who did not help out last year, Google Code In is a contest run by > Google in the (northern hemisphere) winter months for 13-17 year-olds. > Several organizations create tasks suitable for such an audience, and > the mid- to high-school students compete to see who can complete the > most tasks. Unlike GSoC, there is no pairing of mentors to students; > rather, there is a group of mentors for each org who can accept > students' work, and assist them. > > Last year, we participated, and it was pretty successful. Aside from > tons of bug and documentation fixes in the main SymPy code base, the > contest lead to many improvements to SymPy Live, including the current > design, the mobile version, tab completion, and the history. > > So the question is, do we want to apply to participate again this > year? The basic problem is one of manpower. Participating requires a > lot of effort on the part of the mentors. Unlike GSoC, the students > require a lot more hand holding. So we should only do it if enough > people are willing to help out. The contest runs from November 26 to > January 14. There is more information at > http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2012, > particularly the "Rules" and "FAQ" link. See also > http://code.google.com/p/google-code-in/wiki/GCIMentorInformation2012 > for some information on what we will have to do with regard to > creating tasks. > > For those who helped out last year, you'll be glad to hear that they > made some important changes to the rules of the contest this year. In > particular, quoting from Stephanie Taylor's email to the mentor list: > > - The point system has been overhauled and now every task is worth one > point. The 5 students with the highest number of completed tasks with > your org will be the pool from which you, the mentoring org, will > choose your 2 Grand Prize winners based on the overall complete body > of work of those 5 students. > > - There will be 10 Mentoring Orgs for a total of 20 Grand Prize > Winners (compared to 10 last year). > > - Translation tasks will no longer be a part of the Google Code-in > contest, either as its own category or as a part of documentation > efforts. > > - If students want to go for the Grand Prize they will work > predominantly with one org and will hopefully become involved with the > community of that org and will stay long after the GCI contest is > over. > > - Students will not earn cash prizes for their work. They will earn > certificates and t-shirts and then they can go for the grand prize if > they wish. > > - The contest was shortened by a week at the beginning of the contest > period so it will now start after the Thanksgiving holidays in the > USA. > > So I for one am really liking these overhauled rules. I think that > this should solve most, if not all, of the issues that we had with the > program last year. > > I think the only issue for us then with regards to applying or not is, > as I said, if we have enough manpower to handle mentoring the > students. If you think you can help for at least some time period > between November 26 to January 14, please let me know here, so I can > get a feel for if we should apply or not. The requirements for being > a mentor are minimal. If you have contributed to SymPy before, and > (obviously) if you don't plan to participate in GCI as a student, then > you are probably OK to help out. We basically just need people to > review the massive amount code that comes in in a timely manner. > > Aaron Meurer > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sympy" group. > To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en. > > I can contribute whatever time I can find. It's unlikely any high school students would be able to do much in the physics module, which is really my strong suit, but I can try to help review whatever. I'll likely be pretty busy until winter break, but even with school, several hours a week would not be unreasonable. Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To post to this group, send email to sympy@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sympy+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sympy?hl=en.
