Makerparty-A Festival Of Learning

Hi friends,

This is a blog in the recently conducted event called “Makerparty – A Festival Of Learning”. This event took place on 14th September 2014. This time, the mentors thought of having a meeting first and then head for the main event for a change. So, the mentors came together in our community space “Collab House” at 10:00 A.M. where we had a 3 hour long discussion. During this time, Srikar Ananthula and Raghu Ram told every other mentor what has to be done, explained various parts of Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation, cleared their doubts etc. This went on till 12:00 A.M. Then, all the mentors gave a few valuable suggestions and feed backs which could help grow our community. Then, the work was distributed among the mentors so that there was no collision of work and the progress could be tracked easily.

After this, it was time for our event. Many people started coming. The event started at 1:00 P.M. as scheduled. Here, we had a brainstorming session on Exploring the way Web works and it’s open standards, Web Literacy and Mozilla’s Mission on Makerparty, Interactive Events to collaborate and to share Passion for the web, Introduction to Webmaker and  Hands-on making and learning using Webmaker tools thus Change the learning landscape by me. This went on till 5:00 P.M.

In between, Srikar Ananthula brought tasty Biryani (a famous Indian food) for everyone. Everyone had their stomach full food and got back to work. Then, we had 2 attendees who shared their knowledge on SQL Injection and Security. They took a session on it and then a bit about GitHub(pull, push & branching). Those two were surprised to know there were contributors and Hyderabad community who actively contribute to Mozilla. The session went on till 6:30 P.M. Then, the mentors came together again to discuss the feed backs and suggestions that were received and planned for the event which was scheduled for next Sunday.

P.S. This event, marking the end of Maker Party in Mozilla Club Hyderabad, which was the biggest Maker Party this season in our community.

It would be best to thank all the mentors for making this season a huge success in Mozilla Club Hyderabad.

Flickr

Maker Party 07th Sep.

Hi Friends,

Today we had yet another Maker Party at our Community Space @Collab House. This event was planned just about 15 hours before the event timings and it was raining the whole day. Due to this, the event witnessed a turn-up of just 10 people. But these 10 participants were so enthusiastic that they made up for the low turn-up.

This event started at 2:00 P.M. with me explaining about Popcorn-Maker and other WebMaker Tools. Since there were only 10 participants, I thought of teaching them by sitting beside them and explaining everything with them checking it out spontaneously in their laptops instead of the typical teaching style. This gave the participants more understanding. This ended at about 3:00 P.M.

Then, Akshay came forward and we had an introduction on how to use GitHub and how to start solving bugs. Even Akshay used the same method of teaching so that every could get a better understanding on what was going on. This went on till  4:00 P.M.  Then we had a short Application Development for Firefox OS by Santosh. This carried on till 4:30 P.M.

Then it was time for the participants to start working. A few participants opted for Webaker Tools, a few for Bug solving and the others opted for starting application development. In between this, many participants got a few doubts which were cleared by Me, Raghuram, Santosh, Sanjay, Sudarshan and Akshay.They worked till 6:00 and then started going home as it was getting late and was raining continuously due to which there were a lot of traffic congestion at various places.

The mentors and organizers then sat together to discuss the feedback and suggestions received and plan for the next week’s event.

 

P.S.:- Although this event witnessed a low turn-up, the participants were extra-ordinarily enthusiastic to learn and put their feet in yet one more Mozilla product.

 

  Event-link : https://events.webmaker.org/events/6358

Flickr

CVSR Firefox App Days || 23rd Aug,2014

Hello Open Source lovers,

 

This blog Post is about the 10-hour hackathon that was conducted at CVSR College Of Engineering. The event was attended by about 160 students and teachers of various institutions.

 

The event started at about 10:30 A.M. with a Jyothi Pradhan by the HOD, Faculty, Santosh Viswanatham, and a couple of students from the college. This was followed by Guru Mantra by 2 students. After that, there was a speech by the HOD.

 

After the speech, the event started with Santosh Viswanatham giving a brief introduction about Open Source and Mozilla. After the introduction, Vikas took over and spoke a bit more about Mozilla Community and how others can contribute to Mozilla. Then, Akshay took over and gave all the ideas some knowledge about Open source projects, HTML5 and Javascript. Then Aakash, one of the attendees was called to make a simple Hello World application. This was then shown in the Firefox OS Simulator by Akshay and Santosh Viswanatham. Then, Santosh Viswanatham showed everyone the manifest file that is required to publish the app into marketplace. Then after we had a cool Session of app-maker a web maker tool hosted by and  Sri Harsha. which played a key role for code haters.

Then we had our lunch session between 1:00-1:30. Then, in the second session, everyone started developing their own apps. Santosh Viswanatham announced that the best apps would get a surprise gift at the end of the session. This made the participants more enthusiastic. They were well mentored by all the Mozilla Mentors. Various videos of Mozilla, Open source, etc. were being played in the mean time for those who were not developing apps or working on anything due to some reason. The time kept passing by as everyone were enjoying developing an app.

 

At 6:00 P.M. , we had a short snacks break. Everyone were well fully engaged in their work that no one went to have some snacks. Meanwhile, represents from RedBull came to the venue and distributed RedBull to everyone. At 6:30, we started the demos of the apps that were developed that day. Most of the apps that the participants made were more than our expectations. All the apps were unique in their own way which made the environment more wonderful. Santosh Viswanatham was constantly giving advices to the app makers on how they can improve their apps. There were 17 teams in total who made 1 or 2 apps each. One of the teams made Fruit Ninja game for Firefox OS. Then, the HOD gave a closing speech in which he expressed his willingness to expand the Mozilla Club in the college. He was really impressed by the event and told that all the students, faculty and himself gained a lot of knowledge. Then, there was the most eagerly waited part of the event-The Prize Distribution. The 1st prize was won by the team-“Geek Studios”, the 2nd prize was won by “QWERTY7” and the third was won by “Eureka 6″and “U” (the selectors were confused between these two apps as both of them were capable of winning the 3rd prize in their own way). Then, as a surprise for the Mozillians, the college awarded us a trophy! After this, we had a group photo and then by 8:00 P.M., we wrapped up everything and everyone started home.

 

P.S.:-It was one of the best Hackathon events ever. Inspite of shortening the program from 24 hours to 10 hours, the participants managed to build their app efficiently. We met a participant who sacrificed Android in his Moto G just for Firefox OS. The participants were really impressive which motivated us to do better.

 

Flickr

Appthon @ Collab house

Hi Mates,

This is a blog about “Hands-on-session on Firefox OS app development” (a.k.a. Appthon) @ Collab House. This event was hosted by Santosh Viswanatham and Raghu Korukonda. The event witnessed a turn-around of about 30 people including students from 1st year to working people. Everyone reached the venue by 1:45 p.m. with all their laptops ready.  They all felt excited to learn to build an app themselves.

The event kicked off at 2:00 p.m. with a short introduction by everyone including their name, college and their feeling. After that, Santosh Viswanatham gave everyone a brief introduction on how to build apps for Firefox OS and how easy it is to build apps for Firefox OS when compared to building apps for other mobile platforms. After that, he showed everyone how easy it is to build something by making a Hello World application and then showed how to add the app manifest and test our app using the Firefox OS Simulator.

Then everyone started working. A few with Mozilla Webmaker, some with Bugzilla, and the others with developing the Hello World application and testing it on the Firefox OS Simulator. Participants also worked on app maker to try making their first app for Firefox OS. When anyone had a doubt, Santosh Viswanatham and Raghu Korukonda were ready to assist them and clear their doubt. This helped the attendees to learn and contribute better. Everyone were busy learning and contributing in some or the other way that no one got to know when the time passed and  reached 6:00 p.m.

Then, as it was getting late and dark, we took a group picture and then everyone started to leave. Everyone were given a “Look Ahead. Firefox OS” sticker which increased everyone’s satisfaction. Then, all the hosts and coordinators sat down together to discuss what can be done in the next week and discussed the feedback given by the attendees. Finally at 7:30, everyone started home.

P.S : It was a fun and a resourceful day for me where I learned a lot of new things and made a lot of new friends. Many people turned up for the event and there was a lot of knowledge sharing. It was a day spent wonderfully and friendly!

Flickr

Hands on session regarding IRC, One and Done, Bugzilla and BugsAhoy! at Collab House

Hi Friends,

This blog is about my experience in the “Hands on session regarding IRC, Webmaker, One and Done, Bugzilla and BugsAhoy! at Collab House”. This event was planned just 10 hours before the scheduled time (that is at 11:00 P.M. on 02/08/14 – Saturday!) By Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda.

I got to know about the event just about 1 hour before its scheduled time. As soon as I got to know the event I could not stop myself from going there and started from my house immediately (even without having my breakfast!). When I reached outside the venue I realized that I was 10 mins. before time.

After some time Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda arrived and we went to the venue. As soon as we entered the venue, we took out our laptops and started working on them. Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda explained about the tasks in One And Done, make webmaker makes and remix previous makes. After some time, more people started pouring in. Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda explained them the same and we started working collaboratively.

Whenever anyone had a doubt, srikar and raghuram cleared immediately. This helped everyone to complete their tasks faster and do makes. After the makes are done, we moved to Oneanddone. There were a total of 39 tasks ranging from easy to difficult.My target was to complete 20 atleast but I was not sure whether I could complete it. As I was working, I got stuck in a task. Srikar Ananthula tried his best to solve the issue but later we found out that there was a problem with my copy of UBUNTU due to which the error occurred continuously. So, we started working on Windows 8 and the task was completed.

After 3-4 hours of task completion, we all felt hungry. So, we went to a nearby restaurant and had stomach full of delicious food.

After returning, we again started completing the tasks. While completing these tasks, Akshay Tiwari found a bug of webmaker portal. This bug was solved by Akshay Tiwari, Srikar Ananthula , Raghuram Korukonda and Upendra Deepak (Me). I found another bug and solved. So, I and Srikar Ananthula  asked for the closure of the bug. At around 4:00 P.M., I finished the task of completing 20 tasks which was possible only because of the constant guidelines and support from Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda and again started completing more tasks. We all were busy in completing the tasks that we did not even know when the time passed by.

At around 7:00 P.M., some of us started to feel exhausted and it was getting late too. So, they started to leave. By that time I had completed 33 tasks. So, Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda  decided to wait until I complete all the 39 tasks. This motivated me to complete the task faster. At around 7:30 P.M, I completed all the tasks. Raghuram Korukonda  asked me to post all the progress of me in the etherpad along with my webmaker tools makes website. Srikar Ananthula asked me to post the link of the bug I found that was already solved on etherpad. After finishing it, we packed our stuff and started back home. I came with Srikar Ananthula and Raghuram Korukonda for half the distance during which they were giving me tips and guidelines.

P.S : It was a fun and a resourceful day for me where I learned a lot of new things and made a lot of new friends on the occasion of Friendship Day. Although the event was planned just 10 hours before the scheduled time, many people turned up and there was a lot of knowledge sharing. It was a day spent wonderfully and friendly!

Flickr