Format & Schedule

[mikeal]

Arrival Day

The big rooms are open from noon onward w/ mentors that can help people with any of the NodeSchool fundamentals. (Learn You Node, Streams, Functional Programming)

Meanwhile: kickball, swimming, drinks, etc.

Day 1 (Intro to ...)

8 Hands-On Sessions, 30 minutes each. Staggered and assigned similar to last year.

By cutting the slots down to 30 minutes we can expect the attendees to do more than complete the intro session of each workshopper course. This is actually fine, people who want to do more will have the next day.

During each session there will be a board w/ ideas for new modules to be written. Any attendee or mentor who has an idea for a new module is encouraged to write it on that board.

Day 2 (Moduletopia)

1st Session: Home Room (30 minutes)

• Everyone goes to the first room they were in the previous day.
• Every room presents npm basics and best practices.

Hour long "blocks" the rest of the day. Every room is open with the mentors from the previous day. Attendees are free to pick the rooms they want to dive deeper and are also encouraged to write the modules everyone has listed on the boards the previous day. We'll also have sessions for swimming, nature walks, etc.

Departing Day

Only relaxing and community building activities.

• Foursquare tournament.
• Kickball game.

[mikeal]

Interested in what @maxogden @dshaw @isaacs @substack and @dominictarr have to say in terms of comparing this with the shortcomings of last year.

One thing I'm wondering about as well is how well this would work for hardware, and if we can create a workshopper course around hardware: @rockbot @nexxy @rwaldron

[ghost]

Writing modules down is a good way to incorporate people who have already finished the workshoppers either on their own or from last year. I could write a local git server using git-http-backend and put a frontend (or another command-line tool) on top of it to track changes and facilitate collaboration where the external internet connection will be spotty.

[mikeal]

@substack good call on the git caching. i'm gonna make sure jason and isaacs get a good npm cache running too. I don't think we need to worry about them having already completed last years workshoppers because the 8 sessions this year won't cover the same content and the Arrival Day where people can do the NodeSchool Fundamentals is all optional. Of course, there's always a chance they'll do the new workshoppers written for NodeConf on their own before they show up but I don't think too many people will do that :)

[rockbot]

We'd have to get creative on the hardware side... the most important question, though, is whether we want people to code stuff up or play with stuff (20-30 minutes simply isn't enough to do both).

More specifically:

• Code Stuff: Write a module that lets you do X with these bits of hardware (requires understanding of both writing an npm module as well as hardware stuffs)
• Play Stuff: Here are some modules - piece them together like a puzzle to make your hardware thing work the way you want it to

We could actually have a lot of fun with the Play Stuff track - instead of just writing modules, participants will learn how to use multiple modules in a single program. (This isn't always inherently obvious to newbies.) Plus, who doesn't like puzzles? :-) But more fun, we could have a few robots/hardware things already mostly set up, but missing the code. That way folks who don't know hardware can get a feel for it, and those who do know hardware can try to stretch stuff to interesting limits. We can even have multiple levels for each "activity."

Just random stream of consciousness here - would love to hear feedback :-)

[ghost]

@rockbot At university my favorite professor had a web interface for turning in home work assignments. The web site listed out the problem statement and had a textarea for putting your code solution. Many times your code would be put into another bigger program that covered setting things up in the right way. When you clicked submit, your code would be run and the output verified against the expected output. This web interface directly inspired stream-adventure.

One week, the homework problems were all about embedded programming on PICs in particular. For that week, the professor made a custom circuit board with some LEDs and servos attached. The homework problem had students do things with the actual PIC hardware through the web interface like flashing LEDs. A webcam took a picture and was used for the verification phase. One of the problems involved telling a servo to move 90 degrees by sending the right bits to an output pin plugged into a servo. The servo had a green flag that was facing toward the camera so that hardly any of the green could be seen. When the servo was moved 90 degrees, the webcam saw a large amount of green. The verify program only needed to count the number of green-enough pixels to know if the servo moved to the right place or not, which is very simple to write.

[hackygolucky]

I love this plan. It gives everyone time to mull over what they were introduced to the day prior. As an attendee last year, I know a number of people felt rushed in getting through the workshops. They were so excited to take stream adventures with them because it was something very easy to continue outside of the conf.

The hardware workshops lit a fire under people's butts, too. Will bringing your own bits and pieces be encouraged this year? I know it is hard to travel carrying some of it, but with break times I'm sure people would go bananas with it.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:42 AM, James Halliday notifications@github.comwrote:

@rockbot https://github.com/rockbot At university my favorite professor had a web interface for turning in home work assignments. The web site listed out the problem statement and had a textarea for putting your code solution. Many times your code would be put into another bigger program that covered setting things up in the right way. When you clicked submit, your code would be run and the output verified against the expected output. This web interface directly inspired stream-adventure.

One week, the homework problems were all about embedded programming on PICs in particular. For that week, the professor made a custom circuit board with some LEDs and servos attached. The homework problem had students do things with the actual PIC hardware through the web interface like flashing LEDs. A webcam took a picture and was used for the verification phase. One of the problems involved telling a servo to move 90 degrees by sending the right bits to an output pin plugged into a servo. The servo had a green flag that was facing toward the camera so that hardly any of the green could be seen. When the servo was moved 90 degrees, the webcam saw a large amount of green. The verify program only needed to count the number of green-enough pixels to know if the servo moved to the right place or not, which is very simple to write.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/mikeal/nodeconf2014/issues/7#issuecomment-32588300 .

[mikeal]

@substack @rockbot we could also just do the verification step on the honor system, like ask them "Is the LED blinkging on and off every second? yes/no." So, for Day 1 I'd like to have a workshopper course that walks from introduction to advanced. The expectation being that most people will only make it through the first 1 or 2 workshopper courses but people who did all the intro stuff last year can just skip to number 5 or something. For Day 2, I'm sure a lot of people will just want to play :) I'm expecting that people will be doing whatever interests them, whether it's playing around, writing one of the modules ideas they found interesting, or finishing the workshopper course, or just swimming :)

@hackygolucky yeah, people should bring whatever they want. I should have done a better job encouraging that last year, people should bring fun hardware, musical instruments, etc. I'll make sure that gets in to the email this year.

[hackygolucky]

@mikeal I wonder how easy it would be to travel with my banjo...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Mikeal Rogers notifications@github.comwrote:

@substack https://github.com/substack @rockbothttps://github.com/rockbotwe could also just do the verification step on the honor system, like ask them "Is the LED blinkging on and off every second? yes/no." So, for Day 1 I'd like to have a workshopper course that walks from introduction to advanced. The expectation being that most people will only make it through the first 1 or 2 workshopper courses but people who did all the intro stuff last year can just skip to number 5 or something. For Day 2, I'm sure a lot of people will just want to play :) I'm expecting that people will be doing whatever interests them, whether it's playing around, writing one of the modules ideas they found interesting, or finishing the workshopper course, or just swimming :)

@hackygolucky https://github.com/hackygolucky yeah, people should bring whatever they want. I should have done a better job encouraging that last year, people should bring fun hardware, musical instruments, etc. I'll make sure that gets in to the email this year.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/mikeal/nodeconf2014/issues/7#issuecomment-32636486 .

[rvagg]

@hackygolucky banjo you say? make it so

[KarbonDallas]

I'm curious about the structure of Day 2:

When you say the "attendees are free to pick the rooms…", are you expecting people to migrate every hour to their next favorite track? Or will they be free to stay in any one track for more than 1 block?

I ask with the context of hardware hacking in mind. It seems like people that gravitate toward hardware hacking tend to want to continue in that mode for extended periods of time. Will this be accommodated?

THANKS!

On Jan 16, 2014, at 7:54 PM, Mikeal Rogers notifications@github.com wrote:

Arrival Day

The big rooms are open from noon onward w/ mentors that can help people with any of the NodeSchool fundamentals.

Meanwhile: kickball, swimming, drinks, etc.

Day 1 (Intro to ...)

8 Hands-On Sessions, 30 minutes each. Staggered and assigned similar to last year.

By cutting the slots down to 30 minutes we can expect the attendees to do more than complete the intro session of each workshopper course. This is actually fine, people who want to do more will have the next day.

During each session there will be a board w/ ideas for new modules to be written. Any attendee or mentor who has an idea for a new module is encouraged to write it on that board.

Day 2 (Moduletopia)

1st Session: Home Room (30 minutes)

Everyone goes to the first room they were in the previous day. Every room presents npm basics and best practices. Hour long "blocks" the rest of the day. Every room is open with the mentors from the previous day. Attendees are free to pick the rooms they want to dive deeper and are also encouraged to write the modules everyone has listed on the boards the previous day. We'll also have sessions for swimming, nature walks, etc.

Departing Day

Only relaxing and community building activities.

Foursquare tournament. Kickball game. — Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[dominictarr]

half an hour doesn't really seem like much time to get into anything interesting. 30 minute talks make sense I think, but I don't know about workshops.

So, it's gonna be 100% workshopper workshops?

[mikeal]

@nexxy they are free to stay but stuff like the nature walks and swimming sessions will head out every hour so it's good to let people know when the times cycle and hopefully it also encourages them to do more than just stick to one room :)

@dominictarr shooting for 100% workshopper but we might have to make one or two exceptions. 30 minutes is enough time to get through 2 lessons in most workshopper courses. That should be enough to get them hooked. If they don't leave feeling like they have more to do then the session is too long :) They can work on these the second day or even at home, the important thing is that we give them just enough to hook them and leave them feeling like they have so much more to do.

[KarbonDallas]

cool, that makes sense! I think that will be great!

On Jan 20, 2014, at 10:01 AM, Mikeal Rogers notifications@github.com wrote:

@nexxy they are free to stay but stuff like the nature walks and swimming sessions will hear out every hour so it's good to let people know when the times cycle and hopefully it also encourages them to do more than just stick to one room :)

@dominictarr shooting for 100% workshopper but we might have to make one or two exceptions. 30 minutes is enough time to get through 2 lessons in most workshopper courses. That should be enough to get them hooked. If they don't leave feeling l like they have more to do then the session is too long :) They can work on these the second day or even at home, the important thing is that we give them just enough to hook them and leave them feeling like they have so much more to do.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[dominictarr]

@mikeal okay, I guess that is fair.