My Experience in GCI 2018 - Learning, Coding and Community Involvement

I am Ashnidh Khandelwal, a 14 year-old student from India. The codes and programs always fascinate me. One day I was browsing something and I came across a video  which gave me some basic information about Google Code-in (GCI). After watching the video I thought that I should also take part in it.

On October 23rd 2018. I registered myself in GCI and found that there were so many tasks of 27 different organizations. I thought that it would be better to work with a single organization. So I went on a random check on every organization. I read descriptions of many organizations. Finally, I saw ‘SugarLabs’. I read the description and saw 2-3 tasks and I thought, “Yes, this would be the perfect organization to work with for someone like me.”

My Journey 

In the beginning of the contest I had promised myself that I would try to complete each task in 2 days time. I am happy that I remained consistent throughout the contest and in around 51 days I have completed 25 tasks. My tasks were related to the following categories-

• Code
• Design
• Documentation / Training
• Quality Assurance
• Outreach / Research

What I have learnt
In Google Code-In 2018 I have learnt a lot of new things. It enhanced my programming skills as I came across with some basics of Python and Java. I have learnt about github. It is first time for me to be in an open source developers community. I joined them on Internet relay chat (IRC). I have also learnt about time management and hardworking.

My humble gratitude towards mentors
I would like to thank all the mentors who showed me the path during the course of my tasks. My mentors include-

• Walter Bender
• Devin Ulibarri
• Lionel Laské
• Ifeanyi Ekperi
• Peace Ojemeh
• Precious Tom
• Amaan Iqbal
• IQRA MUHAMMAD
• Sumit Srivastava
• Vipul Gupta
• Rahul Bothra
• Rishabh Thaney
• Jaskirat Singh SL
• Vaibhav Aren
• Anmol Mishra
• divyanshu rawat-1

Some of my favorite Tasks

Create a Turtle Blocks Project
This was my first task and I really didn’t know anything about Turtle Blocks. I liked this task as I got so many suggestions from Walter Bender. He helped me every time whenever I had any query.

Review a Sugar or Sugarizer activity
This task was a bit confusing for me as I did not know about Sugar OS. But a bit of research was very much helpful for me. I got into some blogging and in the meantime the task was being approved; I reviewed another sugar activity because I thought that no mentor is replying because they don’t like my work.

Create a landing page for Primero
I like web designing and this task gave me an opportunity to try my hands in it. The best part was that I used github for the very first time in my life.

Create a Pie Menu For "Set Heading" Block for Turtle/Music Blocks
This task is my favorite as it was the first time for me to work with javascript and it was much easier than I thought. The task did not take much time for approval.

Complete the Sugarizer development tutorial
This task is also one of my favorite tasks because as I was going through the different steps and instructions, I was approaching nearer and nearer to make my own sugarizer activity.

Create a Promotional Video for Sugarizer Primero
I liked this task because there were many good reviews on my video. First time I received ‘LGTM’ (and I had to google it for the meaning :)) which I liked the most.

Music Blocks: New color scheme for widgets
I misunderstood this task and had done something different than what was expected by the mentors but finally Walter Bender gave me a hint about what was the task saying to do and I finally did it.

My Memories
I am pleased to share you that during GCI 2018, with the help of mentors I would have been able to make some significant contribution to SugarLabs Git repositories. In my tasks I have received some motivating comments from mentors which I want to share with you. Here are some screenshots-

Challenges
It is a long running contest of more than 50 days. Maintaining the consistency with same energy and pace is quite tough as I had my exams in school and Diwali festival as well during the contest period.

The another challenge was the time zone difference. The difference between the time zones in United States and India is around 11.30 hrs. So I had to reschedule my routine. Most of the days I went to bed around 4 in the morning (IST) so that I would be able to keep in touch with my mentors.

My workshop
On Saturday, Dec 8th 2018, I organized a workshop in a prominent school of my locality. In the workshop I made the students aware about SugarLabs, Turtleblocks and Musicblocks. The students were made to learn the basics of block coding and they had enjoyed it a lot. See my blog post here.

My advice
GCI has put some positive changes in my life. I am proud to be a part of SugarLabs and want to be a part of it forever. I advice every student aged 13-17 to take part in GCI and choose any open source organization of his/her choice.

Thank you.

(Images from- Google Code-In & SugarLabs)

Workshop on Sugar... An Introduction of Turtleblocks and Musicblocks

Venue- Jaipur International School, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Held on- Dec 8^th 2018, 12 noon to 1 pm

Size- 25 Students (aged 13 to 17 years)

Trainer- Ashnidh Khandelwal

Jaipur, Dec 10^th 2018. It is great to share with you that on Saturday, Dec 8^th, I organized a workshop in a prominent school of my locality. In the workshop I made the students aware about SugarLabs, Turtleblocks and Musicblocks. The students were made to learn the basics of block coding and they had enjoyed it a lot. 

The workshop was organized in Jaipur International School, Jaipur, Rajasthan. I met the director of the school, Mr. Amit Saini to take prior permission to organize the workshop. He was really very supportive and cooperative throughout the session. Without his valuable support, the workshop could not be led to a success. 

In the workshop I taught the students about the operating system, Sugar, and gave them some more details about the activities and the user interface Sugar has. I also made the students aware about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC).

Speak: A Talking Face Activity On Sugarizer

Speak is a talking face activity on Sugarizer. It's as interesting way to experiment with the speech synthesizer. Speak is a useful and engaging activity for young kids and is especially helpful for children with autism as it uses assistive technology to make them speak and learn.

Objective of Speak

Anything you type will be spoken aloud using the speech synthesizer. Speak helps the children learn to type and speak in a fun and interactive way. It allows you to adjust the accent, rate and pitch of the voice as well as change the shape and number of the eyes on the talking face.

The Toolbar Buttons

1. Speak Activity Tab: Allows you to name the session and add the description. 
2. Type Something To Hear Tab: Allows you to type anything and hear the robot read it aloud
3. Ask Robot Any Question Tab: Allows you to ask robot any question, however this feature is not active on Sugarizer
4. Voice Chat Tab: This feature is not active on Sugarizer
5. Language Tab: Allows you to select and change to any language from the list in which you want the robot to speak
6. Speech Tab: Allows you to set pitch of voice and rate of delivery
7. Face Tab: Allows you to alter shape and set number of eyes on the robot face
8. Stop Tab: Allows you to Stop or close the Activity

Let's Have A Look At The Speak Activity

 

Name the Session and Add the Description

Type Anything and Hear the Robot Read it Aloud

Select Any Language From the List

Set Pitch of Voice and Rate of Delivery

Set Number of Eyes on the Robot Face

Alter Shape of Eyes on the Robot Face

(All Image Credit: https://try.sugarizer.org)

Super Chef 2: a nice game activity on Sugarlabs

American celebrity chef Buddy Valastro has said, “My kids are always in the kitchen with me - I bring them to the bakery and let them decorate cakes, and they also try to help me and my wife, Lisa, cook dinner at night”.

If you or your kids are interested in cooking and want to have an experience to run a restaurant, Super Chef 2 by Aurita is the best destination for you. For promoting culinary skills and restaurant management in children, Sugarlabs has come up with a nice activity game Super Chef 2.

Objective of Super Chef 2

This game is built for the young chef minds who wish to become a chef and like to serve others with their skills. This game also helps you to improve the way you organize your brain as while cooking, you need to perform a certain number steps in a particular order. So this is a nice game for the younger ones.

Serve many customers simultaneously

According to Sugarlabs Activity page, in this game you have to serve many customers simultaneously coming to your restaurant, wanting to eat the delicious and nutritious recipes that you prepare.

Developed by Aurita this game was updated on December 3, 2014 and works with Sugar: 0.82 – 0.102. This game is very popular among Sugarlabs activities and has been downloaded 85,200 times so far.

If you want to become a super chef, try this exciting restaurant game. Here you may find many fascinating things about cooking and different levels give you fun and excitement. It feels like running your own restaurant and serve customers with different dishes.

What you need to do in Super Chef 2

You own a restaurant and you definitely want more and more customers to come. The customers will keep coming simultaneously and you need to take their order and provide them with food you cook by performing a certain steps.

Some glimpses of Super Chef 2

You can choose your avatar as a super chef.

You can take orders from the customers.

You can serve them with all the delicious and nutritious food you prepared.

Functions are very easy to handle for kids too.
(All Image credit: sugarlabs)

Support

Developer Rigoberto Sáenz Imbacuán is providing support for this activity. He can be contacted at rsaenzi@colombiagames.com.

UPDATE (October 29, 2018): The support mail is not working.

PS: Super Chef 2 is an engaging game. You may give it a try.