Ashnidh's blog: December 2018

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

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)