###Who are we?
Sarah: I am a biologist turned bioinformatician turned developer. I studied marine biology (coral reefs genomics) in college and grad school, and eventually decided that computers were more fun than endless nights in the lab. I am the organizer for Geek Girls Carrots Seattle and run a free project-based programming workshop for women, called Code Carrots. I’m originally from France, lived in Texas for a while, and am currently enjoying life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Recently, I have been learning to make my own cheese. The way to my heart is through puns, Star Trek quotes, and facts about obscure invertebrates.
Mixolidia: Miami transplant to Seattle, move to Seattle to become full-stack developer. I have a Bachelor in Fine Arts Photography. I’ve also worked in fundraising for the arts and community based organizations. Before deciding to become a developer, I worked in marketing and advertising. Software Development brings together the two things I love to do: problem-solving and making things.
###What project are you working on?
We are working on exercism.io (Github), a platform for crowd-sourced coding mentorship. Our mentor is Katrina Owen, kytrinyx.com . Our main goal for Rails Girls Summer of Code is to streamline the exercism.io onboarding process. We are making help and information pages on exercism.io. These pages will inform users of the available languages on exercism.io and how to access them.
###What have we achieved so far?
We’ve implemented a drop-down menu on exercism.io’s home page. This drop-down menu lists all the languages available on exercism.io and links to their corresponding help pages. This was a very interesting process. Our first week, we had to dive in, head first into exercism.io’s code base. We learned how to make our logic work with the existing code. We learned about exercism.io’s various APIs, how to use them to create the drop-down menu and link to each of the language’s help page. The new languages drop-down menu is dynamic. Meaning as exercism.io adds more languages, they will automatically appear on the languages menu.
###What will we do next for the project?
We are currently working on two things: a detailed roadmap of the on-boarding process and language information pages for each language. For the road map, we are working through the steps a new user would take to start using exercism.io. With this exercise, we hope to find what will work best for users. For the information pages, we are again working with exercism.io’s APIs to dynamically create the information pages from the APIs.
###If we could code anything in the world, what would it be?
Sarah: An easy-to-use collaborative lab notebook platform for scientists, with functions like data import/export, data visualization widgets in R, maps, and sample and protocol tracking.
Mixolidia: An app that visually interprets sign language to sound for those who don’t understand sign language. This app would make conversations between sign language users and non-users more organic.
###What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Sarah: Getting experience working on a live project with a team, dealing with existing code, and the freedom/limitations of open source.
Mixolidia: Completing the goals we’ve set for exercism.io this summer. Working with the open-source contributors supporting exercism.io and the Rails Girls Help Desk has been amazing. I think I’ve already achieved some of my goals which are to understand the open-source community better and learn how to contribute. Work with a live app that has checks and balances (Travis!) Learn how to take features from ideas to being live on an app or website.
We’re also looking forward to attending conferences. Rails Girls Summer of Code is helping, by giving us tickets to Madison+ Ruby! But we still need help with travel and accommodations. If you would be so kind to visit our GoFundMe campaign, we’d really appreciate it. Every bit counts. Sharing is caring, so please share it with your friends. Thanks!
(Image: Team Exercistas)
Follow us on Twitter at @exercistas.
Read our blog on WordPress.
Last week, you sent us your conference wishlists via twitter, and the Conference Raffle Fairy Godmothers (Anika, Katrin, Sara and yours truly) sat down to – in true conference raffle fashion – pull out your team names from a jar and assign conferences to teams. This is what it looked like!
(Image: Anika Lindtner)
(Image: Anika Lindtner)
(Image: Anika Lindtner)
But enough suspense – here are the winners of our first conference raffle for the summer:
It’s now time to get booking your flights and accommodation and to get ready to have the time of your life at these amazing conferences. We have some tips on how to rock that conference plus tips and tricks for those who will be giving lightning talks! We will of course introduce all students to the conference organisers, but should you want to meet some people from the local Rails Girls community, let us know! We’ll try our best to connect you.
And if you ended up empty-handed, worry not! We will have a second raffle in August with more conferences. On this note, we’d like to thank again all of the conferences who offered tickets for our first round conference raffle:
We are Jayasi and Megha, a.k.a. Team CodeBenders. We have started our Summer of Code in Delhi, India with our coaches Kashyp, Bharti and Shobhit, mentor Erik and supervisor Benedikt.
We are Computer Science students from IIIT-Delhi. Jayasi graduated this year and is currently working. Megha is now a senior and is excited to start her last year as an undergrad.
Our amazing team! <3 (Image: Team CodeBenders)
Why ‘CodeBenders’? What does the name mean?
The word bender means person/object that bends something. We were going to bend a lot of code this summer, hence the name CodeBenders. According to another meaning of the word ‘bender’, CodeBender also refers to a coding spree. We fell in love with that name as soon as it came up in one of our discussions!
How did you hear about the SoC and why did you apply?
When we heard about the program via Twitter, we loved the concept and how it welcomes beginners to the open source world. In the overwhelming list of projects, we came across some frameworks and gems which we use. The prospect of contributing to one of those projects was absolutely riveting. The team behind RGSoC is magnificent and inspiring. We saw RGSoC as the perfect platform to begin our open source journey.
What are you working on?
We are working on the RailsAdmin project. RailsAdmin is a rails engine which provides a user-friendly interface for managing data. Having used RailsAdmin in a few of our projects and thoroughly going through the code, we have realised the power it provides to easily interact with the application data. After talking to a few people and discussing with our mentor we came up with a list of problems which users face, and we are trying to make valuable additions to the project by solving some of these problems.
What is your happiest moment so far?
Everytime we get something to work, or fix a broken piece of code, it makes our day. Interacting with our coaches and learning from them on a daily basis is turning out to be a great experience.
If you could code anything in the world, what would it be?
-Jayasi: Delhi is so famous for it’s traffic and it takes me an hour and a half to travel back and forth from work. If I could, I’d code to build a teleportation machine. One second you’re at home, and the next you reach anywhere you want to! ^.^ Imagine the amount of time that can be saved, and oh, oh .. I could see Florence, and Belgium and Ireland! Yes, a teleportation machine, definitely! B| Maybe that can even take me to Mars…
-Megha: We know 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything, which was first calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought after seven and a half million years of thought. This shocking answer resulted in the construction of an even larger supercomputer, named Earth, which has been tasked to resolve the mystery. I would want my code to solve this mystery! :D
Introducing team CookieMonster… err, I mean, team DEIGirls
Who are we?
Hello world! We are Inês and Rosa, two crazy girls from Coimbra, Portugal.
Together with Christian Weyer, Pablo Porto and Tiago Mendes-Costa (our beloved coaches) we make the team DEIGirls, under the supervising of Alex Williams!
The elements of Team DEIGirls (Image: Team DEIGirls)
Rosa:
I’m the craziest and cookie-addicted 27-year-old girl who has a Master’s Degree in some other engineering stuff that decided that programming was her thing.
I learned programming in my previous degree and was fascinated. When I finished it I wasn’t satisfied so I enrolled in Computer Science, in the University of Coimbra. That’s where I re-met Inês (we had crossed paths before but never actually talked, isn’t the world a crazy place?). I looooove my dog Nancy (she’s the love of my life) and dancing (someone told me I’m amazingly light for my sturdy build hehehe).
Inês:
I’m the calmer one, the centerpiece of this team… who am I kidding, I am as crazy as Rosa!
So, I’m currently doing the Master’s Degree in Software Engineering, at the University of Coimbra. Before that, I studied Biochemistry and performed scientific research in toxicology and neuroscience. But that was not the life for me, so here I am, turned into a programmer ;) I’m also involved with the Girls community in Coimbra: I organize Girls Lean In events, regular meetups were we invite powerful women from our community to talk about their experience in order to empower others and inspire them to pursue their goals, and I take part in IEEE Women in Engineering group at Coimbra. My long-time flatmate is a Cookie. Don’t worry, I keep Rosa away from him.
How did you two meet?
Actually Coimbra is a small city so we kind of bumped into each other a lot before we really talked. Our first conversation was in a washing room at the Department of Informatics Engineering where we both studied. Althought the department is a crowded place, there are not that many girls around so when we met in the washing room we were both like “wow, this is the first time I’ve ever seen another girl in the washing room in this building.” And that was the beginning of a great friendship!
How did you hear about RGSoC?
I (Inês) learned about the RGSoC when I participated in a Rails Girls event at Braga where Erik Michaels-Ober and Duana Stanley from SoundCloud did a talk about their involvement in the program. When I found out that the applications for this summer edition were open, I contacted Rosa and made her an offer that she could not refuse! A few hours later we were together in a cafe, contacting the Rails community and starting our application.
Why team DEIGirls?
Because we study in the Department of Informatics Engineering (in Portuguese, Departamento de Engenharia Informática - DEI) and we are girls (surprise!). Simple as that!
The girls from Team DEIGirls (Image: Team DEIGirls)
What project are you working on?
We are working on Lotus, a web framework for Ruby. We will be doing the mailer gem for that project, guided by our mentors Luca Guidi and Trung Lê.
What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Learning a lot and contributing to an open source project, while having an immense amount of fun. And eat cookies!
Hi guys, we are Nelly and Mercy from Nairobi, Kenya. We are working on the RapidFTR project. We are supported by three coaches here at Nairobi; Paul Bombo, Hungai Kevin and Diana Wanjuhi. Paul and Hungai school with us and they are amazing developers. Diana is a software engineer at Maramoja transport. We also work with our mentors, Sri Prasanna from India and Anne Mwangi from Uganda, who are the engineers and developers behind RapidFTR. All these people are wonderful :-)
Who are we?
We are two young women who have a different background but have a common interest in programming.
Nelly:
Jambo!!(Hello)
I’m Nelly the older one :-) , I am currently doing my MSc in Information Technology at United States International University- Africa and I am a professional software developer (I create android apps). I am also the Google Developer Groups lead for United States International University-Africa.
When I joined the tech world, it was out of passion and love for technology, and how it can transform lives. I had not yet done programming before in my life. but when I encountered it in my undergraduate class, I knew that was what I wanted to do all my life. I am currently learning Ruby on Rails and it’s awesome working as a team for a common goal to change people’s lives.
Mercy:
Hi, Mercy here. I am currently studying Applied Computer Technology in United States International University- Africa. My area of interest is in Information Security and Mathematics. I like to program but coding has not always been easy for me. I have been learning html5, css3 and programming languages like C++, Python and Java. I am learning Ruby on Rails at the moment and the experience is amazing.
Why the name “Team The Tremors”?
We choose the name Tremors because we want to cause a disruption. We intend to disrupt the norm and do something new, exciting and breaking barriers.
How did you hear about the RGSoC and why did you apply?
We had a hackathon event that happened on March 14th 2015 in the University. It was during the event that one of our friends, Hungai (also our coach) mentioned to us about it.
We thought it would be great to participate in RGSoC and also work on a real open source project. By this, we would not only learn and grow but also encourage and motivate other upcoming programmers.
What are we working on?
We are working on the RapidFTR project. RapidFTR is an android and web-based application that assists in gathering and sharing of information about children in emergency situations so that they can be reunited with their families. This open source project has been developed for a long time.
We will be implementing the following issues:
Mark a child as “Not Matching” a potentially matched enquiry
Separate highlighted fields for web from mobile
Display ‘no potential matches found’ message
We chose this project because we are familiar with the emergency situations like terror attacks, refugees and displaced persons. Losing a loved one is a painful experience but this application helps in reuniting people in such situations.
We also want to learn the most about Ruby and Rails.
What are you looking forward to this summer?
We want to learn as much as possible and improve our programming skills and move to a higher level with our programming experience.
We thank our Mentors: Sri and Anne, Coaches: Paul, Hungai and Diana, Supervisor: Cathy for their positive support. Not forgetting the RGSoC Team.
Follow us on twitter @teamtremors
Thank you RGSoC Community
