[Systers-dev] Whew!

[Gloria W]

Hi all,

I have some really exciting, and maybe even a bit scary, news. I 
volunteered to teach an intermediate Python tutorial at pyArkansas in 
about three weeks (One day, Nov 14th). This is an event for college 
students in the entire region of LittleRock and surrounding areas.

During our planning, I asked out of curiosity how many female students 
there would be, and if a women-friendly code sprint was in order on 
either Friday or Saturday night (possibly both). One professor who likes 
the idea and is willing to work out local logistics is helping me get 
this together. He wants to blast this announcement over a wider area, 
which is very likely to draw many many more students than I anticipated.

I have two code sprint ideas. I may try to run them at the same time if 
the group is too large, letting women choose between the back-end 
intensive one (your Systers mail server enhancements), or the web app 
w/Google map interface (my project from pyOhio).

So, I have two questions and one request:

(Q1) Do you have a list of relatively small, quantifiable assignments I 
can give to students and manage over the course of two nights? I imagine 
some will want to work in groups, some will not. I'll let them work in 
any way they see fit. They are Comp Sci majors with no prior Python 
experience. I have no idea how theory-heavy their coursework is, and how 
much exposure they have to real programming languages, but we will find 
out, won't we? :)

(Q2) Can someone be online to help during this time? I know this is 
asking someone to sacrifice their weekend night time, and this may not 
be a fair request, but I figured I would give it a try anyway.

(R1) Help!!!! This is getting bigger exposure than I planned! Does 
anyone on this list live nearby, and feel like helping out? This is 
going to be a bit insane, and an extra set of hands would be fantastic. 
I could bribe you with my honorarium money, if necessary, by paying for 
your transportation, and sharing my hotel space. You'd have to arrive on 
the afternoon of November 13 and stay until some time Monday morning. 
Let me know if anyone here is interested.


Whew...

Gloria