This year, I returned to GiveCamp, although I decided to join my friends down in Columbus rather than return to Ann Arbor. Let me tell you - once again, I had a wonderful experience overall and look forward to next year's event. But just what made it an awesome event? Read on.

The Organizers

Carey Payette and James Bender ran the Columbus GiveCamp. From securing a location to getting the website together to picking charities and assigning teams, Carey and James (and the rest of their team) brought this successful event to the community.

The Sponsors

In addition to a great organizing team, the event couldn't have been pulled off without the help of the sponsors. Quick Solutions allowed us to hold the event in their facilities. Microsoft, TechSmith, Telerik, eRubycon, and The Sophic Group provided funding and giveaways. DiscountASP.NET (who happens to host this site) graciously provided free hosting to some of the non-profits. Thanks also to Pei Wei and Pot Belly for providing great deals food-wise.

Not Just a Microsoft Thing

I know that many people see talk of the GiveCamps in the .NET community, but honestly, it isn't just Microsoft technologies involved. We had a couple Ruby teams, and I was part of the lone PHP team. Some of the non-Microsoft packages that were used include Heroku, Github, Moodle, WordPress MU, and Joomla.

The Awesome Team TCO

If you were following my Twitter stream, you'd notice a lot of the #teamtco hashtag. Team TCO was the team behind TECH CORPS Ohio (TCO).

Joel Helbling was the one who gathered our requirements and led our team. He wanted to take the Kanban approach, and Kenny, Chris, and I worked with that. We used Github as our source control, and being my first Github experience, I did eventually git it!

Our job was to help come up with a template to unify TCO's Moodle, Joomla, and WordPress sites - specifically Student TECH CORPS, the main TECH CORPS Ohio site, and Club TECH CORPS. You can see some of the new logos on the Student TECH CORPS site. What we came up for the main Joomla site can be seen here.

Our charity contact - Aung Nay, director of programs - was there every day, supporting us along the way. On Friday, Lisa Chambers, the state director, was out to see what we could do to help as well. The TCO organization was excited to see what we could come up with to help them.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed working with my team and all of the other volunteers at GiveCamp. Whether it was playing Rock Band, singing "Go Go Ninja Dinosaur", or talking about projects, it was great to work with such a diverse community. It was a great turnout:

I look forward to returning to Columbus GiveCamp next year, and if we have one here in Cleveland, I'd look forward to participating in that as well!

Labels: Columbus Give Camp, givecamp, ninjadinosaur

This one time, at GiveCamp....

This morning, I read that the Columbus GiveCamp site is now up and running. As I read through their site, I had to laugh at some of the things on there - as it brought back fond memories of my experience last summer at the Ann Arbor GiveCamp.

What is a GiveCamp?
A Give Camp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or a application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they've donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend.

Source: http://www.annarborgivecamp.org/WhatIsAGiveCamp.aspx


Last Year's Experience

Last year, Ann Arbor was a full GiveCamp, and Columbus, OH and Knoxille, TN ran satellite camps. I had talked with Mike Eaton throughout their planning stages, and as much as I could've gone to the satellite camp in Columbus, after having talked with Mike through so much, I was determined to go to the Ann Arbor camp.

I didn't know which charity or team I was placed with until I got there, and that's where I met the great team that worked on GoLightly IT's SiteFinity site. Towards the end of the first night, Mike floated around the groups to get interviews and offer cookies (which I ended up tagging along with him and calling them "HTTP cookies"). I liked how he had the job of floating around to check on the groups and assist them with any blocking issues - that was a much-needed position, one that I wouldn't mind doing. He pulled me in to help a group that was starting with the hopes of using SharePoint, only to be defeated by Verio's hosting options and having to use SiteFinity. I was able to work with them to at least get them on the right path, joining most of us on the "we're using SiteFinity and relying on John T. Hopkins' awesomeness to help us out" bandwagon.

"No showers" means "There are no showers at the facility."

The Columbus GiveCamp site has stressed that their facility has "no showers" quite a few times in the FAQ. In case they weren't obvious enough, this means that QSI does not have showers. So if you're staying overnight, don't count on showering there - it's not happening.

Sleep is for the weak.

As for the award for least amount of sleep and probably why they link to Red Bull - you'll find that some developers will stay up the whole time to work on their project. Some will stay up to help others with their projects. And some of us stay up just because we can. I managed to go 41 (or was it 42) hours without sleep at Ann Arbor GiveCamp, competing with one of the guys from another team in our room. My first night there, I hung out with my friends in the break room, helping keep Jennifer going during her 1am-5am break room shift. I'm not sure how the guys did it, but I got lucky running mostly on my second wind. Then my first wind for the next day kicked in and sleep was fairly inevitable. I could've gone for a little longer on the second night, but since I had a long drive home the next day, I knew that I needed to sleep, from a safety standpoint.

Going to GiveCamp this year

This year, I'm planning on going down to the Columbus GiveCamp - a full camp this year - and putting my background to use there however they need me. I've got one of those weird backgrounds - system administration, database administration, web server administration, tech support, developer... on both Microsoft-based platforms and non-Microsoft platforms. I tend to adapt quickly new technology, which makes it even easier for me to fit a variety of roles.

Ann Arbor's GiveCamp will be running at the same time, as Columbus planned theirs to be at the same time. I look forward to seeing what comes out of these GiveCamps - last year, they worked on a lot of great projects, including projects for WonderPuzzle and Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum.

So what are you waiting for? If you've got the time July 17-19 and want to put your technical talents to a good cause, volunteer for a GiveCamp today. And if you know of any groups with projects, have them contact the respective GiveCamp location to see how the GiveCamps can help them out.

Again, the links for the sites are:

• Columbus GiveCamp


• Ann Arbor GiveCamp

Hope to see you there!

Labels: Ann Arbor Give Camp, Columbus Give Camp, givecamp

While reading Mike Eaton's blog, I had read about Ann Arbor Give Camp. He had mentioned it in the past, so it's nice to finally get more information.

What is a Give Camp?

A Give Camp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new website for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or a application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they've donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend.

Source: http://www.annarborgivecamp.org/WhatIsAGiveCamp.aspx

So...

What: Ann Arbor Give Camp - a chance for architects, DBAs, devs, and designers to get together and donate their time and talent towards projects for non-profits. The projects should be completed within the weekend.

When: July 11-13, 2008

Where: Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor MI

Hope to see you there!

Labels: ann arbor, architects, charity, DBAs, designers, developers, devigners, givecamp