User:Mchua/Braindumps/Jam notes

Greetings, Edward!
>
> I'm Mel,
>
> <boringbackground>
>
> ...one of the people behind the first OLPC Jam at Olin last summer (when
> I was also an OLPC intern - the original OLPC Jam concept was inspired
> by the Indie Game Jams at the Game Developers Conference,
> http://www.indiegamejam.com/). I've co-run two other OLPC Jams since -
> one in Taiwan during Wikimania 2007 (with SJ) and another week-long one
> in the Chicago area with Scott Swanson and students from the Illinois
> Math and Science Academy (who ended up presenting their Jam projects at
> Google a few weeks later).
>
> All of these Jams involved non-technical participants, and the two
> included a good selection of educational/non-technical projects (as well
> as software and hardware projects) including several created entirely by
> teams of high school students. (I've also taught classes to elementary
> and middle school students during 3 of the past 7 summers, although I'm
> hypothetically an electrical and computer engineer who's working as a
> software engineer for the spring.)
>
> </boringbackground>
>
> I may be co-running two more OLPC Jams in Seattle immediately before the
> CSF, but if you're Jamming after April 30th I would love to come back
> out to Boston and help with it, as well as pitching in on planning
> remotely beforehand if needed (I'm working in NYC until mid-April, but
> visit Boston occasionally on weekends). This isn't a helpful resource
> yet, but http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_To_Run_A_Jam is an old project of
> mine that got stalled sometime last summer. As you go through planning
> your Jam I can keep writing it up with the information you need - think
> "user-driven development."  ;) 
>
> For developers: Mike Fletcher's tutorial materials for the upcoming
> PyCon in Chicago (as well as Mike himself, if you can get him out to
> Boston for a bit) would probably be highly helpful and a very good
> introduction to contributing. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Mcfletch
> has his contact information, or I can introduce you directly (if you
> don't already know each other - Mike is awesome).
>
> Will attendees have to register in advance or pay an entrance fee?
>
> Since you mentioned you wanted to "Document what & how we did this on
> WIKI," I've taken the liberty of starting you a page for the Jam at
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_Jam (or in wiki shorthand,
> [[Community Jam]]). Opening up the Jam planning process to the community
> tends to make things easier (folks can use the wiki to arrange rides,
> form teams before the event, and so forth).
>
> More comments inline below.
>
>> > >> Jams are usually intensive, several day events that involve experienced,
>> > >> prepared participants working in small teams.
>
> In practice, this has involved various values of "experienced" and
> "prepared," but having participants "register" for the event in small
> teams and propose some project ideas in advance has (so far) worked
> pretty well.
>
>> > >> Dream, create, & story-board ideas for new applications & games.
>
> This would be *amazing* to see. (Paper prototyping! Nikki, do you think
> Lynn Stein, Matt Jadud, and other UI-type profs who love kids might be
> willing to come out and help with this part?)
>
>> > >> Photograph storyboards & post on WIKI -- kids get bragging rights,
>> > >> empowered.
>
> And more! The OLPC community 'zine, getting attendees to blog the event,
> maybe even local press - we had a number of papers (and one TV station)
> cover the first Jam in Boston
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_Jam_Boston_June_2007/Press).
>
>> > >> Give prizes (everyone wins something).
>
> SJ, where did the tshirts for the first Game Jam come from? Is the
> original design still available somewhere?
>
>> > >> Adult participants learn how to do this event again in other communities
>> > >> / cities.
>
> Personally, I would love this, and would be thrilled to help with this
> part in particular. Jams so far have been run "unconference-style"
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference) with most of the time
> reserved for sprinting, some time for rapid-fire presentations (Arjun,
> the OLPC intern who wrote you about sensor input and Measure, has some
> incredible show-stopping projects to demo and could probably do an
> entire Jam around his work alone) and judges (in the past: local
> children, local grassroots groups) coming in to test things at the end
> so the participants have a concrete end goal and userbase to design for
> - but it's all up to you how you want to do this one.
>
>> > >> Document what & how we did this on WIKI.
>
> Hurrah, documentation! Thank you!
>
> This sounds fantastic. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.
>
> Best of luck,
>
> -Mel
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Mchua