As the dust settles post conference and requests for reimbursements, photos, and videos come in, I review the two new tracks we organized this year: Young Learners Workshop (YLW) and Tinkering Space.

YLW and Tinkering Space are two learning experiences crafted to encourage more diverse participation at PyCon India.

YLW

Objective of YLW: promote Python code literacy via hardware based programming. The workshop is offered at no cost for school students (grades 7 and above).

We received great response from students all over including several from registrations outside of Hyderabad. We capped the participation per school so that more schools can participate and left 10 slots open for individual registrations.

Harsh Mittal, an experienced educator, hosted the workshop.

Statistics

The participation was distributed from nine schools. The participation ratio of the students was 54% boys to 46% girls.

We planned the workshop for 50 students and shortlisted 54 students in case a few dropped out. Three students dropped the day before and five more dropped and in the end, 46 students participated in the workshop on 1st October.

YLW Kit

YLW kit comprises the following: monitor with HDMI cable support, Raspberry Pi 4 model B (2 GB RAM), SD card loaded with Raspbian OS, HDMI to micro-HDMI cable and power adapter for the RPi device. This kit is shared among two students.

Additionally, during the workshop RPi device was connected to the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

set of raspberry pi 4 devices raspberry pi 4 model B 2 GB

If you are interested, check out the workshop material.

Challenges from the Pilot edition

We organized the pilot edition in December 2022 at EPAM Systems on the workshop day at PyConf Hyderabad.

  • Finding schools
    • While finding students was relatively easy, finding schools to participate in the workshop was a major challenge. We visited different schools for invitations, but most didn’t respond. We scrambled through our friends network to onboard three schools.
  • Finding sponsors
    • We had no sponsors for the YLW track. We didn’t put in a lot of effort to find sponsors as it’s a pilot edition and the track was experimental.
  • Travel support
    • 18 students participated in the workshop from three different schools. Six students from the local ZPHS school weren’t accompanied by their teacher. Hence, we (Pragnya, specifically) took care of their travel logistics.
    • 6 students from a second school couldn’t arrange transport and we ended up picking the students from their school.

Finding schools was a problem in the pilot edition of YLW in December 2022. We personally reached out to schools to enroll the students in YLW.

In 2023, we had to keep several students out of the final list due to space constraints at the venue.

What’s better in 2023

  • Greater interest
    • Those who attended the pilot edition spread the word and got a lot more interested.
  • Sponsorship
    • I put little effort to find the sponsors in the pilot edition and wanted to address it this time. I reached out to a few and a friend generously supported the track with necessary devices from his grant.
  • Supportive environment
    • Our academic partner, JNTU-H-Blackbucks, worked with us to identify the venue.
    • Volunteers took it upon themselves to ensure food, water and chairs are available on time. This is a challenge given that PyCon India is a completely volunteer driven event and there are many aspects to take care of on the conference day.
  • Python Express platform
    • We used Python Express for workshop registrations. Python Express is an initiative out of PyCon India from several years ago and has resumed this year.

Challenges in 2023 edition

  • Due to a change in the venue the previous day, we couldn’t provide the best place for the ~50 students. The lab wasn’t equipped to deal with over 50 people (students, volunteers, parents, teachers) in terms of ventilation and airflow. While three breaks in between the workshop provided temporary relief, it’s far from ideal.
  • Volunteers at the registration desk weren’t aware of the schedule of YLW on 1st October. Since YLW is executed with ~4 volunteers (unlike other tracks that require a large number of volunteers), the information wasn’t communicated from the YLW team to all volunteers. This meant a few parents and children walked back and forth between the main auditorium and the track venue causing them inconvenience.
  • Our original idea was to accommodate 100 students but logistics didn’t permit it. Renting space for a non-ticketed track is hard to manage given the costs associated with goodies, infrastructure, and food. We reduced the participation from 100 to 50 students.
  • We discovered that individual registrations are more likely to drop-out on the workshop day than the school/teacher registrations. No student from the school registrations dropped out but five out of fourteen individual registrations dropped in the end. It appears friends from school stick together for the workshop learning experience.
  • We hadn’t accounted for an audio system at the YLW venue, resulting in volunteers losing their voices by the end of the day without access to a microphone and speaker arrangement.

Volunteers

Like any track at PyCon India, YLW is strongly supported by volunteers on ground.

Shivan tested all Raspberry Pi devices, SD cards by connecting them with monitors a week prior to the workshop.

Pragnya handled the room monitoring responsibilities ensuring devices and accessories are prepared for the workshop and are available on the workshop day. She had an additional responsibility to ensure sixteen students from ZPHS were assisted in reaching the venue, 1.25 hrs away from their home and ensuring they reached home safely again at the end of the day.

Anuvrat and a few other volunteers offered necessary support on the Track day.

As we fell short of a few monitors, cumulatively volunteers (Ashok, Ananyo, Ram, Sanchit, Snehith) lent seven monitors so the workshop could run smoothly.

Manav shared his experience in working with different hardware to help us pick a final device.

Harsh was instrumental in designing the material and delivering the workshop.

The execution of the YLW track wouldn’t have been smooth without the continuous support of Revant, Praneet, and Sanchit. Thank you all volunteers for the support.

Tinkering Space

Objective of Tinkering Space: an experimental, ticketed track at the Conference where adults (parents, guardians) can team up with their kids (between grades 7 and 12) and practice on basics of electronics via Python.

We were able to bring in good hosts in Anitha Raman and Manav Sethi for this Track. Anitha works frequently with school students to teach them Python and Manav has similar experience along with handling electronics. This combination worked out well for us. Fortunately Praveen Patil, who runs the annual Science Hack Day in Belgaum, volunteered for this Track. Rajat Rajdeep who made significant contributions to the technology team ensured the Track ran smoothly.

If you are interested, check out the Track outline.

Logistics

We took, what was then, a hard decision to move the Track from indoors to hallway to accommodate interactions from the community with the participants and a new Open Space track. This decision turned out to be a wise one as many stopped by to know what the participants were up to, interacted with them and enhanced the learning experience further.

What could have been better

  • The track needed a sound system setup which we didn’t account for. Anitha and Manav were exhausted by the time the track ended.
  • Manav requested boxes to pack the takeaway kits, but I couldn’t plan for it in the week prior to the event and ended up with paper bags.
  • There were a few drop-outs on the Track day. This happened despite multiple follow-ups with the registrants.

Volunteers

Thanks to Revant, Rajat, Praveen for ensuring sufficient infrastructure and logistics support is available for the Track.

Tinkering Space required less on-the-day coordination compared to YLW because it didn’t rely on a wider range of equipment.

Feedback

We received fantastic feedback from everyone on both Tracks. It’s heartening to know that the students enjoyed the Tracks and parents, teachers witnessing the kids learn was joyous for them.

Some students even practiced after going home. A few were disappointed because they are currently in 10th grade and wouldn’t be eligible to participate next year.

Personal experience

Overall, I am happy with this edition of YLW as we were able to accommodate more students, invite more schools, with strong participation from both public and private schools alike. Importantly, we were able to successfully organize the tracks on the conference day and have the students participate in a keynote by Cheuk Ting Ho.

However, I found it hard to manage the responsibilities of an overall conference organizer and running these tracks. With reduced responsibilities, I would have loved to focus on the branding aspects of these Tracks.

Specifically, I would have loved to:

  • Create dedicated branding (logos, stickers) for YLW and Tinkering Space.
  • Prepare track-specific custom designs for the website and social media.
  • Focus on delivering certificates at the Track rather than later.
  • Organize an inter-city workshop coordinating with volunteers.

Future editions

Right now, I am not sure what the future holds but if the tracks do happen, we hope to do better next time. It’s important to decentralize this so that more students can participate.

If you have any thoughts to share email me or tweet me @thoughtisdead.