Building Rock-Paper-Scissors – Girl Code at Codaisseur
JavaScript, C++, PHP… Coding languages exist in big numbers. Another one, and some say an easier one to learn, is Ruby. We wouldn’t know. Ruby was new for us too!
So, last Wednesday it was time to get a taste of it at Codaisseur. And despite of the very, very, VERY good weather outside we had a filled classroom. Proud of our eager to learn Girl Coders and eager to teach tutors! After some short introductions about Girl Code and Codaisseur, all eyes and ears were focused on Ester Kais who showed just how easy it is to build a Rock-Paper-Scissors game in Ruby in just 1.5 hours. The evening was a big success: we once again met cool new people, got a taste of a new language and saw that wine not always beats coding, ’cause even after we finished and it was time for drinks most of you were still perfecting their games. In short: it was a good ol’ night of coding!
Keep an eye on our meetup page because we can’t wait to see you all again!
And if you weren’t able to join us this time, below you can find the slides and here the tutorial complete with installation guide. You’re welcome ;-)
PS it was Valentina Colombo who invited us to Codaisseur and arranged for everything on Codaisseur’s end. Because of a more important personal emergency she sadly couldn’t join us. But we would like to thank her again for welcoming us and help arrange for this awesome meetup to happen: thank you, Valentina!
Workshop Photon Particle: Girl Code meets IOT
Because of the enthusiastic reactions to the talks about IOT at our last Meetup in August, our September Meetup last Friday at Q42 was all about connecting our own ‘Things’ to the internet ourselves. For this hands-on workshop we’ve picked the Particle Photon Starter Kit as our ‘Thing’. And because it comes with a built-in WiFi module everybody was online in no time, building their own apps with the LED and photocell. Afterwards they took it home to keep on building the wild ideas they made up during the workshop.
As always time flies when you’re coding with other Girl Coders, so it was hard to stop when the evening was over. Several Girl Coders are hungry for more coding with their Photons in the good company of some fellow Girl Coders. If you’re too let us know you’re interested in a casual Photon evening somewhere with WiFi, so we can pick a date and a place!
Girl Code meets IOT
Internet of Things has become increasingly ubiquitous in our daily lives. Your thermostat is controlling the temperature based on your behavior, your smoke detector warns you through your lights in case of a fire and in the near future you’ll be buying your smart-by-itself-ordering-new-coffee-beans-when-you’re-out-coffee-machine right at the Media Markt.
IOT makes our daily lives easier and offers fun opportunities for us coders. Beyond coding apps and websites, you can bring your coding into the real world even more when you do something with IOT. Think of world-saving drones, but also of fun little projects like building a connected dress.
Last Wednesday it was finally time for our meetup at Q42 Amsterdam dedicated to IOT in preparation for an IOT workshop Kristin wants to give for quite a while now (read: at least a year). And because everybody was as excited about the topic as we are, this long-anticipated IOT workshop will be next! Keep an eye on our Meetup group, Facebook and Twitter to make sure you will be part of it.
We had a blast and want to thank you all again for coming and making Girl Code such a success. Below the slides of all of the talks. See you at the next one!
An intro on IOT – Ineke Scheffers
How neural networks can make a drone your next best friend – Tessie Hartjes and Iris Huijben of Blue Jay Eindhoven
Hooli: Building a Connected Hoola Hoop – Katja Hollaar
LoRa, IOT-projects and a poll – Kristin Rieping
GCP NEXT World Tour: Girl Code meets Google Vision API
Our 7th Girl Code event is a wrap! Google was in Amsterdam with GCP Next World Tour and so we hijacked Girl Googler: Sara Robinson! Sara first talked about everything what you can make Google’s Vision API do and more importantly: how. It wouldn’t be Girl Code without some coding, so after Sara’s talk it was time to open our laptops and play with it a little ourselves. We concluded the workshop with some brainstorming where the consensus seemed to be that we have to do something with Tinder and the Vision API… Very curious about those apps ;-)!
Thank you all again for coming and see you at the next one! Join us here to stay in the loop!
Girl Code meets Meteor
Last week Girl Code decided to shake things up a little. Instead of your regular talks only meetup; Ineke, Katja and Kristin organised a hands-on meetup to take place at our HQ in The Hague. After some noodles and a quick intro everybody went on to code their very own game of Tic Tac Toe in MeteorJS. All levels were welcome.
Because MeteorJS is so accessible, it is just the right framework for a workshop suited for all levels. With the right tutorial someone who hasn’t ever coded before can code their first Tic Tac Toe quite easily and get a taste of how much fun programming is. While at the same time, professional developers can easily go deeper and get more familiar with Meteor and code an advanced Tic Tac Toe.
We had a full house and the workshop proved to be so much fun even the first time programmers were behaving like proper nerd developers: everyone was buried in their screen, coding the ultimate Tic Tac Toe and forgot to take care of themselves. The amount of candy bars and drinks we’ve got left is proof of that, lol. Girl Coders at the meetup told us this hands-on meetup was a welcome and a cool alternative to the regular talks-only-meetups. So this is one to get a rerun.
Rerun!
A rerun like on tv and as good as any good old Friends rerun. We want to offer a second chance to everybody who couldn’t make the first Girl Code meets Meteor because it was in The Hague. So this night will be at our Amsterdam office and we hope you all join us there. We also would like to re-invite everybody who did come already and just want to do the workshop again or want to go on with their Tic Tac Toe they’ve coded last week. Whilst enjoying the good company of other Girl Coders and Meteor tutors of course. You can RSVP here: Girl Code meets Meteor Rerun at Q42 Amsterdam.
Meteor meetups
After coding your own Tic Tac Toe you might be hungry for even more Meteor. You can start on the tutorials Meteor.com offers and join the Meteor NL meetups which we at Q42 also organise.
Learning to code
If you’re just starting out learning to code it can be hard to know where to start. That’s why we made this list with tools and websites which offer ways to learn how to code at home:
Codecademy
Khan Academy
Microsoft Minecraft
Codescool
Udacity
Coursera
Treehouse
Thanks to all the Girl Coders who joined us: you made this night a real success!
For more photos of the night check this album. Girl Code is open for everybody: all levels and genders ;-) You can join Girl Code here.
Update March 18 2016:
Meanwhile, Girl Code meets Meteor Rerun at Q42 Amsterdam is also behind us. And wow! What a turnout. 50(!) of you joined us for a night of coding. And we have pictures to prove it :-D Thank you all for coming!
You can finish or start the Girl Code meets Meteor Tic Tac Toe tutorial here.
Girl Code @ Nerds on Stage
Vorige week woensdag was het zover: Nerds on Stage in de Rotterdamse Schouwburg. “Meet the brightest minds in technology and creativity”, zo wordt dit tech event voor scholieren aangekondigd op de site. Toen Katja, Kristin en Ineke met Girl Code werden gevraagd om daar twee minicolleges te komen geven, konden ze dus nog moeilijk nee zeggen. Wat een eer!
Het enige feit aan programmeren is natuurlijk dat je iets bedenkt en dat nog écht kunt bouwen ook. De nadruk van ons college lag daarom op hoe vet programmeren is, dat iedereen dat kan doen en dat iedereen dat eigenlijk zou moeten doen. En met iedereen bedoelen we natuurlijk iedereen!
Het was ontzettend gaaf om te zien hoe enthousiast iedereen werd van een connected hoelahoep en een slimme hue lamp. We kregen jongens aan het hoepelen en enthousiast voor Girl Code. Leraren vroegen ons tips om ook de meisjes in de klas aan het programmeren te krijgen. En wat natuurlijk vooral een succes was, was het enthousiasme van de aanwezige meisjes zelf. Alle scholieren die Nerds on Stage bezocht hebben, worden tóch maar programmeur. Achievement unlocked.
Ineke 