[Sugar-devel] GSoC'21 draft proposal for 'Improve and maintain 15 sugar activities'

[Chihurumnaya Ibiam]

On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 3:38 PM Sourabha G <sourabha.project at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Jui,
> thanks for the suggestions.
> 1. I'll definitely consider adding more explanation to the selected
> activities ( I thought it would be more confusive. but if it adds more
> clarity, I'll definitely add more description).
> 2. I thought it would be best to discuss with the candidate who's going to
> work on 'port to python3' to take up those activities so that it will be
> soon ready to release. In case if this doesn't line up, I'll consider doing
> it within GSoC deadline if time permits or post GSoC.
>

You don't know any student who would work on it at this time so it's better
to include it as it's in the
scope of the project.

3. Surely, I'll go through the open PRs and try to complete it unless it's
> inevitable to make a new PR.
> 4. The feature addition for imageviewer activity to add editing tools
> would need OpenCV ( crop and filters).
>

Using OpenCV <https://github.com/opencv/opencv> is adding an extra
dependency to the activity and I don't think that's a good idea,
It increases maintenance duties and it becomes one more thing to worry
about.
Looking at the repo it does seem that it might be large and bundling it in
the activity would increase the
image size and that's not something we want.

5. Glad you liked the timestamp feature :)
> About the students testing the activities, I thought it would be off-topic
> to mention more in the proposal. Since the pandemic, I felt many of my yoga
> students weren't coping up with the academics. So I started teaching them
> math and science in my free time. Allowing them to test the activities has
> shown noticeable improvement in their interest towards learning. JAMath was
> the first activity to be tested. I came up with the idea of adding basic
> game design features after taking their feedback. There are many slight
> changes that a game might need. We might not realize it until it's tested
> in the user environment. For example, the 3rd level in JAMath is too fast
> for an average kid to even attempt. Many couldn't notice the instruction in
> Recall activity. Apart from this, most loved to play Turtlepond and
> stick-hero. No one could get the iqacttivity right :P
>

Thanks for sharing, if you can keep them engaged more with testing and
working on improvements,
that'll be great.


-- 

Ibiam Chihurumnaya
ibiam at sugarlabs.org




> On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 2:56 PM Jui Pradhan <juipradhan2k at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Sourabha,
>>                     Thanks for the updated draft proposal. I have few
>> comments:
>> - I read the thread where you explained the selected activities and
>> activity-specific features you would like to add. It would be great if you
>> could add the explanations from your email in the proposal. For example, in
>> Recall I found the email explanation more clear than the one added in the
>> proposal. In addition to that, I feel explanations like the one you gave
>> for image-viewer activity should definitely be there in your proposal (by
>> that I mean just by reading the draft proposal, its not clear which image
>> editing tools you intend to add).
>> - Most of the activities that involve a port to Gtk+3 also require
>> porting to python3. (Activities like: Bounce, Compress, labyrinth, etc), if
>> you feel you can work on port to python3 please feel free to add it to your
>> proposal
>> - For the activity Arithmetic, there is an open PR for porting to Gtk+3
>> and python3, you may continue work on the same PR if you find that
>> convenient.
>> - The tools and technologies mentioned OpenCV. Did you find an activity
>> that uses it? I would love to have a look.
>> - I really liked your idea of adding a timestamp to messages in the chat
>> activity!
>>
>> Also, I would love to hear about the activities you tested by letting the
>> students use them. :)
>>
>> Thanks.
>> Regards,
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 11:54 AM Sourabha G <sourabha.project at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, I will work on foodforce2-activity
>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/foodforce2-activity> instead of
>>> followmeButia activity. It seems a few things weren't clearly mentioned in
>>> the draft proposal, I have updated the draft proposal as per your
>>> suggestions. Any critical comments and thoughts are welcome.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, 9 Apr, 2021, 10:11 am Chihurumnaya Ibiam, <ibiam at sugarlabs.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think you're biting more than you can chew as sometimes we
>>>> can't really say how long it'll take
>>>> to fix a problem unless one starts working on it.
>>>>
>>>> The previous attempts at porting an activity can be a good starting
>>>> point for you as you can complete
>>>> the PR, nothing wrong with that, the only activity in the list that I
>>>> think should be removed is followmeButia
>>>> except you have the resources to test it on bare metal.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Ibiam Chihurumnaya
>>>> ibiam at sugarlabs.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 2:43 PM Sourabha G <sourabha.project at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the feedback, glad you appreciate my teaching yoga classes
>>>>>>> to kids :)
>>>>>>> By "Add help activity" I mean, I'd add Help for the selected
>>>>>>> activities (Triples <https://github.com/sugarlabs/triples>, cardsort
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/cardsort>, iq-activity
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/iq-activity> and recall
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/recall>) by writing help pages to
>>>>>>> them in the help-activity repository.
>>>>>>> By "Contribute to the documentation" I mean,
>>>>>>>  a. Update the Readme, activity documentation in help-activity
>>>>>>> repository according to the changes made in the activity.
>>>>>>>  b. Update any documentation that might ease the new contributors
>>>>>>> for better understanding.
>>>>>>> By "Fix issues that are required for an activity to be released" I
>>>>>>> mean, there are few issues that require it to be fixed (other than feature
>>>>>>> addition and port to GTK+ 3) inorder to make a new release of the activity
>>>>>>> like #6 <https://github.com/sugarlabs/triples/issues/6> in triples
>>>>>>> activity, #9 <https://github.com/sugarlabs/cardsort/issues/9> in
>>>>>>> cardsort, #12 <https://github.com/sugarlabs/turtlepond/pull/12> in
>>>>>>> turtlepond activity.
>>>>>>> Selected activities:
>>>>>>> A) To add basic game design features and activity specific features
>>>>>>> (game design features are mentioned in draft proposal)
>>>>>>>  1. Triples <https://github.com/sugarlabs/triples> : This activity
>>>>>>> has only one level. Hence, I'll add levels and other basic game design
>>>>>>> features.
>>>>>>>  2. cardsort <https://github.com/sugarlabs/cardsort> : This
>>>>>>> activity already has levels.Hence I will add other basic game design
>>>>>>> features.
>>>>>>>  3. iq-activity <https://github.com/sugarlabs/iq-activity> : This
>>>>>>> activity seems to have only one level. Hence I'd add multiple levels and
>>>>>>> other basic game design features.
>>>>>>>  4. recall <https://github.com/sugarlabs/recall> : This activity
>>>>>>> already has various levels. Hence I'd like to add basic game design
>>>>>>> features. Also, it is a little hard to figure out the place of the
>>>>>>> instruction about what image to recall each time. I'd like to enhance the
>>>>>>> UX by placing the instruction in an intuitive place.
>>>>>>> 5. wordcloud <https://github.com/sugarlabs/wordcloud/>: As
>>>>>>> mentioned in #2 <https://github.com/sugarlabs/wordcloud/issues/2>,
>>>>>>> I think it would make more sense if the input text was split by newlines
>>>>>>> than by words. Also, as mentioned in #10
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/wordcloud/issues/10>, adding support
>>>>>>> for emoji and special characters would be fun.
>>>>>>>  6. turtlepond <https://github.com/sugarlabs/turtlepond> : This
>>>>>>> activity has only 3 puzzles (3 levels). I think it adding basic game design
>>>>>>> and more levels to this would enable mastering this kind of logical
>>>>>>> thinking and make it more fun.
>>>>>>>  7.classify-cats <https://github.com/sugarlabs/classify-cats> :,The
>>>>>>> logic of the game is to classify cats on the basis of "odd"  and "even"
>>>>>>> number of cats. Keeping this as level 1, multiple levels can be added
>>>>>>> varying the criteria to classify the cats. Criteria might be "multiple of X
>>>>>>> " and "not a multiple of X" . This feature would be added along with the
>>>>>>> basic game design features.
>>>>>>> B) To add original design features:
>>>>>>>  8. chat <https://github.com/sugarlabs/chat> : I'd like to work on
>>>>>>> the issue #17 <https://github.com/sugarlabs/chat/issues/17>.
>>>>>>>  9. imageviewer-activity
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/imageviewer-activity>: It would be
>>>>>>> handy to add basic image editing features such as crop and filters to this
>>>>>>> activity.
>>>>>>>  10. wikipedia-activity
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/wikipedia-activity>: This activity
>>>>>>> has a very strong pedagogical value, I'm enthusiastic to bring this to use.
>>>>>>> But I'm not sure how to update it. A checklist of what work needs to be
>>>>>>> done to update this would be helpful.
>>>>>>> C) To port to GTK+ 3 (Tentative list as mentioned in draft proposal)
>>>>>>> Given the past attempts on porting these activities, I'm not sure if
>>>>>>> it's right to choose these activities for porting to GTK+ 3 as a part of
>>>>>>> GSoC. Thoughts on this from the mentors would be helpful.
>>>>>>>  11. compress-activity
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/compress-activity>
>>>>>>>  12. Bounce activity <https://github.com/sugarlabs/Bounce>
>>>>>>>  13. followmeButia activit
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/followmeButia>
>>>>>>> 14. Arithmetic activity <https://github.com/sugarlabs/arithmetic>
>>>>>>> 15. Labyrinth activity
>>>>>>> <https://github.com/sugarlabs/labyrinth-activity>
>>>>>>>  Kindly let me know the desirability and the relevance of the
>>>>>>> features I plan to add. Also, Based on your experience and judgment, kindly
>>>>>>> let me know if I'm biting more than I could chew for the time constraint of
>>>>>>> GSoC. I will select the activities accordingly :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> Sourabha G.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 11:02 PM Chihurumnaya Ibiam <
>>>>>>> ibiam at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi Sourabha,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks for the draft, a few comments;
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> What do you mean by "Add help activity" - second item in the Honey
>>>>>>>> part -?
>>>>>>>> When you say "Contribute to the documentation", could you be a bit
>>>>>>>> more specific? What documentation do you intend to contribute to?
>>>>>>>> The fifth item "Fix issues that are required for an activity to be
>>>>>>>> released" seems vague,
>>>>>>>> what issues are you referring to here and in what activities?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You've selected less that 15 activities as stated by the project
>>>>>>>> idea, we definitely can talk about
>>>>>>>> the activities you'd want to work on.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I like the fact that you teach yoga classes to kids, I think that's
>>>>>>>> amazing.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Ibiam Chihurumnaya
>>>>>>>> ibiam at sugarlabs.org
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 9:45 AM Sourabha G <
>>>>>>>> sourabha.project at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Here is my draft proposal for the 'Improve and maintain 15 sugar
>>>>>>>>> activities' project as a part of GSoC-20201. Thoughts and suggestions are
>>>>>>>>> appreciated :)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>> Sourabha G
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jui Pradhan
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/attachments/20210411/028d05af/attachment-0001.htm>