This is the forum thread of FOSS club SIT which puts its focus on the event activities, club meeting agendas and progress amongst the core members. The team currently consists of 7 people from the first year on board.
Three-month plan
Currently waiting for the official approval, the team is deciding on the curriculum which is expected to be ready by the end of this month.
The team has decided to work on small scale upskill events to prepare the core team members which includes having a Linux workshop for them, and teaching the core team to debug issues in Linux, especially low-level issues related to proprietary drivers etc.
An awareness program about open-source alternatives is to be held where we’re performing community outreach on a personal basis in order to teach people about open-source alternatives to software products they use on a day-to-day basis.
The logo designing and social media set up is in progress.
FOSS club SIT
The current progress of the club includes uplifting and teaching the core team about Linux and helping them install it, the core team had already started teaching people outside the club and have successfully carried out the process. 6 people have been helped to install Linux and upgrade it which includes 3 core members and 3 individuals outside the club. The core members have started upskilling in git too. The core members have already started preparing on debugging issues in Linux, especially low level issues related to proprietary drivers, etc.
By the end of this month, the core team will be acquainted enough with Linux to conduct workshops on it. We have our social media handles set up and have actively started posting and updating it. Firstly, a community outreach post for helping people to install Linux will be posted on our Instagram and Twitter handles. From the next week, the posts will be factual. A Medium and Substack account will be set up for blogging about opensource.
The media team has undergone comprehensive training in GIMP and other design software, equipping us to successfully launch our social media presence with two engaging posts. To enhance team motivation, we’ve introduced a points system that assesses members based on their effectiveness in advocating for open source.
Our media team operates on a two-posts-per-week system. One post educates readers about FOSS alternatives, while the other shares a fascinating fact about open source. During the semester break, we will run content to help interested readers familiarize themselves with open source. This includes activities such as installing Linux, learning Git, beta testing open source projects, and assisting in bug triage. Our primary focus this academic year is on engaging 1st-year students.
In the development of our initial events, we conducted a comprehensive survey of activities hosted by other Symbi clubs. This research has helped us blueprint our first two events, crucial for official recognition as an SIT club. The inaugural event will concentrate on interactive learning about Git, Bash, and other essential concepts. We aim to showcase how open-source projects are dynamic, visually appealing, and customizable, countering common misconceptions about Linux merely being a terminal interface.
Interested individuals can register for the workshop by sending a direct message to any core team member. To ensure genuine attendees who are motivated to learn, a simple requirement for attendance is sharing the output of “cat /etc/os-release” from their system.
This event aims to establish a robust reputation through word of mouth, Instagram, LinkedIn, and physical promotional materials such as posters. Additionally, we’re exploring the use of reels on Instagram to visually highlight the benefits of FOSS, aligning with the platform’s emphasis on short-form videos.
As we approach the finalization of our curriculum, we are keen to arrange a session with FOSS United to discuss and refine our plans before formally approaching Symbiosis. Continuous skill development and adaptation to feedback will be key components of our ongoing strategy.
For the FOSS Club’s development, we have successfully completed of the registration form, marking a crucial step towards formalizing our club structure. In response to the growing demand for increased participation and specialization within our FOSS Club, the registration form has been opened to facilitate the recruitment of dedicated individuals across various domains. This strategic move aims to enhance the core team by inviting applications for positions in technical, events, media, and documentation roles. While our current core team has been serving the club in the interim capacities, we are now actively seeking to expand and formalize our structure by welcoming new members to assume both core team and general member positions. This initiative seeks to establish a more comprehensive and dynamic foundation, fostering a collaborative environment for individuals passionate about Free and Open Source Software. .
Updates from Catchup call #1
Attendees - @Soham_Kulkarni , Ansh
Updates from the club’s end
- Activites are being documented on the forum
- Official approval for the club by college authorities requires for them to conduct a minimum of two events
- The club is open to everyone, a requirement has been set for everyone to use Linux. The team helps new members with installation
- The current team was not very active and they have started recruitments for more members
- The college has mandated that only students from the current academic year can join the club.
- This is a problem since the lead himself is in their first year, which means that only first years (and newly admitted students will be able to join the club), and seniors are not allowed to join.
- Most of the team will not be very technically sound and the lead has to upskill them, they’re preparing a curriculum and roadmap for the same. (to be posted on the forum)
- Points have been allotted to each activity to gamify the process
- A tracker is being maintained to ensure the members follow the curriculum.
- The team is happy to collaborate with PuneFOSS for marketing and outreach
- Would like to host a local FOSShack edition
Support from FOSS United
- Merch for core team
- A resource person/speaker who can motivate and evangelise the students towards FOSS
- Projects etc. to work on
A comprehensive update on the recent developments within our forum and outlines the upcoming plans.
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Curriculum Design:
The curriculum has been meticulously designed, focusing on various aspects such as Linux environments, server-based projects, open-source software (OSS)/web 3, OpenSource AI, Image Processing, and Open Hardware. -
Email Communication:
The drafting of emails to secure permissions regarding events venue and the process of to send emails to the batch of 2023-2027. -
Ongoing Activities:
Interviews are ongoing, and meetings have been assigned for further recruitment processes. Work on Medium and Substack platforms is pending but scheduled to begin soon. -
Recruitment:
The Interviews that have been conducted resulted in the recruitment of a new member for documentation and another for events. -
Social Media Presence:
We are actively engaging on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn to increase our online presence. The media team is actively involved in creating Instagram posts and designing posters for the upcoming event. -
Event Planning:
Planning for the first event is in progress, with news currently being spread through word of mouth and personal connections. -
Event Logistics:
The first event is scheduled for 23rd January (Tuesday), with an expected audience of 30-35 and an outreach target of 50. Venue options are being considered in line with our outreach targets and expected audience. -
Core Team Training:
Efforts are being made to familiarize the core team with open-source software tools like Gimp and Figma. -
Curriculum Splitting:
Discussions are underway regarding splitting the curriculum across various semesters, focusing on specific topics.
We are thrilled to announce the kickoff of the first event hosted by Foss Club SIT. Building on the collaborative spirit and educational, this event marks an exciting milestone in our journey. Foss Club SIT is committed to fostering a vibrant community of open-source enthusiasts and learners. This event serves as an excellent opportunity for members to apply their knowledge, collaborate with peers, and actively engage in a hands-on learning experience. This event promises an exciting blend of creativity, collaboration, and technical skills, providing a platform for first-year students to enhance their knowledge and build connections within the community.
The structure of the event:
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Team Formation: First-year students from the 2023-27 Batch will form teams of 5-7 individuals to embark on an engaging and collaborative challenge.
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Objective: The primary goal is for participants to collaboratively decrypt a series of ciphers, unveil the name of a prominent open-source project, and exhibit technical prowess by researching the programming languages used in the tool’s development. Participants will unleash their creative thinking skills, working together to decrypt ciphers, identify open-source tools, investigate their details, find proprietary alternatives, and showcase their knowledge by cloning the Git repository of the identified tool.
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Organized by First-Year Students, for First-Year Students: This event is entirely organized by first-year students, offering a unique opportunity to learn from peers, share knowledge, and foster a supportive network within the community.
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Decrypting Challenge: Participants embark on a cryptographic journey, decrypting a mysterious string and answering three thought-provoking questions testing creative and critical thinking. Teams receive an encrypted string, aiming to decrypt it and unveil the name of a prominent open-source project and then research and compile a list of programming languages used in the development of the identified tool. Further, they demonstrate technical skills by cloning the Git repository of the identified open-source tool on their systems.
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Resources Accessible to Participants: Participants are encouraged to use external resources, including ChatGPT, Google, and direct inquiries, fostering collective knowledge and technical prowess to uncover secrets hidden within the encrypted string. Teams can actively engage in the challenge by asking questions, receiving technical support, and utilizing external resources to decipher secrets hidden within the encrypted string. This activity not only tests individual problem-solving skills but also promotes collaborative knowledge-sharing and teamwork.
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Judging and Winner Announcement: Teams will present their insights, with judging based on accuracy, depth, presentation, and Git cloning success. The winner will be decided and announced during the event, celebrating the outstanding efforts and achievements of the participants.
We’re excited to share the fantastic news about the recent interviews conducted by the FOSS club at SIT. Following the exhilarating Cipher Decoding event, many students were inspired to join the club, and we received an overwhelming amount of responses.
The interviews showcased the interests of the students who have decided to be part of our FOSS Club here at SIT PUNE. We’ve received an incredible amount of positive feedback, affirming the enthusiasm our new members bring.
In a recent meeting of the technical team with The HOD of the AIML department Dr. Shruti Patil, we have been granted permission to conduct the FOSSHack 2024 in later July and prior to that the club plans to conduct one more event in between the month of March-April which will lead to our club being officially recognized by the college. We will be collaborating with the AI club of SIT Pune to hold events in the coming months.
In our first event held in SIT Pune, the target audience for the FOSS Cipher Hunt Workshop was around 350 Students but we had managed to reach out to around 250-270 students on the days of the workshop. We managed to get about 60-70 students to install Git and make them understand the basic commands to clone a file from GitHub.
The responses of the Decrypting challenges are as follows: -
- CS A - 9
- CS B - 13
- CS C - 15
- AIML A - 8
- AIML B – 10
Each submissions was by a group of 4 to 5 which makes the total submissions by the students 260-325.
Quick update: - For the upcoming PuneFOSS 2.0 Conference on 24th February 2024, 2 members from the club have won free tickets to the conference on the basis of the FOSS club outreach tracker on MS excel evaluated over few technical criteria’s.
The two winners are Karmadeept Sarkar and Rupankar Das, Congrats to them!
As first-year college students aiming to establish a club for public influence, group cohesion is crucial for us. Here are the key points from the recent anonymous survey I conducted for club members:
- The club’s focus is seen as teaching about open source and supporting members, with a 10% preference for the latter, indicating that there is enthusiasm for engaging with the campus community.
- Overall positive response:
- Satisfaction with department assignments and workload.
- Strong professional and personal relationships among members.
- Excitement for the club’s future, especially upon formal establishment.
- Members feel they have benefited greatly from joining.
- no insurrection yet xD. we will see how public approval shifts after the other clubs distribute swags : )
- Some concerns raised:
- Approximately 25% of respondents perceive differences in behavior on my part based on personal friendships. Partly my fault, partly human behaviour.
- Most members find opportunity distribution fair, though communication is lacking for about 60%, particularly due to the rapid updates and progress due to the club’s unofficial nature. Mea culpa, it’s difficult to even keep all the heads in the loop.
- Around 30% express uncertainty about promotion tracks and appreciation for their contributions. Considering a more structured club hierarchy for motivation and organization instead of the mostly democratic approach implemented presently.
Would appreciate the community’s inputs on working on the points raised in #3.
Results:
Our college seminar hall was recently upgraded with charging ports for each seat, resulting in a 100+ capacity venue which we can definitely use for FOSSHack
MINUTES OF MEETING 28/3/2024 9:00PM
In today’s meeting the topic for the upcoming AI workshop has been finalized, the event is going to be based on a classic snake game in which every time the snake eats an apple it gains extra rewards. We’ll be helping the attendees implement approaches such as “closest path to apple” etc. Key part of the game is the snake player (the one controlling its directions) is going to be AI and the goal of the workshop participants will be to make the AI smarter and efficient. The event will mostly be happening in the 3rd week of April. All the documents required to learn further about this will be provided by Pankhuri, Technical. Everything will be published on the FOSS Club SIT GitHub. We have 2 potential speakers, will be launching the CFP soon
MINUTES OF MEETING (With AIML HOD) 29/3/2024
Feedback on AI snake game event: - Get help from 3rd years to explain basics of reinforcement learning giving them 10-15 mins.
Gave us venue: - 5th floor Seminar Hall
Finalized the date for the event 19th APRIL 2024
Stressed on getting good pictures and making reels to promote the club.
Gave suggestions for future events, doing it on LLM’s, Generative AI, Interaction session with seniors (on some Saturday precisely)
Proposed FOSSHACK.
MINUTES OF MEETING 2/4/2024
Discussed the timeline of the AI snake game event (19/4/2024): -
The workshop starts at 3pm.
20 minutes Guest speaker.
20 minutes Seniors speaking on Reinforcement learning.
Assigned work/tasks to members: -
Yug- PowerPoint on workshop.
Pankhuri- Educating technical members on pytorch/pygame and event related technical work.
Ahmed- Working shirts for members.
Nidhi- Will manage seniors who will speaking reinforcement learning.
Sehaj/Ahmed- Will look for sponsorships.
Balaji- Will help and guide Jay about the club and event.
Ansh- Guide Sonika about the social pages (forum, articles, medium etc.) and manage the proposal PowerPoint to the director.
Technical as a whole- Once done learning from Pankhuri, the technical members will briefly explain the rest of the members about the technical aspects of the event.