Yeeih WE MEGACODED!!
On 16th and 17th February We,Rails Girls Nairobi held our first event, MegaCoding.
Installation Party(16th)
We started by registering the attendees as they streamed in. They were then helped with installations by our able coaches.
After all the machines were setup, we moved to the introduction part. To break the ice and make it more fun, everyone told us what they would be doing if they had not attended the event. Being a Friday, we got a lot of interesting answers and got to know the each other a little more. After the introductions we did a warm up game, had snacks as the attendees interacted and got to know each other.
From 1900hrs to 2100hrs the coaches came together for coaches dinner. Here we discussed what was expected of them the next day and reviewed the schedule with them.
Day 2: Mega Coding Workshop
We started the day with ‘early bird swag’ where the attendees were awarded event t-shirts and other goodies from our sponsors.
We had a keynote speaker to kick off the day and get the participants into a coding mood. Coach Sigu took us through Ruby basics and Rails MVC, gems and Active Record. The second session was a breakout session during which,the attendees were divided into groups of three and each group assigned to coach.
During the breakout session, coaches explained what the different concepts meant, rather than what they were doing. We aimed for simple explanations even with the cost of accuracy. We avoided talking about all underlying concepts. Just tried to answer questions when they arose, or move on if they were too hard or out of scope. Basically the coaches aim was to show how to get stuff done. Our argument was, one has to learn how to build web applications before learning how to do it well. We developed a simple Ruby on Rails application(Rails Girls App Tutorial), similar for all the groups and the coaches guided through that. Concepts covered during the breakout session Rails Generators
- Scaffolds: Rails App Structure
- Gem Management
- MVC, REST/Resources
- Models and Active Record
- Controllers and ActionController
- Views and ERB
After lunch we brainstormed on what happened during the breakout sessions and the attendees came together to discuss on what they learned. They conducted some kid of Q&A session where the teams challenged each other with the Rails concepts they learned during the breakout session.It was amazing to see how much they have learned. We were more impressed to see them ask and answer questions about a language most of them had just interacted with in less than four hours.
We had a couple of lightning talks from the coaches on various topics. Coach Ruto talked about good coding practices, Coach Paul other languages that came to being because of Ruby, Coach Cynthia Opportunities in tech, Coach Hillary art of career pivoting, Coach Anthony open source and Coach Masila wrapped the talks with her inspiring career story. We made a point of making each speech not more than 10 minutes long so as to keep the attendees attentive and the speaker to go straight to the point.
After Party
We rewarded yourselves after successful day with a tasty Rails Girls Nairobi Cake, beverage and treats. After which networking and chatting with coaches and peers continued until it was time to leave.
Our Sponsors
Big thanks to all our sponsors microverse , Riara University, GitLab, Google, Software Lab Ventures, Gold Avenue Music and all the individual sponsors for making MegaCoding possible.
