Groupthink

NOTE: this application was never processed because it was not submitted to Google OR included in the relevant category (Category:2009 GSoC applications) at the time.

About you

1. Jason Rock
2. rockj (at) rpi (dot) edu
3. User:Jrock
4. Jrock08
5. English
6. US Central Time Zone
7. olpc:Time Math4Team, current project multiply at [1].

I want to work in open source because I have used open source for a while, but I didn't feel I had the skills and I didn't make the time to contribute. I feel that I have increased my programing and computer science skills to the point where I can work on a real project. I want to contribute to Sugar because I would have loved to have a computer with games and learning tools for me when I was growing up. I also really enjoy thinking about education. I always wondered why our education system for the elementary grades didn't make learning as fun as I feel it could have been.

About your project

1. Groupthink
2. Groupthink is a development toolkit meant to make collaboration projects easier by abstracting the many algorithms such as failure recovery that are required to effectively collaborate between XO's. As a first step, I am looking at incorporating the string tree that allows for lossless merging which is already in the git repo into the project and then patching the write activity to use Groupthink. I am doing this to help other developers who have applications that could be networked

1. I will have to talk more with Ben Schwartz to get a better idea of a potential timeline
2. I feel I will be able to successfully help develop the groupthink toolkit because I am a strong algorithm programmer having competed in many contests at USACO, ACSL, and Topcoder with some success. I feel that I have a fairly strong base in algorithms from my competitions and formal classes, and am currently taking a theoretical algorithms course that has helped ground my applied algorithms knowledge. As a young programmer I obviously don't have a large portfolio, but I have written a neural network, A*, and numerous other algorithms and data structures from scratch. I have also helped write a simulation of a house fire (in 72 hours for a math modeling competition) and image manipulation with the end goal to solve CAPTCHAs.

You and the community

1. If your project is successfully completed, what will its impact be on the Sugar Labs community? Give 3 answers, each 1-3 paragraphs in length. The first one should be yours. The other two should be answers from members of the Sugar Labs community, at least one of whom should be a Sugar Labs GSoC mentor. Provide email contact information for non-GSoC mentors.
2. I would like to see the community group set up in the Aurora Illinois area near the Illinois Math and Science Academy. It would be close enough for me (1 hour drive) and would help out the IMSA OLPC chapter by giving them a lasting resource.
3. If I get stuck I will attempt to find a relevant answer from Google or IRC if it is an implementation problem. If it is a theoretical problem my two roommates from IMSA are always willing to talk with me about algorithms, and if they aren't available I will make some new friends on IRC.
4. To keep the community informed I will be active in the IRC channel as well as on the mailing list. I will also keep an up to date wiki page.

Miscellaneous

An example of the kind of screenshot of your first modification to your development environment which you should include in your application. Note that the drop-down menu text has Mel's email address in place of the word "Restart" - your screenshot should contain your email instead.

1. We want to make sure that you can set up a development environment before the summer starts. Please send us a link to a screenshot of your Sugar development environment with the following modification: when you hover over the XO-person icon in the middle of Home view, the drop-down text should have your email in place of "Restart." See the image on the right for an example. It's normal to need assistance with this, so please visit our IRC channel, #sugar on irc.freenode.net, and ask for help.
2. Medium
3. Describe a great learning experience you had as a child.