Summer of Code/2015

Students: See our guide on how to participate in Google Summer of Code for more information.

Project candidates

In the table below is a list of projects potential participants might contribute to in the GSoC program.

Note 0: These are project ideas from Sugar Labs contributors. Students, feel free to propose your ideas as well.
Note 1: We are focusing on the Javascript components within Sugar this summer. It means that you've got to write activities for Sugar Web and Sugarizer. More information: on Sugar Web [1][2] and on Sugarizer [3]
Note 2: Potential mentors, please feel free to add ideas to this list. Also, feel free to add your name to a project you'd be willing to co-mentor.
Note 3: Potential students, more project ideas can be found on our Features page.
Note 4: Accepted projects are in Green

Sugar Core

Title	Mentor	Project
Git backend	Martin Abente Lahaye and Walter Bender	Brief explanation The Sugar Journal doesn't do a great job of supporting versioning or forking. This project is to build a backend for the Journal that is based on git, which does support versioning and forking. By building on top of a git hosting site we get the added benefit of network access as well. Expected results Working code and an integration with Turtle Blocks Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Git and scripting languages such as Python, Ruby and JavaScript.
Cordova/PhoneGap container for Sugar	Puneet Kaur and Lionel Laské	Brief explanation Making cordova plugins for sugar and demonstrating the working plugins via sugar activities, incooperating cordova plugins with the existing sugar activities visit : http://sugarcordova.blogspot.com/ for more info Expected results Working Demonstration of new plugins and new activities based on implemented plugins Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in JavaScript,python
Performance tuning on machines with limited memory	Samuel Greenfeld and James Cameron	Brief explanation The newer Sugar builds have performance issues on some old hardware with limited memory. This is keeping some Sugar deployments from upgrading. This project is to look into the performance issues and tune Sugar for low-memory devices. Expected results build suitable for running on OLPC XO-1 hardware Knowledge prerequisite
Re-design collaboration with web technologies	Martin Abente Lahaye and Walter Bender	Brief explanation Now that JavaScript has become a first class citizen in the Sugar ecosystem, we must re-design our collaboration model to allow collaboration between web activities regardless of the platform. Knowledge prerequisite JavaScript, web sockets, web services.

Sugar Activities

Title	Mentor	Project
Turtle Blocks 3D Javascript	Tony Forster and Walter Bender	Brief explanation The Python version of Turtle Blocks 3D is based on GTK since Sugar uses GTK and GTK is largely incompatible with OpenGL. In a Javascript version, we could use OpenGL and take advantage of many more graphics libraries, such as 3D lighting models and texture mapping. Expected results A new Turtle Blocks spin that adds basic 3D transforms to Turtle Blocks (e.g., setxyz, pitch, roll, yaw); camera and lighting models; surface texture mapping; and a rich set of example projects. Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Blocks export as Javascript	Walter Bender	Brief explanation The Python version of Turtle Blocks allows the user to export their project as Python code. We need an equivalent Javascript export for the Javascript version. Expected results Working code integrated into Turtle Blocks JS Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Blocks inline Javascript	Walter Bender	Brief explanation There are several block-based programming environments that allow the user to extend the language in line, such as Blocky and Pencil Code. (Turtle Blocks uses plugins for this, but they are imported). The goal of this project is to write an in-line block editor for Turtle Blocks (Javascript version). Expected results Working code integrated into Turtle Blocks JS Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Blocks debugging tools	Cynthia Solomon and Walter Bender	Brief explanation There are several debugging tools in Turtle Blocks: the ability to set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables. But we could use a more comprehensive approach, including a mechanism for tracking progress over time. Expected results Working code integrated into Turtle Blocks JS Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Blocks for in-line programming	Gonzalo Odiard and Walter Bender	Brief explanation Often we'd like users to be able to extend or modify an activity. Rather than doing this by writing Python or Javascript, why not let them use the block language of Turtle Blocks as an in-line editor. For example, in the Turtle Pond activity, the user can upload Python code representing search algorithms for the turtle as it tries to find its way out of the pond. Why not use a block editor to write the search algorithm? Using the Turtle Blocks engine as an editor inside existing activities would be the preferred mechanism, as oppose to constantly extending Turtle Blocks itself. This would (1) let the editor be more specific to the needs of the individual activity; (2) lessen the burden on the user for installing plugins and extensions; (3) circumvent situations where there are barriers to sharing data between activities -- e.g., running outside of Sugar; and (4) perhaps encourage more developers to incorporate more programmatic elements in their activities. Expected results Integration into the Physics Activity Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript/Python
Music Blocks	Devin Ulibarri	Brief explanation Using a framework similar to Turtle Blocks Javascript, build a suite of music tools for introducing the basic concepts of scale, beat, chord, phrasing, sequencing, transformations, etc. See some of Devin's sketches at [4]. Expected results Working code Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Beyond Flashcards: Programming to ReadJS	and Walter Bender	Brief explanation Back in the 1980s, IBM had a literacy program, "Writing to Read". The gist was that writing was a great way to spark a child's interest in reading. What if writing code could achieve a similar result? The project is to explore how programming might be incorporated into a literacy program. Like turtle, only simple sentences instead of stacks. It would be a "whole word" approach rather than a "phonics" approach: they can take "sentences" and make paragraphs that result in animations. Expected results Working prototype Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Covert Record, Clock, Speak and Measure to gstreamer 1.0	<TBD>	Brief explanation The vast majority of Activities that use gstreamer for sound have been converted to gstreamer 1.0 because the older 0.10 is now End of Life and is no longer being developed. It also adds quite a large set of extra duplicate dependencies to Sugar distributions. There's a lot of good examples of Activities that have been converted to provide excellent examples. The gstreamer 1.0 bindings are provided by gobject-introspection so it also assists in the conversion of Activities to gtk3. Expected results As many of the above Activities converted to use gst 1.0 Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in python, gobject-introspection and gstreamer
Covert TamTam to Csound6	<TBD>	Brief explanation TamTam makes extensive use of CSound, other Activities like Memorize, Pippy, and TurtleBlocks also can make use of CSound bindings. With the introduction of CSound 6 to a number of distributions TamTam needs migration to use the newer version of CSound. Expected results Convert TamTam to use CSound6, possibly other Activities Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in python, background in CSound
Modernise Etoys Activity	<TBD>	Brief explanation Etoys hasn't been updated for some time to newer Sugar APIs and design. Improve the Sugar Etoys Activity to no longer depend on the long obsolete sugar-presence-service and generally update it to more modern Sugar design and APIs. Expected results Modernise Etoys Sugar Activity Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in python

Sugar Activities (Ports)

These are existing Python activities we'd like to see ported to JavaScript. In porting we expect that the activities will take on new UI features and pedagogical significance.

Title	Mentor	Project
Sugar Web Basic Activity Set	Lionel Laské	Using Sugar Web Framework - the JavaScript Framework for Sugar - you will have to develop and enhance basic Sugar activity set including activities: Calculate, Paint, Memorize and Record. All activities should use Sugar features (specific UI, journal and collaboration) and should work both on Sugar/Fedora and Sugarizer/Web. Pre-requisite: Good level on HTML5/JavaScript and knowledge of frameworks to handle Canvas objects. Knowledge of PhoneGap/Cordova Understanding of Python Good capacity to do reverse engineering on existing code. More information: Sugar Web [5] [6], Sugarizer [7], Calculate [8], Paint [9][10], Memorize [11][12] and Record [13].
Abacus JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of the Abacus activity. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Fototoons JS	Gonzalo Odiard	Brief explanation Port of Fototoons. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Physics JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Physics. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Dimensions JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Dimensions. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Spirolaterals JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Spirolaterals. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Flags JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Turtle Flags. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Turtle Confusion JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Turtle Confusion. Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript
Image Viewer JS	Walter Bender	Brief explanation Port of Image Viewer (including image processing package) Expected results Knowledge prerequisite Strong background in Javascript

Web Technology

Sugar is based on the Python programming language. A major new emphasis is on web techologies: HTML5, CSS, and Javascript. There is a need to help our users learn these technologies.

Title

Mentor

Project

Web Confusion

Tony Anderson

Create a representative set of web pages as challenges to learners who are developing skills in HTML and CSS. The idea is comparable to Turtle Confusion which provides a set of figures to be created using TurtleBlocks. The web pages should not require Javascript. Creative use of images, audio and video should be encouraged (users have access to a camera and microphone and so can create media).

Pre-requisite:

Good knowledge of HTML and CSS and creative design skills