Overview
Teaching: 5 min Exercises: 0 minQuestions
What is the format of this event?
Will my laptop work for this hackathon?
Will I need to learn a specific programming language to participate?
What can I do in advance to prepare?
Objectives
Getting patricipants ready for running code in the cloud and on their local machines during the hackweek.
Overview
Welcome to Geohackweek! Hackweeks were originally designed by the University of Washington’s eScience Institute, and they aim to provide a welcoming learning environment where you can learn new software tools, collaborate with colleagues, build community and make progress on specific projects. Our hackweek model is constantly evolving and we invite you actively participate as we experiment with new approaches and ideas.
This preliminary tutorial is one that we would like you to complete before arriving to the hackweek. The purpose is to learn about how we plan to work with various software tools and how you can best prepare for our event. We would like everyone works through this tutorial so that we can make the best use of our time together in person.
What is the format of this event?
Here is a general roadmap of our event:
- we begin the hackweek with a review of our code of conduct, and we build a set of guidelines for co-creating a positive and welcoming learning environment
- each morning (and occasionally early afternoons) will involve tutorials and short presentations
- each afternoon will be time for working on group projects. We’ll check-in with project teams on a regular basis to find what’s working and where challenges lie.
- we will guide participants through the formation of groups on day 1
- there will be opportunities for peer learning and open tutorials on topics of most interest to the group
- participants will be invited to present their work on day 5 before we depart
Will my laptop work for this hackathon?
All participants will be required to have their own laptop. The absolute minimum requirement is any laptop with a functioning web browser so that you can access our shared cloud computing resources. We will also teach you to install software on your own computer. For that we recommend the following:
- Windows Vista or newer, MAC OS X 10.7+, or Linux (Ubuntu, RedHat and others; CentOS 5+)
- 32-bit or 64-bit
- Minimum 3 GB disk space to download and install software
If you do not have a laptop, please contact us and we might be able to loan you one during the event.
Will I need to learn a specific programming language to participate?
We welcome all participants regardless of their programming background. In order to teach our content in a consistent way we need to select one programming languge. We have chosen Python because it is free and open source, and has many libraries suitable for efficient manipulation of geospatial data.
If you’re new to Python, here are some excellent resources we recommend working through in advance of our event:
- Software carpentry lessons, especially the Python tutorial
- Python Data Science Handbook
- a collection of a variety of data science lessons developed by the UW eScience Institute
If you’re a Python expert, we hope you can use this event as an opportunity to share some of your knowledge with your peers!
What can I do in advance to prepare?
We require all participants to work through the next 4 lessons in advance of our event. The lessons are brief and will ensure that we are all set up and ready to work when we arrive.
- Lesson 1: setting up a GitHub account
- Lesson 2: connecting to our shared cloud computing environment
- Lesson 3: installing Python on your laptop
How do I ask questions about Geohackweek
If you have technical or general questions about the Hackweek. Please use the General channel on Slack
Key Points
hackweeks combine interactive tutorials with open project time in a shared learning environment
everyone will need their own laptop to participate
we offer all tutorials in the Python programming language
we require everyone to work through these preliminary tutorials before arriving