Vanier FLOSS Day 2024 ​

The third edition of Vanier FLOSS Day happened on October 16th 2024, on a Wednesday, during the school Fall break. All Vanier community was invited, through MIOs and a printed poster. This time we did not publicize the event outside the College, since we quickly reached our room capacity.

Participants ​

An online form was setup and 58 people were registered prior to the event. This was the first time we had an auto-reply sent after registration (Thanks to Anghelos) and a reminder sent 2 days before, as an effort to keep people engaged.

On the day, 44 people checked in:

• Vanier community:

  • 10 Computer Science and Mathematics (CSM) students
  • 22 Computer Science and Technology (CST) students
  • 1 Vanier CS student (did not specify the program)
  • 2 Alumni
  • 3 Computer Science teachers
  • 1 Computer Engineering teacher
  • 1 Makerspace technician

• Outside from Vanier (guest speakers):

  • 2 McGill students (McGill Open Mapping Group)
  • 2 FLOSS developers (Tor and Debian projects)

This time we had less program diversity than last year, when several students from non-CS regular programs also attended the meeting. Among the cancellations and no-shows for this year, we had several students from Health Sciences, Electrical Engineering and CS continuing education programs. Something to strive for next year: keep those participants engaged until the day of the event.

Swag ​

All participants took home a FLOSS Day 3D printed keychain. On top of that, a selection of FLOSS project stickers were printed and made available.

3D Printed Keychain (by Qian Qian) ​

The keychain is based on a Tinkercad design of IronGears10 licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. There are some modification done. Final Tinkercad is shared here, and you can find the final design in form of the Prusa Slicer project (3mf) in this repo here.

We had a few prototypes experimenting corner design and color matching; and finally the design preview of the final design.

3d-swag-prototypes	final-design
3d swag prototypes	final design preview

Then the final design was produced in batch by Vanier Makerspace and got ready before the FLOSS Day.

mass-production	3d-keychain
mass production	3d keychain

FLOSS stickers (by Manas Patel and Anghelos Coulon) ​

We have also produced some stickers to give away. A couple of original designs for the FLOSS Day, and a few other official logos from FLOSS projects.

Schedule ​

For the first time we had a pre-determined schedule. Here are the highlights:

• 2 intro sessions about FLOSS and how to contribute
• 2 guest talks: OpenStreetMap project (OSM) in the morning and Tor project in the afternoon.
• 6 UNIX course students presented about GNU/Linux distributions
• a 7-speakers Lightning Talks session, where each participant had 3 min to share about a cool FLOSS project
• 3 hands-on workshops in parallel: OSM, Git, Debian packaging

Drawing robot ​

The Tor project logo was being "cooked" by a robot as presentations were taking place, and by the end of the day participants could appreciate the beautiful onion logo.

Lunch and snacks ​

• Snacks: coffee, fruits and pastries
• Lunch: pizza, the easiest to handle dietary restrictions

Testimonials ​

What did you like most about the FLOSS Day?

"I liked the workshop part where we could learn multiple topics that we don't know." (Alexandru Cirlan)

"I really enjoyed the talks, everyone seemed to be passionate about what they wanted to show off. Educational too!" (Le Tuan Huy Nguyen)

"Audience engagement" (Tassia)

"I liked the tor project presentation the most as well as the presentations made by the students." (anonymous)

"The talks from people that are from outside vanier (tor, OSm)" (anonymous)

"Lots of questions for Tor folks!" (anonymous)

Did it help you to understand what FLOSS is all about?

"Yes, the idea was much clearer inside of my head than at the end of the day." (Alexandru Cirlan)

"Yes it did help me understand what FLOSS is all about thanks to all of the presentations. " (anonymous)

"well, no, i already knew about that. 😃" (anonymous)

Did it motivate you to contribute to FLOSS projects (even more if you already do)?

"A little, I am a big fan of maps and I'm thinking of contributing a little to openstreetmap.org." (Alexandru Cirlan)

"It did motivate me to contribute to FLOSS projects, especially concerning the OpenStreetMap database (adding data about free parking is an excellent idea)." (anonymous)

"Yes", "Yea", "yes!" (all anonymous)

Lessons for future events ​

What could go better the next time?

"A mic would be nice, hearing some people got a bit rough. Consider to split up workshops into different times, as a lot of people wished they could take multiple." (Alexandru Cirlan)

"Maybe the talks should be less long (smaller blocks). Timing was a little rushed for the lightning talks. Maybe there should be more focus on how to contribute but more technical." (Le Tuan Huy Nguyen)

"Put signs on the wall the day before and have the check-in station ready as early as possible" (Tassia)

"Start the organization of the event a bit earlier maybe? It's a bit of a rush this year." (Qian)

"There should be a description for what exactly the workshops will be about." (anonymous)

"More hands on stuff." (anonymous)

Organization Team ​

The FLOSS Day is organized by the Vanier FLOSS Club, with the help of friends from the Vanier CSSA (Computer Science Students Association), as well as the STEM Center, including the Robotics team.

This is the list of people who participated in orga meetings:

• Tassia
• Justin
• Qian
• Alex
• Ali
• Vassia
• Ibrahim
• Kais
• Manas
• Andrei
• Aya
• Ahmet
• Anghelos

Acknowledgement ​

This event would not be possible without the support and participation of many, so MANY THANKS to...

• Vanier College
• Faculty of Science and Technology
• STEM Center
• FLOSS Day 24 orga team
• Speakers
• Participants