Ruby for Good: Volunteer Work Experience

We were at the Ruby for Good event at Shepherd's Spring Camp and Retreat Center.  This is an event whereby volunteers gather to provide IT solutions for non-profit organizations. This year's event started on the afternoon of May 30, 2024 and wrapped up on the noon of June 2, 2024.   

Four ad hoc teams were formed based on pitches from leaders that represented non-profit organizations who required web based solutions.  Ruby on Rails was used to build these web based apps, hence the name for the event - Ruby for Good.

The organizers were careful to avoid calling this four-day event a hackathon.  Although the days' sessions were dedicated to working on coding and presenting results, the evening sessions (with the exception of the last day, which ended at noon) were dedicated to socializing.

People played board games, sang at a karaoke, and sat around a fire making smores while engaged in conversations.  Balance of work and socialization was important to the organizers, and i am grateful for that.

Of course, each of us brings our own personalities to the table.  I could never muster the courage to belt out a tune at the karaoke event.  My roommate Felipe (two persons were assigned per room), on the contrary, was a rockstar of the events for two nights in a row.  i only attended the second session but got to watch him enjoy himself and entertain the crowd firsthand.

On the coding side, my Team's task was to provide improvements for an online volunteer work tracking app for the non-profit organization CASA.  To my stupefaction, the programming experts normally worked on Linux machines (laptops).  They initially had to work hard on providing me code-space on my Windows-based laptop.

Although I was offered to work with another group who had a code-space up and running, I refused to jump ship.  I ended up being paired with Mark, another programmer, until my code-space started running.

Ironically, Mark was also working with Windows-Based laptop.  However, because he was already well-set up, he had no problem working on the coding.  

Through working with Mark, I was introduced to pair-programming, in which two people brainstorm together and collaboratively work on coding.  In our case, Mark did the heaby lifting while I did the heavy learning.  

The next day, with my code-space up and running, Mark guided me on how to actually work with codes.  I did manage to put in few codes that tweaked the app we were working on.

When each pair in our team presented their work, Mark had the presence of mind to let me speak to what we were paired to do.  He did the heavy lifting, but was gracious enough to let the novice, me, do the informal presentation within our group.

Our team lead for the CASA project did the final presntation at the closing of the event.  

Personally, I enjoyed the work-fun balance imbedded in the event.  I am grateful that I got to attend this event.  Hopefully, I will get to attend more of Ruby for Good events.