Tag: Raspithon

The Raspithon’s finished!

Ben, Luke, Ryan and Edward coded for 48 hours solid. And they created a very neat-looking game called Rasperroids; demonstrated to everyone (except that one guy) who dropped into their channel just how much fun coding can be; learned a lot; and raised more than £500 for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, for which we’re enormously grateful.

Ben play-tests the finished Rasperroids

You can download the code they wrote over the 48 hour marathon at Github.

I was pointed on Twitter at some thoughts from Richard West about the project, and what it means in context with concepts like paired programming and Agile (stuff that I suspect the Raspithon guys hadn’t ever encountered; they just sat down and worked out a collaborative programming model on their own). Richard’s post is well worth a read.

We are impressed, inspired and really touched by Ryan, Edward, Ben and Luke’s application, skill and thoughtfulness. Well done, guys – let’s do it again next year!

Raspithon continues: live feed undaunted by DDoS attacks

I’ve been checking into the Raspithon (this link is for a live feed) every few hours (time for sleep aside), and it’s surprisingly engrossing watching the video stream and chat channel as Ryan, Luke, Edward and Ben develop the game they’ve set themselves 48 hours to write. I heartily recommend it. They’re nearly a day into the project now, and last time I looked all kinds of interesting physics to do with bullets and explosions was going on. I don’t remember having that much trigonometry when I was 12. You can read more about the project here.

The guys have been suffering a DDoS attack which has taken their website down. I remain absolutely bemused that there are people out there who think doing such a thing to kids who are raising money for a charity is smart or funny. I could say a lot more about this, but I suspect that those of you who are reading will say it for me in the comments. Sam Nazarko, who is developing Raspbmc, a media player for Raspberry Pi, has also been a victim of a particularly nasty DDoS attack; the site you’re reading this on has been as well, but we are lucky enough to have a superb host in Mythic Beasts, who move very swiftly to address these problems when they occur and are surprisingly nice about stuff like this when it happens.

Fortunately, the Raspithon live feed is hosted elsewhere, so all they’ve lost is the wrapper that the feed lives in; the Raspithon itself is still going on, and the game (which I did advise them not call Rasperroids, but was overruled on) is developing nicely. Hanging out in the feed gives you a fascinating look into what it’s like to learn a new coding language (if you’re wanting to learn yourself, or if you’ve forgotten what it’s like). And if you’re there at the right time, you may find Eben, me, Alex or one of the other Raspberry Pi developers in the channel too; and we like it when people come along and engage us in conversation, be it about pizza or Python. You can find the feed at http://livestream.com/raspithon - Ryan et al hope the main site at www.raspithon.org.uk will be back later.

Raspithon – 48 hours of Python

Remember Ryan Walmsley? Ryan’s the young programmer behind the Rastrack map (please add your Raspberry Pi to it if you haven’t done so yet).

Ryan and a group of friends from around the world have decided that they’ll improve their Python programming skills (“We’re not 100% experienced in Python…” says Ryan) and raise some money for the Raspberry Pi Foundation at the same time by doing a 48-hour programming marathon over this weekend, at the end of which they hope they’ll have a game to show us.

Ryan

Ben

Edward, in his Minecraft incarnation

Luke

Ryan, Ben, Edward and Luke are aged between 12 and 16, and scattered across the globe from Australia to the UK. “We all have Raspberry Pis,” says Ryan; “We all agree this is going to be a  big challenge with us having to learn Python as we go, but fortunately we all have experience with other languages which should help us!” They’ll be streaming their progress live throughout the weekend and taking donations at the Raspithon website. All the proceeds are being donated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation – and yes, I agree that we should do something nice for Team Raspithon in return, so watch this space!

Ryan admits he’s spent the period running up to the Raspithon learning as much Python as he can; apparently coding in public is a great motivator.

They’ve got a simple spec for the game they’ll be building:

It’s the year 200X and you have been stranded in your ship. With no engines you are stuck in space in the middle of an alien attack. It’s now down to you to defend the ship from aliens coming to attack you from all angles!

We’re really looking forward to watching the guys work over the weekend (Eben has promised to drop by to lend a hand, and I hope some of you will too), and to seeing what they come up with. Thanks so much for your generosity, Ryan, Ben, Edward and Luke – it’s a brilliant idea and we hope you have fun with it.

The Raspithon starts at 6pm GMT +1 on Friday July 20.