RailsCamp Germany 2013

Almost there

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:00:00 +0200

RailsCamp Germany #5 is approaching fast, with only 2 days left until our very special geekend begins. High time for some last updates and infos to prepare us all for this unconference extraordinaire. So, without further ado, here’s what you need to know:

What to bring

When you leave your house, apartment, cave, boat, or whatever awesome place you’re living at, make sure to bring (at least some of) these items along:

Computer
Power adapters, cables, etc. (esp. display adapters for projectors!)
Towel
Light clothes (and preferably lots of them, because it’s going to be hot and humid)
Sports clothes (Nothing elaborate. Just don’t miss out on a fun round of e.g. Ultimate Frisbee, because you cannot sweat your fancy pants!)
Camping stuff, if you want to sleep at the venue (at least a sleeping bag, but you can go pro on this and bring your tents and whatnot, if you like.)
Climbing equipment, if you’re an avid climber (there’s a wall in the main hall, and you can also rent equipment from the Abenteuerhallen)
Swimming pants/suits or similar, if you want to cool down with a swim sometime (there’s a place not far away, bonus points for mankinis!)
Medicine and other such things you may need
Frisbees, balls, outdoor games, board games, funky hardware or objects, and basically anything you want to share with others and/or have fun with. Go crazy!

Session planning

This week we launched the session planning tool, where you should propose your session as soon as possible, so people can show their interest and we can plan more efficiently on Saturday morning.

The tool is still under development, so please expect a few quirks and bugs. The app is actually being built by our friends of eurucamp for their awesome conference, which also allows for plenty of activities during the day. Many thanks for letting us (ab)use it!

Make sure you add good descriptions, especially if your proposed session is not a talk! And please register and show your interest for the sessions you might want to attend.

Getting there

In case you haven’t seen it, instructions for getting to the Camp are listed on the venue page on the website. If you have questions beyond that, shoot us a tweet, or drop us an email at mail[at]railscamp.de.

Tickets

Don’t bother with printing out your tickets. We’ll just use a simple guest list, nightclub style. If you chose the pay-at-the-door option, please make sure to bring counted cash. We won’t have change for you, especially not in coins.

There are still some last tickets left, so we still have room for a few more people. If you haven’t already, tell all your Ruby/Rails/Web friends about RailsCamp! Tweet about it, blog about it, post it on F***book… you get the idea.

Setup and Warmup Party

Setup will begin on Friday morning, and the more people we are, the easier it gets. So if you have time, swing by the Abenteuerhallen anytime you want on Friday and join the prep crew!

The warmup party will take place at the venue and start at about 20:00. You can already sleep in the skate hall or outdoors on Friday, if you like. There are showers as well, so you can start fresh into the day in the morning.

Opening Session

And finally, we’ll begin the welcome reception and planning session at about 11:00 on Saturday morning. Everything else will be announced and explained there, so please make sure you don’t miss it, everybody!

See you there!

That’s it for today. If you have any questions, tweet us at @railscamp_de or send us a good old email to mail[at]railscamp.de! Have a good trip to Cologne and see you at the Camp!

Needs moar Internet

Wed, 17 Jul 2013 13:30:00 +0200

TL;DR: This is a quick update on the Internet connection at the venue. Maybe we could use your help.

The problem

The venue itself only has a tiny 2 Mb/s DSL connection that won’t help us much and our efforts to get partners for a decent and affordable or sponsored alternative have not succeeded so far. We’ve had contact with NetCologne, T-Mobile and Vodafone, but we couldn’t reach the right people there for our type of event.

The current solutions

We found a service provider that will provide us with hardware to bundle multiple LTE and other Internet sources. However, in addition to the rental costs for the hardware, we’d need to pay ~8.50€ per GB for LTE data beyond an allowance of 50GB, which might exceed our budget rather quickly.

We’re also looking at the option of a directional wi-fi connection from somewhere with a better uplink, but it’s not easy to get access to a tall building within sight of the venue.

Can you help?

Do you have any contacts at one of the big LTE/UMTS providers in Germany and could help RailsCamp get sponsored SIM cards for the weekend, or a proper discount on traffic costs?
Do you know somebody with access to a taller building in Köln Kalk to place a directional antenna?
Do you have any other idea how to get decent, affordable Internet to a remote urban location?

Details are available on the according GitHub issue, which is also the best way for you to contribute. Thanks!

Second batch of tickets now on sale!

Mon, 15 Jul 2013 18:00:00 +0200

Hi everybody,

As the first batch of tickets is almost gone, we just added another 100 tickets! ¹

If you already have a ticket, go out and spread the word to all Ruby, Rails, and Web people you know! If you were thinking about attending, but haven’t decided yet, you should probably get yours now, because it might be too late otherwise.

In any case, we’re all incredibly excited about RailsCamp Germany this year, and the crowdsourced organization is going really well.

Stay tuned for news about our session planning tool, which you can use to announce your session, so that other people can express their interest in it. That way we can easier allocate the room/location and time for it.

Hope to see you all in Cologne in 2 weeks!

We also added the option to pay in cash at the door for people who don’t own a credit card. Please only use it in that case. Furthermore, it is now possible to buy 2 tickets at once, which many people wanted to do already, but couldn’t.
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Getting warmer

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0200

Not even 3 weeks left until the best RailsCamp ever – time to start warming up and announcing things! But first off, a big thank you to everybody who already contributed something, anything, to this unconference extraordinaire! You’re many, and it’s going great so far. Keep it up!

Let’s begin with a short (obviously incomplete) summary of the current state of organization. Please dive in and help out with anything you like¹, even if it’s just adding useful information to the comments:

We’ll have a beer garden and a large hack tent with beach chairs n stuff outside, and we can officially make noise there until 5am. The warm-up party will also take place there, so if you want, you seriously don’t have to leave the venue at all from Friday until Sunday.
The setup indoors is pretty much sorted out, and fortunately most of the material doesn’t even have to be shipped there, because the venue comes with all sorts of things like chairs, stage elements, etc.
We still need some projectors (or how the Germans among us like to call them: beamers). If you can bring one, please add a comment to the issue!
There’s going to be a Railscamp 5k Run
We’ll have über-awesome wi-fi, courtesy of the CCC
We’re still trying to get a proper Internet uplink secured. Hope for the best, or help get it done!
Our campers and Sailor sponsors of Geekstammtisch will set up their podcasting studio at the venue, and will probably even do live recording sessions if you’re interested. Furthermore, we’ll have a freelance journalist creating a short movie about the camp.
Ticket sales are going well so far (more on that in the next post), and most of the first batch is gone. Fun fact: at the time of this writing, you contributed the average amount of 7 EUR more per ticket than the suggested price. Thank you, everybody!
We have a quote for a coffee truck (with flat rate and optional crêpe unit), but we still need sponsors for it (~500/day). Anyone interested in making a lot of campers very happy?
Rails Girls will be officially part of the camp with sessions, app hacking, and more. Separate announcement/invitation coming up. Thanks to everybody involved in this so far!

That’s it for today’s status update. As you can see, we’re unstoppable by now, and it’s only getting even better by the day. Thanks again to everybody who contributed so far! And see you tomorrow for our next announcement!

P.S.: We also have an Atom feed for the blog now. Use any RSS/Atom reader to subscribe!

“We” always includes you and every other participant.
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RailsCamp Germany is back, and you're all invited!

Wed, 29 May 2013 21:00:00 +0200

You’ve probably heard it on Twitter already, but this is where shit gets real: RailsCamp Germany is back, and it’s going to be [fill in favorite neologism or TV show quote for the highest level of awesomeness]!

It’ll be happening during the weekend of July 27/28, with our traditional warm-up party the night before, of course. Fortunately, we found an incredible venue in Cologne, accommodating about 200 humans, and allowing all sorts of activities and spontaneous RailsCamp craziness to happen. If you want, you can even set up tent in the the neighboring skate hall, so you don’t have to leave during the whole weekend. And how about a climb up the walls during the day?

As you can see, RailsCamp Germany is still all about networking and exchanging knowledge and ideas in the most laid-back atmosphere possible – no stress, no hardcore schedule, lots of fun, and space for whatever you feel like doing. And most importantly: you will decide what exactly the camp will be in the end! In fact, we have only 2 rules:

Everybody contributes, no matter what or how small. ¹
There are no other rules.

With this 5th edition of RCG more than doubling the size of the event once again, it’ll take some more hands and planning to stay on top of our customary anarchy. And as a 100% non-profit community event we’ll need as many of you as possible to help get everything in place for this Unconference Extraordinaire.

As a decentralized organization team, we’ve set up some tools to help us collaborate remotely. If you want to get get involved before the event, check out what we already have, find something you’d like to help with or add something new, and join the conversation:

GitHub Issues on the event repo are our main organization channel. We started adding some topics and tasks a week ago, but people are adding new things every day.
The original idea pad still contains some things, that are not yet converted to GitHub issues. Furthermore, specific pads are linked at the bottom. Feel free to add and edit anytime.
#railscamp_de on Freenode is our offical IRC channel. Just drop by anytime.
The orga mailing list is the only non-public channel, which we only use for confidential information. If you want access, just request it. It’s not necessary for anything other than looking at a few boring numbers, though. ;)

We’re also doing regular Google Hangouts every Tuesday at 5pm. The URL is always shared on both IRC and Twitter.

For session planning before and during the event, we will have a nice little Rails app, developed by the fine folks of eurucamp. You’ll be able to add whatever you want to start – talks, discussions, activities, workshops, etc. – and people can then register their interest, so we can decide on the room/location details on site, depending on how much space is required.

In light of the increased costs, and that we cannot afford too much uncertainty on no-shows, this year we will have entry fees for the first time ever. We’ll have 3 types of tickets – students, normal, and supporters – with the normal one costing around 25 EUR. That’s still a killer deal for a 2.5-day developer paradise, and that’s mostly due to our awesome…

Sponsors! We haven’t compiled the various packages yet, but if you’re running or working at a company which could chip in a few bucks (or many), please get in touch! We’ll have sponsoring opportunities starting at a few hundred Euro, so there’ll be something for every budget. And if you’re on the lookout for new developers to hire, we have some nice extras planned for you.

So, long story short: fellow RailsCampers, you’re all invited to join us for the 5th incarnation of RailsCamp Germany in about 2 months in Cologne! We’re open to everyone, from beginners to masters of their craft. It’ll be an epic weekend of learning new things, meeting fellow enthusiasts, and having tons of fun. Everything is allowed², and you’re in charge of the program. We’re incredibly excited, and we hope to see you there!

If you’re interested, then mark your calendar, follow us on Twitter, and track the event on Lanyrd.

Oh, and one more thing: In order to keep the books clean and pool more resources within the German Ruby community, we’re glad to announce that the Ruby Berlin e.V. will be the official host of this year’s camp! They’re an amazing bunch of committed volunteers³, and we’re very happy to have them on board.

This can be a talk, a discussion session, asking questions, helping out with one of the many tasks on site (e.g. manning the reception stand for an hour), helping organize something upfront – whatever you like.
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Except being racist, sexist, or any other kind of mean, of course.
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Seriously, check this out for example.
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