Codethecity #6 – History Jam.
March 19-20.
Save the date, or grab yourself a ticket.
Last October, we ran Code The City 5, a hack weekend focussing on history and heritage. One of the projects that we worked on was “Histerical Time Machine”. Over the course of 36 hours Andrew Sage built a 3D virtual reality model of a small section of the centre of Aberdeen as it was in the 1870s. Alongside this we saw a group of volunteers look at a variety of books (remember those!) and extract some key dates to attach to the model.
CTC6
Normally at Code The City events, participants are encouraged to come up with the ideas and are free to work on what they want. We are going to run Code The City 6 , which will be supported by Aberdeen City Libraries, slightly differently. We are all going to work on sub-projects that will contribute to the further development of the 3D Historical model, and its data needs.
What we’ll be doing
We will have teams working on tasks such as:
- expanding the geographic coverage of the model. There will tutorials for developers on how to do that in Unity.
- transcribing a variety of pre-identified sources of data and putting those into structured formats that will drive not only this project but also be a permanent free source of open data.
- visualising data within the 3d model and in other ways.
- writing about the weekend, taking photos, blogging and using social media to tell the world what we are doing.
Who we need
We need a broad range of skills. These include:
- Transcribers, Note-Takers, Genealogists, Historians, Librarians
- Developers, Designers, UX Experts, Data wranglers, Data Scientists,
- Bloggers, photographers, videographers,
If you come with enthusiasm we’ll find a role for you – and we guarantee you will leave having picked up new skills, and with a sense of having achieved something useful with lasting value.
Bring a laptop to work on if you have one. An HDMI cable is useful for connecting to external monitors. If you want to take pictures or videos please take your own equipment if you can. We’ll make sure there is wifi for you to use. Don’t forget your power cable, and any chargers you might need too!
What does the weekend look like?
We’ll open up on Saturday morning at 9am, then have breakfast and a briefing session at 9.30am. We’ll then break into groups, each with a distinct set of tasks.
During the day, each group will work on their projects and periodically report back to the room on progress.
We’ll have lunch then continue in the same fashion for the afternoon. We’ll have pizza and drinks for tea and those who want to work on into the evening.
On Sunday we’ll start at 10am with breakfast and a quick update. We’ll follow the same pattern as Saturday, with lunch. We’ll wind up with a grand show and tell session in the late afternoon.
Sound good?
Then save the date, or grab yourself a ticket.
Code The City 