COVID19 Update by Google
Students, Google has sent us a communication regarding GSoC and the actual health world situation, there a few questions to know, read them and understand accordingly:
- Is GSoC still happening? Yes
- Will there be any changes to the timeline? Yes
- What happens if students can't access the internet anymore? Internet access remains a requirement to participate.
Google Summer of Code is a program designed for remote participants to communicate via online methods through the entirety of the program. In this increasingly confusing and disruptive time we are hopeful that GSoC can be a way for students to become part of your communities and for mentors and students to find some comfort in being part of the open source community and helping others. With many people in various forms of lockdown, the mentor-student connection can be incredibly important for folks.
Adjustments to GSoC timeline
A couple of adjustments have been made to the GSoC timeline to hopefully make things easier for you. We understand that these next few weeks are going to be "very dynamic" and people are making adjustments to their lives daily.
3 weeks to review student proposals (from 2 weeks)
We have added an additional week to allow mentors and org admins to review all of the proposals and to also help them determine their own possible time commitment adjustments. Our experiences with mandated work from home is that there can be an unexpected adjustment, even for people used to primarily working from home.
Student proposal review period is now March 31-April 20.
Extended Community Bonding period to 4 weeks (from 3 weeks)
We have also extended the Community Bonding period to allow for more flexibility for the students and mentors. The 4 weeks should definitely be used to get the student familiar with your community per usual but it also will allow the mentor and student to make some adjustments as they need for their particular situation. For example, if the mentor and student agree, the student can start coding earlier than the new June 1st date.
We just made these adjustments and they should now be reflected in the official timeline. Currently we are working on updating all of the various documents that had dates listed to reflect the new date changes (it may take us a day or two to get to all of them).
Internet Access
We've heard several concerns about Internet access during the pandemic. Working Internet access remains a requirement to participate in the program, as you'll need it to communicate between mentors and students, access source code, etc.
We hope that countries around the world will make sure their Internet services stay strong as it will be an important means of communication most folks have while in lockdown/quarantine situations.
This year brings additional challenges as some internet access points (such as Internet cafes) may not be accessible. If you are not confident that you'll be able to maintain acceptable internet access during the program, this may not be the right year to participate.
Important Upcoming Dates
These dates reflect the shifted schedule.
Now - March 31 18:00 UTC: Students will submit their draft proposals through the program website for you to give solid feedback on.
March 31 - April 20: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle (ie. how many you have committed mentors for). Decide on the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request- do not request more than your org can handle - this could take students away from orgs who have excellent student prospects and need the slots.
April 21 18:00 UTC: Deadline to submit slot requests (Org Admins enter requests)
April 22 18:00 UTC: Slot allocations are announced by Google
April 22 - 30 18:00 UTC: Orgs select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected. (Org Admins enter selections)
April 30 - May 4: Google Program Admins will do another review of student eligibility
May 4: Accepted GSoC 2020 students/projects are announced
May 4 - 31: Community Bonding Period
May 31: Deadline to notify Google Admins of an inactive student that you wish to be removed from the program
June 1: Coding begins
June 29 - July 3: First evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
July 27 - 31: Second evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
August 24 -31: Students wrap up their projects and submit final evaluation of their mentor
August 31 - September 7: Mentors submit final evaluations of students
September 8: Students passing GSoC 2020 are announced
March 31 - April 20: Review all submitted student proposals with your org and consider how many you want to select and how many you can handle (ie. how many you have committed mentors for). Decide on the minimum/maximum number of student slots to request- do not request more than your org can handle - this could take students away from orgs who have excellent student prospects and need the slots.
April 21 18:00 UTC: Deadline to submit slot requests (Org Admins enter requests)
April 22 18:00 UTC: Slot allocations are announced by Google
April 22 - 30 18:00 UTC: Orgs select the proposals to become student projects. At least 1 mentor must be assigned to each project before it can be selected. (Org Admins enter selections)
April 30 - May 4: Google Program Admins will do another review of student eligibility
May 4: Accepted GSoC 2020 students/projects are announced
May 4 - 31: Community Bonding Period
May 31: Deadline to notify Google Admins of an inactive student that you wish to be removed from the program
June 1: Coding begins
June 29 - July 3: First evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
July 27 - 31: Second evaluation period - mentors evaluate students, students evaluate mentors
August 24 -31: Students wrap up their projects and submit final evaluation of their mentor
August 31 - September 7: Mentors submit final evaluations of students
September 8: Students passing GSoC 2020 are announced
Say hello to Mr. Worldwide!
our new mascot created by student Kahy from Google Code-in 2019
21.3.2020 We are delaying another week the delivery of the proof of knowledge video
Due to Coronavirus issues around the world we're facilitating the new students approaching us the recording of their video, as noted in the student selection process page.
Till march 31th.
14.3.2020
With the help of GCI 2019-2020 students: Emilie (Kewbish), Dylan, Merul Dhiman, Asmrvin, Alvii_07, we have posted a new PC and Virtual Box Liquid Galaxy installationso useful for your video recording !
https://www.liquidgalaxy.eu/2020/03/new-liquid-galaxy-installation-manual.html
14.3.2020 We are delaying one week the delivery of the proof of knowledge video
CVE project has evolved to Simple CMS for Liquid Galaxy.
Added new project: Arduino controller for Liquid Galaxy
13.3.2020 The opening GSoC day approaches fast
UPDATE 25th february
UPDATE january 26, 2020
Some ideas like CVE are being updated after getting feedback from students already contacting us.
UPDATE january 3, 2020
Ideas Page is ready for students and Google.
We have three pivots this year: Global Warming, with actions focused on this, more Artificial Intelligence used as a backend for Liquid Galaxy visualizations, and use of the lovely work developed by the hundreds of students from around the world that are developing Google Code-in tasks with our organization.
We'll prefer this GSoC 2020 to have all the development contained on an Android or Flutter app, running on a tablet (not smartphone). If your core needs to run on the server and have a web application please consult your assigned mentor.
We look for two kinds of projects: the ones being core to be used in other applications (APIS or tool development) and Projects developing the Liquid Galaxy concept.
Presentation library
The most common Liquid Galaxy scenario is based on Google Earth but we have to start to integrate, an even migrate, to more actual platforms like the simple and old web and html.
We want students to present proposals to develop a platform to handle html presentations (this will include all kind of contents, photo, text, videos...) over the Google Earth. Layers will be the most common solution but you can present your ideas.
The project will include a tool to arrange presentations in a timeline and spatially conscious manner , like "now present in half screen 3 left a browser with this html" and stay open till new order or close after n seconds.
Remote installation and monitoring tool
As the community is growing and many of you have your own LGs and also you bring them to fairs or similar, we want to have a tool to remote install and monitorice the LG.
Think about technologies to handle packages (Kubernetes or similar), automation tools like Puppet, or similar ones.
3D visualization library
We want students to present proposals related to create a library or set of libraries that will expand the typical Liquid Galaxy graphic toolbox. On 2019 year student Eric started the project, but we want it to be improved and expanded to vertical use cases.
See our videos in the many channels previously mentioned to get and idea, contact us with your questions and proposals.
Tensorflow AI library for Liquid Galaxy
We want to incorporate more AI and Tensorflow in our platform. On 2019 we developed a project with use case Dronecoria, where this technologies were largely used.
As a sample waiting for your ideas past GSoC student Sreyas, is proposing this activities for enhancing user experience with ML based functionalities.
1) Read a place(location or feature) from an image (OCR) and show it on the LG screen. [https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/vision/text-recognition]
2) Identify prominent landmarks, buildings etc from an image and give suggestions or open on LG. For example, a picture of Eiffel Tower should open Eiffel Tower, Paris, France appropriately on the LG. [https://developers.google.com/ml-kit/vision/landmark-detection]
It could be further worked to mimic the view angle, shear etc.
An additional experimentation could be finding locations based on the architecture style or further.
Simple CMS for Liquid Galaxy
You can extract ideas for the in Beta status Google Earth Tour Builder.
Considerations:
- We want it based on Android or Dart not a server. All the code will run on the local system, no server based code will be developed, except the access to an API for the use case.
- The app has to run on 10 and 24" tablets, so at least two views will have to be coded. No smartphone view is needed, but if developed on Flutter Web version has to be also ready.
- The CMS will allow the user to create simple storyboards and store and interchange them. The user has also to be able to import simple chunks of data and then add images or movements, like from csv files or connected to APIs.
- You can reuse some of the graphic code developed at last years New tools for the Liquid Galaxy project ,the android based LG Android Controller app, or the Dart based controller, to draw the following Earth KML Liquid Galaxy primitives:
. single points with metadata to be shown in balloons (text, images and youtube videos)
. lines
. polygonal shapes
And also incorporate the movement primitives:
. goto (a place)
. change camera angle
. orbit (360 deg around the actual point)
All of those primitives are already developed in the aforementioned code. You only have to extract and adapt to your own style.
The primitives, contents and actions will have to be time based, allowing the user to define the interval in seconds between each action.
The application has to be able to store several storyboards and be able to interchange them via email or google drive, maybe using xml or json files.
The primitives, contents and actions will have to be time based, allowing the user to define the interval in seconds between each action.
The application has to be able to store several storyboards and be able to interchange them via email or google drive, maybe using xml or json files.
The project will have to be delivered with a special use case (old CVE):
- An API connection: We want the app to be able to make a web scraping of the Meetup.com Google Developers community, get the data and show as many info of the user group as you get always located on earth globe. This ability will be a function of the application and every time the users wants to the app will connect to the meetup.com and get actual data and store them on the cms to be represented. This can be stored locally to not have to access every time to the data, unless the user wants to.
THIS APP IS ALREADY DEVELOPED BY Kevin Simper, and you can get the code at Github
Also students will have to import too the spanish Tech Conference List web site (created and maintained by Nicolás Patarino). Students will have to make a scrapping of the site to extract the four data (date, twitter, url and location). Site is https://npatarino.github.io/tech-conferences-spain/
Also students will have to import too the spanish Tech Conference List web site (created and maintained by Nicolás Patarino). Students will have to make a scrapping of the site to extract the four data (date, twitter, url and location). Site is https://npatarino.github.io/tech-conferences-spain/
Mentors Marc from Sorocaba, Brasil, and Andreu, from Lleida, Spain, did a initial project back in 2015 like this presenting all the GDG communities on the Liquid Galaxy we have at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
We did this but manually, as there was no API.
We did this but manually, as there was no API.
Arduino has win a reputation as a cheap and powerful electronics platform with plenty of abilities.
In the 2019 Google Code-in world contest, dozens of students develop tasks related to interact with the Liquid Galaxy using this platform.
The project idea is to develop an Arduino controller for Liquid Galaxy following the ideas already developed, integrating them in one single code, and also delivery the needed hardware with schematics. ALL the Arduino code and how to connect to the LG is already created, but, no warranty over it, and has to be integrated on a single project.
The project has to have all this functionalities and hardware integrated:
- Ultrasonic sensors for zoom in zoom out (raising and lowering your hand over the sensors)
- Keypad for assigning direct jumps to Point of Interest (locations) 16 places to be edited by the user on the Arduino code or preferible through a simple Android app to be developed too.
- Joystick module, to freely navigate around the globe.
- Gyroscope and accelerometer, to navigate by rotate or move the Arduino setup.
- Typical Arduino Glove to control the liquid galaxy.
- Typical Arduino Glove to control the liquid galaxy.
- Has to be able to connect to the LG by wifi, not by usb cable, so it has to have an ESP8266 or similar board attached.
For linking to the Liquid Galaxy, you can reuse code from the students and use our KML-API project.
You'll have to:
- Nicely crafted manual with step by step instructions. Delivered in pdf, .md (GGithub pages), and plain html. Will have to cover both hard and software.
- Deliver full schematics of the connexions.
- Google sheet share view only with all the hardware references to replicate your project.
- 3 demonstration videos: hardware, software and demo.
- Deliver full schematics of the connexions.
- Google sheet share view only with all the hardware references to replicate your project.
- 3 demonstration videos: hardware, software and demo.
- Give credit on your code and documentation to the students you've reuse code.
Student Qazi, ultrasonic sensors and keypad setup.
Find here info about the aforementioned GCI tasks:
Some video samples are here:
And some more and Arduino code on this drive folder:
(no warranty on the code, as was made by really young students 13 to 17 years)
The student will have to buy all the needed elements by itself, around 150$ at Amazon.
Sea Forecasting
As all the humanity has to fight for, we at the Liquid Galaxy project want to fight against the Global Climate problem, here's something to note it in public places.
First see some of the many logos and new name project GCI 19-20 students have drawn for this Open Project we have at Liquid Galaxy project.
Some of the many logos GCI 19-20 students have drawn for this project
Internet of Espadriles
Another Open Project we're working on is the so called Internet of Espadrilles.
Some of the many logos GCI 19-20 students have drawn for this project
Satellite Visualization Tool for P.E.R.A.
Following the very succesful 2019 project Air Mashup, we're going up and want to develop a simillar tool for the space, next to our brother community P.E.R.A.
Take a look at Alberto Morea, GSoC 2019 student and present a proposal to do the same kind of project this time for spatial objects, like rockets, satellites, etc
Not only think in earth, but also moon and mars, that Google Earth has support and we have gear flying or staying there.
Free Parking Visualization Tool
Forest Analysis and Visualization II
Following our interest in the Global Climate problem, we started years ago the collaboration on world project Dronecoria. Las year student Marcel develop a nice platform using AI and modern techniques to give a help with the Liquid Galaxy and drones where fires have been killing forests.
This year we want to continue his work.
See his presentation there and look at the code here.
