The third Starterkit was held from 28th November until 2nd December. We had a blast!

It was the biggest Starterkit yet, with 43 students attending from 26 institutions across nine countries. The workshop started with the basics of the Python programming language, the bash shell and command line tools, and the version control system git, then, moved on to the first analysis steps.

On Thursday evening, we held a social event where the students, helpers, teachers, and organisers could relax together with a few drinks and some food. It was great fun; here’s a shot of everyone from the evening:

The Starterkit 2016 social event

The Starterkit team would like to thank all the students for attending, for being such good participants, and being patient with us when things didn’t quite go to plan. Luckily most things worked out well, and everyone learned a lot (including us!).

Feedback

The feedback from the students on the lessons has been overwhelmingly positive. For the Python, Bash, and git lessons, students enjoyed the interactivity, the little tips and tricks we dropped along the way, and the scope of the contents. The LHCb-specific lessons were praised for their clarity, for demystifying what’s going on behind the scenes, and for the sequence in which things were taught. In general, the help available during the lessons, both from the teachers and the helpers, was seen as a great benefit.

Everything was perfect

But we still have room to improve! The venues themselves weren’t particular comfortable, especially when sitting in them for a few days in row. For some students, some parts of the the Python, Bash, and git lessons were a little too basic, and some more advanced material would have been more stimulating. At times, with so much to cover, it’s easy to speed through things without taking the time to explain all the details, and that can be confusing.

At times it went too fast, but in the end was effective

We have not yet found the time to write up the Python, Bash, and git lessons, and this makes it harder for students to follow along, and to catch up later. We’re working on it!

The people

The Starterkit isn’t about software, it’s about people. It’s students helping students, out of nothing but the drive to help others do well, and to stop the cycle of frustration when there’s no help available.

Without the enormous effort of the helpers, teachers, organisers, and everyone who contributes to the lessons on GitHub, the Starterkit could not happen.

This year’s Starterkit was organised by Igor Babuschkin and Carla Marin Benito. It takes a phenomenal amount of effort to organise the workshop, and the work begins months in advance. This year, Igor and Carla have done an amazing job: booking rooms, finding teachers and helpers, registering students, sending many emails, and orchestrating everyone throughout the week. Thank you both!

We had a fantastic turn-out of teachers this year, with many people teaching at the Starterkit for the first time. These people aren’t all “experts”, they’re regular physicists and computer scientists who wanted to share their knowledge to help others, and they nailed it:

  • Igor Babuschkin
  • Carla Marin Benito
  • Christopher Burr
  • Lorenzo Capriotti
  • Marco Clemencic
  • Giulio Dujany
  • Olli Lupton
  • Rosen Matev
  • Dominik Müller
  • Alex Pearce
  • Albert Puig
  • Victor Renaudin
  • Sascha Stahl

Thank you!

We also had a top team of helpers, on stand-by to help students during the lessons with whatever problems may arise, and helping the organisers when things got tough. Without at least two helpers per lesson, problems can build up and bring things to a halt. Our helpers made sure that didn’t happen, and were praised for that by the students. Along with the teachers who also helped, they are:

  • Ben Couturier
  • Maria Vieites Diaz
  • Elena Graverini
  • Christoph Hasse
  • Luca Pescatore
  • Benedetto Siddi
  • Tobias Tekampe
  • Heather Wark

Thank you, helpers!

Last, but by no means least, a huge thank you to Svende Braun and Lorenzo Capriotti for organising the social event. Svende took on a huge burden but couldn’t have done better. The night ended with everyone merry, full, and with good memories. Thank you Svende and Lorenzo!

Here’s a photo of some of the teachers and helpers at the social event.

Some Starterkit 2016 teachers and helpers at the social event

Lessons

The first-analyis-steps repository is the core of the workshop, as well as serving as year-round reference material. Since last time, these people have contributed to the repository, along with the people above, and we can’t thank them enough for their time:

  • Sarah Beranek
  • Joel Closier
  • Pieter David
  • Christophe Haen
  • Tim Head
  • Maurizio Martinelli
  • Henry Schreiner
  • Konstantin Schubert
  • Mark Smith

Please keep those pull requests coming; we have lots to do!

Wrap up

It was a super fun workshop, and what seemed like a unsurmountable challenge was met by a passionate group of people who give it their all, and it paid off. We hope those who attended enjoyed it as much as we did.

Until next year!