Oppia 3 Presentation:

The Oppia 3 group mentioned that because of environment issues and slow build times, they had to shift their focus to dive into content creation and issue reporting. I found this pivot interesting, especially since it mirrors some of the flexibility we’ve had to practice in our own grouplike having to wait for feedback before moving forward. They also worked on the progress board, just like the Oppia group from last week, which made it clear that some challenges are shared across the teams that worked on the same project.They even incorporated AI-generated images, although they ran into trouble uploading them because Oppia didn’t clearly outline image size requirements. In the end, they completed a Manhattan tour exploration and another on Git version control one and even added voice contributions. Overall, it was cool seeing how they adapted and still made meaningful contributions despite the setbacks.

Mattermost

The Mattermost group had a super thorough and well-rounded experience. Mattermost is a messaging and collaboration platform aimed at developers, DevOps, and security teams, kind of like Slack but with more workflow and security tools built in. What stood out to me was how structured their contribution process was, there’s even a specialized Mattermost contributor server, and issues from GitHub are synced with Jira tickets.

I thought it was cool that they contributed in multiple ways like fixing broken links using a tool that identified over 70 broken links, making UI enhancements, and even helping with translations. They mentioned that they added over 30 Russian translations and submitted 30+ in Spanish suggestions. One big challenge they faced was setting up the development environment, especially getting the iOS app simulator to run for one of them so they could take required PR screenshots. They were also expected to write unit tests, which was a learning curve for one teammate but another managed to get a few tests working (3/5 passing), but they seemed really motivated to keep going. Overall, I appreciated how honest they were about what they struggled with and how persistent they were in finding ways to contribute beyond just code.

The Odin Project:

The Odin Project group explained the difference between the curriculum repo which is where they said most of the action happens and the actual website repo. The curriculum one is extremely active, with over 6,000 contributors. I liked that they highlighted how beginner-friendly the community is, which makes sense given the project’s mission to support new developers. However, they did run into a few frustrations with the contribution process. There seemed to be little communication from maintainers, slow issue assignments, and a lack of impactful issues to work on. It was clear that even though the project has a great mission and a lively community, the actual contributor experience can be a bit hit or miss depending on timing and responsiveness. Still, I think they gained valuable insight into what it’s like to try contributing to a massive opensource education tool.