Development Camp Report

During the summer vacation, 9 members of our graduate school held a development camp.

At AIIT, where I belong, we practice PBL (Project Based Learning), where we are divided into project teams and work on a project under the supervision of a faculty member for one year.

Although it is a graduate school for working adults, we have a summer vacation, so we decided to hold a summer camp with members who were available across different project teams.

For specific schedule and contents, please refer to the brochure bootcamp23summer.

We used Dozen Ryokan in Chiba Prefecture this time. This inn is famous for hosting development camps and has many blogs posted on the WWW .

About Dozen Ryokan

Dozen Ryokan has various options for holding development camps.

Free Wi-Fi
Rental equipment available
- 4k27 inch monitor, projector, whiteboard, multi-plug extension cords, etc.
24-hour conference room usage
Free parking
Check-in from 12 PM, check-out until 3 PM.

Pricing Details

Basic fee: 7900 yen/person
Accommodation room fee: 700 yen/person
Food and drink bring-your-own fee: 300 yen/person
Dinner upgrade (banquet cuisine): 1500 yen/person

For the latest information, please visit https://www.dozenryokan.com/.

A particularly good point was the late check-out at 3 PM. Development camps involve spending a lot of time at the inn and the schedule tends to be packed. Having relaxed time on the last day contributed to flexibility in our activities.

Planning

In a typical development camp, members often hold concentrated working sessions on tasks they cannot usually do. By bringing in our own plans, we were able to clarify the purpose of the development camp.

Lightning Talks (LT)

We conducted LTs for self-introductions and technical presentations. Especially in the technical presentation part, participants engaged in lively discussions with each other's questions. As AIIT is a graduate school for working adults, the content of LTs was diverse.

Icebreaker

We conducted "Scrum from Hell". This is a game where you follow the instructions on a "secret card" to frustrate the scrum master. It can be quickly done in under an hour.

This game seemed more effective when doing offline, conveying more tension. Each team's scrum master struggled to deal with the "bad moves" of the development members. The members had to act out of character as per the cards, which served as a starting point for breaking the ice.

Hackathon

We held a hackathon where participants worked freely without a specific theme. Some enjoyed development while drinking, and others took breaks to play table tennis.

Running the Camp

I was the initiator of this development camp. The management team consisted of three people, and we planned together. We started planning the camp a month in advance, but for weekends, it's probably better to start two months in advance to book accommodation.

Nine people participated in the camp. Initially, ten were scheduled, but one couldn't come. Fortunately, there was no cancellation fee, which I found very conscientious.

Inspiration for the Camp

The idea for this camp came from my university days in a club. We had development camps in spring and summer, and those experiences were great. However, due to the impact of COVID-19, we couldn't hold them from my third year onward, which left a sense of incompletion. Besides the good accommodations, spending time together on CTF, hackathons, and competitive programming contests was a wonderful experience. I wanted to recreate that.

The idea took off at a PBL (Project-Based Learning) drinking party. When the topic of summer development camps came up, I received encouragement and agreement to "just do it". On the other hand, there were those who asked what a development camp was. This led to recruiting management members and starting the planning.

Considerations in Planning

When planning the camp, we considered several important points:

What about accommodations?
What should be decided first? (Accommodation, schedule, program content, management team)
Should we encourage self-introductions among participants?
Should we set up a space for sharing technical topics and results?
What should we do for icebreaking activities?
What should be the main content of the program?

Particularly, deciding what to start with was challenging.