[MUSIC PLAYING]
ERIK PASTERNAK: Good morning, everyone.
I'm Erik Pasternak.
I'm the engineering manager for the Kids Coding Team at Google.
This team is responsible for maintaining and building
Blockly.
So I'd like to welcome all of you
to our second annual Blockly conference.
The first one was last year.
Hopefully things go smoothly this year.
We're still getting used to this rhythm.
And next year, we may host it in a location other
than Mountain View.
I know a lot of you had to travel for this.
But, yeah.
Welcome.
And I hope you enjoy the day today.
Quick introductions-- if you haven't had a chance yet,
this is the Blockly team.
[INAUDIBLE]
There we go.
So now they're also over here.
[LAUGHTER]
So as I said, I'm the manager.
Rachel over there is our tech lead.
Then engineers on the team, we have Abby, Monica, Sam,
and Navil.
And there's Neil, who is not technically on our team,
but still makes a lot of pull requests.
[LAUGHTER]
Neil is also the creator of Blockly.
So if you have any questions about the origins of Blockly
or want esoteric knowledge about why
things are the way they were, Neil is the person to ask.
If you have questions about why things
are the way they are now, Rachel is the person to ask.
Couple of important things before we get too far.
First, if you want Wi-Fi you can connect to GoogleGuest.
There is no password required.
And we have a code of conduct for the summit.
The high level is be excellent to each other.
Speak up if you see or hear something.
And practice saying "Yes and" during discussions,
brainstorming.
We want this to be about building new ideas
and thinking things up--
thinking up new things.
And we also have a zero tolerance policy
for harassment.
So if you see, experience, or hear
anything that seems inappropriate or out of place,
please let one of the event coordinators know.
We all have pink badges.
Or you can email blockly support+summit@google.com
or find anyone with a Google badge,
and they should be able to help you out.
There are full details about the code of conduct on the summit
website as well.
We have three big goals for the summit.
The first is for all of you to learn
what is happening with Blockly.
So please engage in the talks that are throughout the two
days, listen to what's going on, and participate
in the hackathon to see how those APIs work.
Our second big goal is for us to learn about what you're
building and what you need.
So ask us lots of questions, tell us what you're working on,
and give us feedback about what our plans are,
how our APIs work.
Tell us what you need.
A lot of how we prioritize what we work on
is from feedback by developers.
We don't have many direct users ourselves.
All of our users are via developers.
So let us know what you see.
Let us know what works and what doesn't work.
And then third, collaborate with each other.
We want you to talk to each other,
to get ideas from each other.
The education space is a very friendly space, we found.
And there's a lot that you can learn just
by talking with other people who are building similar things.
So there should be lots of social time, lots
of time to present about what all of you are working on.
Learn as much as you can from each other as well.
With that, brief overview of our agenda.
Today, there will be talks through most
of the morning with a short break at 11:00,
lunch from 12:15 to 1:15.
After lunch, there's a few more talks and then
a Q&A with the Blockly team.
I will point out there are a lot of people
in the room who have been working with Blockly
for a very long time.
Some of the folks have been working on Blockly
longer than most of the team.
So during the Q&A, I will invite those folks
to also answer questions or provide commentary.
Then after the Q&A, we'll have some social time.
That is just time to mix, mingle, talk with people,
followed by lightning talks and poster demos, and dinner
tonight at 5:15.
For the poster session--
or for the lightning talks, we've
got a sign-up board in the back of the room right there labeled
Lightning Talks.
If you want to give a talk, please put your name and topic
there on the board.
Talks will be limited to five minutes.
And depending on how many talks there are,
they may overlap with demos, or we may do them sequentially.
We'll see how it goes.
Tomorrow, it's very similar.
We've talks throughout the morning.
And after lunch, there will be a hackathon.
And at the end of the hackathon, we'll do a quick show
and tell before saying our farewells.
Tomorrow night, there is a concert
at Shoreline Amphitheatre.
So you will want to head out around 4:30
to avoid all the traffic.
The hackathon will have two primary--
two big topics this year.
One is the new rendering APIs, and the other is accessibility.
We'll have two sheets up tomorrow,
one for each of those topics for people to sign up.
To sign up, just put your name on a sticky note.
Put them under the sheet you want.
Optionally, include an idea if there's something specific
you want to work on.
We'll have talks about both those sets of APIs
throughout the day.
So there will be a lot more information provided.
And we also have quick start guides on the summit site.
The quick start guides give you walkthroughs
for some basic changes and lots of ideas of things
that you might hack on.
One other thing, the table in the corner
of the room over there is the designated swag table.
So if you brought stickers or other things
that you'd like to hand out, you can go ahead and put them
on the table.
There are also laser-cut keychains for everyone.
They look like this.
There are a few names missing from the initial list.
So if you don't see your name over there,
please let Abby or Monica know, and they'll
get them laser cut tonight.
With that, any questions about the agenda today?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
ERIK PASTERNAK: Yeah.
Yeah.
And there are outlets around the room and on all the columns.
All right.
With that, I'll turn it over--
oh.
AUDIENCE: Which way to the bathrooms?
ERIK PASTERNAK: Ah.
I think they're just down the hall.
Oh, right next door.
Oh, and today we will be only in this room.
If you need to take a break and go outside, that's fine.
There's also a micro-kitchen across the hall.
There should be snacks in the hallway all day.
Yeah.
So if you need to take a break, feel free to step out.
There's security guards near the door,
so just get their attention.
They'll let you back in.
Then our first talk is Monica with what's new in Blockly.
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