As most professionals have learned, there really isn’t such a thing as “coding,” there’s just “debugging” and “bugging.” And debugging isn’t really fun.

Beginners, who often have a wildly-inaccurate picture of how the computer is executing their code, usually spend almost all their time debugging. Making progress is what makes it all worthwhile, and because they don’t make much of that, the morale of beginners can get so low that they quit.

Activities allow attendees to take their mind off their problems for a bit. This has the effect of increasing their happiness, and increasing the probability of actually solving their problem. (That said, the attendees who can most benefit usually require the most convincing. Review the earlier section on Ice Cream questions.)

Activities should be used sparingly, and should be kept somewhat brief – 15-30 minutes for activities in the main room (which are distracting to those not participating), and an hour for those which happen elsewhere.

Low-Energy

Most participants in these activities are seated. They tend to be better at building the event culture, but they don’t work as when participants are tired.

Lightning Talks

Run as a workshop, participants are given the opportunity to give a four-minute talk about anything which is interesting to them. In the past, we’ve seen talks about everything from lock-picking to a history of blue backgrounds.

This workshop sometimes works really well and sometimes works really poorly, so your mileage may vary. It will likely require some convincing, either way.

Slideshare Improv

Have you ever watched a technical talk and thought, “this is absolute gibberish?” It probably is, but with this activity, it’s guaranteed. Here’s how it works:

  1. One or two “presenters” stand in front of a projection screen (or TV), facing the audience. They shouldn’t be able to see what’s on the screen behind them.
  2. Open one of the many online slide deck repositories on the projector, and pick a random category.
  3. Slowly hover your mouse over the available slide decks. The audience should cheer for the decks they think would be most funny.
  4. Open the best deck, and give the presenters a clicker (or mouse, or whatever else you have to advance the slides).
  5. After a count-down, the presenters should turn around to see their slide deck, and then immediately start trying to present. Start a timer for three minutes.

There are generally no winners for slideshare improv, but if you’d like to give out a prize or award, you can hold an applause poll after everyone has presented. (The presenter with the loudest cheer is the winner.)

Despite the fact that it’s named “slideshare improv”, you have a few options for where to find slide decks: