Finding Mentors & Judges

Mentor Management

Because CodeDay is focused on exploration, having fun, and self-driven learning, finding lots of mentors is a lower priority than for many events, and because there are no real prizes, the same is true for judges. That said, finding at least a few judges and mentors is something we ask organizers to do in order to somewhat improve the attendee experience.

Finding Volunteers for CodeDay

Most CodeDay volunteers apply via the form at CodeDay.org/volunteer, which takes just a few minutes to fill out. These volunteers then attend an onboarding session, and if they are interested in CodeDay, they will be introduced to local organizers via the regional channels in Discord. Volunteers are typically matched to their closest CodeDay location, but they are free to choose any available city with an event.

Once a volunteer is introduced via Discord, local organizers are responsible for further logistics and communication. Until then though, CodeDay employees will take care of matching volunteers to an event.

If needed, local organizers can also directly invite their friends as a one-time volunteer at CodeDay, without going through the form and onboarding process. However, any people interested in volunteering for CodeDay multiple times must fill out the form at CodeDay.org/volunteer.

The Role of Mentors

At CodeDay, mentors:

• Meet students, learn about students’ interests, and talk about their own experiences in the programming industry.
• Help students solve problems through questioning (while avoiding giving direct answers).
• Occasionally, run workshops.

Mentors are there to help students continue their self-exploration, not to provide direct answers to programming questions, so it’s often the case that less-experienced programmers make better mentors than more-experienced ones with less “people” skills. Mentors can also become life-long contacts for students who attend our events.

The Role of Judges

CodeDay has judges largely so students feel somewhat validated in the end result, and because events where “everyone wins” feel more like events schools put on.

At CodeDay, judges arrive at 9am on Sunday, and try each of the student projects. We call this “pre-judging,” and its purpose is to avoid giving awards to the teams with the best presentations (who often put the least work into their actual project).

After pre-judging, judges deliberate while presentations are happening, then give out the following awards:

• Best in Show (think “1st place”)
• 2x Best In Class, usually broken down into
  • Best in Class - Game (think “2nd, in the game category”)
  • Best in Class - App (think “2nd, in the app category”)
  • You can technically give these out however you want. e.g. if there are a bunch of games, you could give out "Best in Class - Multiplayer Game" and "Best in Class - Singleplayer Game"
• 0-2 Special Prizes, for anything they want to recognize

(You don't need to award all these prizes. At smaller events, you may choose to give out only a subset.)