Two months ago we held our first ever Hackathon at Stellenbosch University where, with the help of first language Afrikaans volunteers we started the process of translating FHSST into Afrikaans. We made excellent progress on our Grade 10 maths textbook, which we have since submitted for review for the government approved textbook list! Our video from the day is almost ready for airing, and we will post it as soon as it is available.

The day started at 09h00, with all the volunteers arriving promptly to begin translating. A large amount of preparation had been done beforehand, including emailing everyone their assignments and help sheets the night before. This meant that once people had registered their attendance on arrival, they could sit down at a computer, login and access their assignment from their email account, which most of them had already picked up and read through. We have learned from our UCT hackathons that the process runs more smoothly if on arrival everyone gets to work straight away, and we break later on for a brief introductory presentation. It means that those that arrived early aren’t kept waiting while we wait for late comers before we can begin – it sets the right tone from the start and makes for a more productive day.

We made progress charts for each book, which were projected onto the wall at the front of the lab so that everyone could see the progress being made in real time. We took photographs of each volunteer, which were included in the projection with their name and their progress. In order to keep the progress charts up to date, we were checking in with everyone on their progress throughout the day, and then updating the spreadsheet, which reflected this progress. We felt this would be a good motivator for those involved, as they would be able to see how they were going, relative to their peers’ progress. It also meant that come the end of the day, we would all have a good indication of where we stood with all the books.

It didn’t take long for our volunteers to be finishing the shorter chapters, which were then handed over to a volunteer for editing and publishing. With ongoing sustenance in the form of tea, coffee and muffins, followed by a delicious lunch of sandwiches and bagels, spirits were high as everyone worked hard to get through their assignment. Some people were able to move onto three, sometimes four chapters, while those with longer, meatier chapters stuck with one assignment for the day. Either way it was great to see the progress being made on the translation of our books.

The day was captured on video, and volunteers were interviewed to find out why they had wanted to be involved and how the day had gone for them. Overall the volunteers found the day to be very enjoyable, with many asking when the next Hackathon would be so that they could invite their friends! Our team loves such positive feedback – it’s great when others take such an interest in our project, which we ourselves are so passionate about.

At 5pm Mark closed with a brief talk about Siyavula and going forward, with a big thank you to everyone that attended. Everyone was invited to go through to the tearoom for drinks, which was followed by a delicious spitbraai for supper.

Overall the day was a great success and we are so grateful to everyone who volunteered their Saturday for our project. Following on from this day, the fact that we were able to submit Grade 10 maths is a fantastic achievement! We are half way to finishing Grade 10 physical science too, and with some progress on Grade 11 maths, we are well on our way to having the entire series translated into Afrikaans.

A very big thank you to Stellenbosch University and Thinus Booysen for hosting us, as well as to everyone that attended. We couldn’t have done it without you!

We look forward to our next big translation day on Saturday 30 July at Stellenbosch University! Please sing up for it by following this link: http://siyavula-afrikaanstranslation2.eventbrite.com/

We are also running a FullMarks development sprint on the same day and in the same venue. For more information and to sign up please click here: http://fullmarksdevsprint.eventbrite.com/

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