R Instat Sprint March 2021
The R-Instat Sprint started on Monday the 15th of March 2021. It will run for two weeks until Friday 26 March 2021. The sprint kicked off at 10:00hrs East African Time, with the introduction of all the participants. The 21 participants were from AMI, INNODEMS, IDEMS and AIMS based in Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, the UK, Netherlands, Italy & USA.
We then had a brief overview of the sprint, and the different teams, roles, responsibilities and deliverables. This was led by Roger Stern who also acknowledged that the sprint was all possible because it is funded by the UK Met Office.
We then reviewed the tasks that should be done by different people. These included the predetermined activities to be done by the end of the sprint. We then reviewed the collaboration tools that will be used in the sprint namely:
GitHub is a version control and collaboration tool for software development. We are using Scrum (an agile methodology for software development management/project management) which has a model task board to help visualise the tasks and the progress being made. For our sprint, we created the board - https://github.com/orgs/africanmathsinitiative/projects/2
The March 2021 R-Instat sprint board
The board contains the following columns:
- To Do – Which has all the tasks to be done during the sprint
- In Progress – All the tasks that are actively being worked on
- Ready for Review – Finished tasks that need review before being merged into the R-Instat codebase
- Done – Contains a list of all the tasks that have been successfully completed and merged into the codebase.
Gather Town is an interactive video conferencing tool that we are trying out to make the working experience of developers similar to that of people working together in the same space. It provides for multiple parallel video sessions, with different rooms where people can have private conversations.
(Above) Gather Town showing everyone in one conference room during the initial sprint meeting.
(Below) Gather Town showing people having discussions in private areas.
Only people in the same room/area can hear each other, therefore making the experience similar to how in a normal room someone can walk up to someone else and start a conversation.
Gather Town stayed live all day so that it was easy for people to collaborate, share ideas and help out each other more easily. The Scrum Master then discussed that the team will be meeting everyday at 1100hrs EAT for a daily stand up meeting in Gather Town.
At around 1100 EAT everyone went away to start working on the tasks on the To Do board assigned to them.
The day started with members of the “home team” (Kenya-based team) carrying on with tasks assigned to them on the project board. We then had a daily stand-up meeting at 1100hrs East African Time on Gather Town to access progress made over the last day.
The stand-up meeting on the Gather Town below.
Every member of the team had to report back on these three things namely
What they did the day before What they plan to work on today Any blockages preventing progress/help they need.
Below is an update was given by everyone
Patrick
Worked with Haward to investigate the best way to handle non-ggplot graphics and ways to implement them. worked on position dialogue and save control to be adaptable and also made pull requests on the same. He had a discussion on climatic data entry He planned to finalize on handling non-ggplot and data entry dialogue design He will also have a discussion on R-Instat and stack
Maxwell
Reviewed previous pull requests and assigning various pull requests Updated the project on issues concerning Milestone zero Also worked on other R-Instat tasks and other projects Today he will be making pull requests and updating codes, pushing anything that is ready for review and that in review to done column
Lily
Worked on pull requests on fixing bugs, key link changes and also reviewing the same. Updated video document 3 – Challenges in tidying data and updated video 5-Quality control.
Roger Gave assistance on various pull requests Acquired data set from Germany and today he will be using it to test various pull requests
Wycliffe
Created an inventory for Rachael video Worked on various pull requests assigned Today he will work on video scripts and have a discussion with Chiara
John Had a discussion with James on how the videos may be used in a learning institution(Maseno University). Tested and approved various pull request assigned Today work on one variable frequency
Tobby
Tested if R Instat can work on Linux system and reported that in deed it worked though slowly Downloaded data from MICS website and today he will be working with the same data set
Danny Worked on stack questions, produced them and they were ready for review Worked on cross bar video and scripts Today he will be having a ggplot progress and needs support over the same
Chiara Worked with Wycliffe on inventory video Today she will be updating the video and making the comments over the same
Stephen
Worked on pull requests and also merged them Today he will be working on tiny data pull requests and multilingual translations in the library
Beryl
Finished editing video 2-Getting climatic data, and video 4-transfering data from climsoft Finished updating scripts for video 2-getting climatic data Today she will be working on video 6-transfering data from climsoft
Harward
Worked towards fixing issues raised after his work was reviewed Corrected the record function for plotting functions not contained in ggplot Today he will work on openair package and he will open pull requests over the same
Ivan
Tested pull requests on making changes on color tab and their controls Today he will be cleaning errors, fixing a bug on one variable frequency
Antoine
Worked on various pull requests and finished some Had a discussion with roger about data entry grid Today have a discussion and have pull requests over the same.
Below is the board showing the progress that had been made
The day started with participants carrying on with the tasks as assigned on the project board. We then had our daily stand-up meeting at 1100hrs East African Time on Gather Town which was led by Stephen
The updates were given according to the different groups in the sprint namely
- Developers
- Video Making team
- Interns
The updates of what was achieved and what the team planned to do were as follows.
Bonyo
He reviewed video scripts Encountered a problem/problems with the scripts and needs to discuss with other documentation team members today. Kelvin Updated video scripts Encountered a problem with the scripts from Chiara and needs to discuss with about the same today Chiara Progressed with the video and created graph PowerPoint presentations Reported that videos are not ready and changed them in the so that she can receive comments on the same Today he will be holding a discussion with video team to approve some of the issues with the video scripts
Beryl
Worked with the video scripts Edited the supplementary video although they are not ready. The need review before they are done Today she will decide if she will be working on the videos or the scripts
Haward
Worked on solving issues with circular plots and finished them Also worked on saving non-gglot plots Worked with datasets contained in openair package Today he will work on one variable frequency variable
Ivan
Worked on adding more changes in plots sub dialogue and needs review on the same Worked on redundant codes in the one variable frequencies Patrick Managed to find a way to handle non-ggplots and did a sample on how it can be done other than using the openair package Had a discussion on stack that needed java script to export data Had a discussion on one variable frequency dialogue and hoe to model ones are done Designed a data entry dialogue Today he will have discussion on how data frames could be created and non-numeric dialogues Resolve conflicts in posting into data frame Work on how to use a java script to export data to csv
Lily
Commented on pull requests Worked on summary table Scale pull requests and make edits on it
Stephen
Focused on reviewing pull requests Focused on translation tools Today he will be handling quick reactions
Roger
Supported Danny to become a developer by using videos and development Received a proposal from Zimbabwe to use grid data entry Today he will construct video scripts for new videos
Danny
Discussed with Patrick on displaying of graphs Reviewed pull requests He will prepare a daft and discussion related to stack Today he will be having a discussion and taking tasks
Tobby
Working on testing R-Instat in Linux system and reported its progress in the system Prepared notes on the same
James
He was away and he will be setting up the beginning activity Ha will be evaluating boxplot Have a chat with the interns on how R-Instat can be used in a learning institution
John
Worked with Maxwell in testing the OK button in the start rain dialogue Worked on various assigned requests Today he will be working on changes to default values of variables and columns Chat with James on using R-Instat in a learning institution such as Maseno University Take any duty assigned by James and Maxwell
Maxwell
Assigning tests and tasks Had a discussion on bugs in circular plots Made a report on yesterday activity Was dealing with issues related with PLH website and its content Today he will be making a report of today’s activities He will be assigning activities Checking deliverables of each person and getting in touch with people Also, will be giving help on how things are done and their progress
The meeting was then adjorned for the team to keep working on their tasks.
This was the end of the first week of the sprint. The day started with the scrum master sending out emails to all developers with a list of taks that they were to report on about their progress.
The other team members carried on with their tasks.
Then we had our usual 1100hrs EAT stand up meeting for updates led by the scrum master.
The updates were are as follows
Review of Thursday Activities 19th March 2021
Haward Fixed issues raised in pull requests and had also various consultations. Worked om fixing graphs for one-way frequency Today he will continue one-way frequency and work on any reviews He will also be waiting for further assignment from Roger.
Ivan Worked on adding facet control Made changes on color scale functionality Today he will continue on color scale and also have discussion with Danny and Lily
Patrick
Finished java script for stack and tested it
Wrote two functions for climatic data entry
Resolved conflicts for pasting into existing data frames
Discussion with Ivan on one variable fit dialogue and how to use record graph function
Today
Fhe will finish conflicts in pasting into data frame
Work on climatic data entry
Discussion with Danny on non-numeric dialogue and position
Investigation on ggplot plotify and give feedback
Help Haward to solve issue with circular plots
Modify data frame example
Danny
Had various discussions on pull requests and reviewed some
Worked on pull request on data entry with Antoine and Patrick
Prepared stack questions on R-Instat
Today he will help integrate Jason file
Define climatic data on discussions
Stephen
Worked on pull requests and merged them
Worked on translation system and reached library
Today he will work on pull requests and continue with translation task and test how it works
He will have discussion with Danny about crowd and importing data into database
Antony
Today he will work on grid data entry Discussion with Roger on some possibilities Wycliffe
Had a meeting and discussed issues related to the scripts Made changes on script 12 and 13 Today he will work on scripts and pull requests
Chiara
Meeting and resolving of issues about scripts Updated videos on YouTube Today continue with events of data sets
Kelvin
Make changes on videos Today he will incorporate the changes discussed yesterday in the meeting
Beryl
Finished scripts she was editing Today to work on supplementary videos She will have a meeting for the way forward
James
Started box plot and will continue with it today since he needs to review different packages
Discussion with Roger on issues
Discussion with interns on using R-Instat in a learning institution
Discussion on a given data set from Kakamega and issued to interns
Today plans to have a discussion with Roger
Roger
Worked on improving graphing system Meeting on e-Learning on using videos and scripts Did some separate work He was giving talk to a statistical society He was pleased with the progress of the people in the sprint
John
Had a discussion with James Started working on default values desired to be displayed in data window and today he will be testing it Continue to work with assigned data from Kakamega to check if R-Instat has a similar output as that in SPSS
Suggestions Ask for priorities for the tasks and estimate the time needed so as to leave non-essential tasks
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A picture of the home team in Manor House Kitale, Kenya.
The day started with the team continuing with the ongoing tasks from the previous week.
We then had our stand up meeting which had the following updates
Ivan
Worked o functionality for scale color function for color palette and its working He needs his work reviewed so that he can make changes if any Today he will focus on making changes and work on annotations
Stephen
Worked on translation system and made a project on it Today he will continue to monitor reviews on pull requests
Kelvin
Made final edits on the two videos; 8 & 11 and now they are ready to be uploaded in YouTube Made future edits needed to be done in future and highlighted them in the feedback section Today he will be updating the scripts
Wycliffe
Worked on pending videos and uploaded them to drive Worked on data sets to be in proper format He needs his work reviewed so that he work on the reviews
Zack
Received updates of the progress of activities in the sprint exercise and any reported challenges Worked on a program installed in his computer He will be defining a super user by identifying new activities and how to actualize them
James
Had an RSS talk Today he will work on autocomplete developers function Work with john on evaluation of R-Instat Have a discussion with Roger on tasks that need invoice stack and how R-Instat wil be implemented in a learning institution Any activity needed to be done by him since it is his last day in the sprint
Danny
Worked on translation system st up that will be connecting automatically to the Repository Today he will work on R functions and have a dialogue download Have a preparation for access to teaching ideas
Patrick
Worked on script as how passing position parameter to climatic data entry Worked on importing multiple files Had a discussion with Roger Today he will work on how data entered in climatic can be sent to R Backend Helping Haward in fixing any bugs Finish non-numeric example
Haward
Responded to issues in pull requests on circular and openair package Today he will be improving visualizations in base package
Lily
Worked on option to the function and general edits on dialogues Today he will review pull requests and make summary table system
Roger
Worked on video scripts needed and their pull requests Worked on data entry and needs comments on it Today he will be handling any inconveniences
Antoine
Worked on climatic data entry Preparation of data translation Had a discussion with Danny on Crowd system Today he will continue with climatic data entry and have discussions regarding it
Shadrack
He was away and joined over the weekend Worked on pull requests that had been merged, testing and reporting any bugs Worked on one variable frequency improvements and needs reviews Today he will work with people and do any other task
John
Worked on number of default variables and cases needed to be displayed in data window Today he will work evaluating the output of R-Instat if it can produce a similar output as that produced by SPSS as per the Kenya (Kakamega) MICS report
Maxwell
Listed activities needed to be done in the code sprint; those that were already done, in progress and what was to be done Worked on developer task with Roger Worked on puller requests and the need to be reviewed Today he will continue to work on pull requests that need to be reviewed Work on logistic with what is needed
The following was the daily update from the stand-up meeting
Review of Monday Activities Maxwell
Had discussion with Zack and James on the general working of R-Instat and its graphs Had a discussion with Roger for check point on Milestone task Today he will be adding extra geoms to ggglot plotting system He also reported that nothing is hindering his progress
Zack
Evaluated R-Instat by testing what it can produce and what it cannot and reported some of the challenges that he encountered
Antoine
Worked on climatic data entry Worked on file recognition system by R-Instat Today he will work on comments in pull requests Finalize climatic data entry
Wycliffe
Worked on video scripts and edited some videos Today he will summarize the edits on the scripts and data set into library
Haward
Responded on the issues raised by reviewers Today he will receive some tasks from Maxwell
Patrick
Finished on non-numeric dialogues and transforms Added some functions on climatic data entry and today he will finalize it He will also initiate some discussions Finish the two tasks he was working on yesterday Resolve some conflicts raised in the two pull requests Initiate a discussion with Roger on importing multiple files
Ivan
Received pull requests on distributions Helped Haward fix bugs that had been raised Today he will make changes on color plots and begin his task on annotations
Chiara
Was away and will rejoin with the team today
Stephen
Worked on the translation system Today he will menu system to production quality Review pull requests
Danny
Had discussion with Roger on teaching statistics using R-Instat Today he will check pull requests raised and start the priority task
Roger Worked on pull requests and made announcements
John
Worked on evaluating R-Instat Today he will make a report on what he did yesterday
#Announcements
We need to work on pull requests so that at the end of code sprin we have minimum pull requests as possible Shadrack will join Manor House by the end of the day and be part of the team starting Wednesday Antoine being given a six months internship courtesy of AMI and will also be based in Manor House
The updates from the stand up meeting were as follows
John
Evaluated R-Instat, prepared a report that he handed to James. Work on priority task today from Maxwell.
Documentation team
Updated videos in you tube to be in the latest version Update d scripts that were remaining Today they will update the data set inventory to ensure all videos are in the same structure They will also update supplementary titles for the videos Work on the final video 7 Hand the videos to Danny to know what they have done
Shadrack
Spent time in travelling to Manor House Worked on some reviews in pull requests on adding keys, one variable frequency and others Today he will be working with people in making his progress such as on circular dialogues and also finish rose plot
Ivan
Worked with Haward in fixing bugs on position dialogue Reviewed pull requests on distributions Made changes on color palette Today he will work on adding changes to color palette using position sub dialogue
Antoine
Had discussion on climatic data entry dialogue Made changes on requested pull requests Today he will work on changes needed on climatic data entry and requested changes in the pull requests
Patrick
He finalized data entry and prepared a testing Worked on non-numeric dialogues, position control dialogue and transform dialogue Today he will resolve conflicts in pasting into data frames Work on naming new queries Continues working on importing multiple files Come up with an example code for creating new data entry
Haward
Worked on pull requests in fixing bugs and issues Today he will be having discussions and finding positions on finding points on a polygon
Lily
Worked on general changes in pull requests Reviewed pull requests on color scale Worked on summary tables and today he will continue with this and review and any comments He will also be fixing small error on distributions
Stephen Worked on pull requests and progressed to translation system Today he will be creating a new package that can be integrated into R-Instat
Danny
Did not make much progress in the sprint but he spent time making suggestion on how R-Instat can be implemented in a learning set up Today he will work on specific task assigned to him Work also on issue raised by Lily
Zack
Today he will be working with James to think about setting up a workshop to discuss key translation from Excel to R-Instat.
Maxwell
Updated a list of geoms in ggplot plotting system Drafted a pull request Worked on urgent task that involved web development Today he will be defining new things on board for different people and reviewing other people’s tasks to have it done
Roger
Commented on the progress of the code sprint s compared on the previous sprints Announced that the home team should not relax but rather work and ask questions to the away team Outlined some of key pull requests that need to be nailed at the end of the sprint such as graphic system, translation system, data entry, distributions and tables to be working
The updates from the stand up meeting were as follows
Ivan
Worked om adding color option on graphic dialogue Proceed to annotations today
Wycliffe
Made changes in scripts Today he will get the data sets in the right format
Kelvin
Updated videos and made an inventory in the scripts to have data show datasets used for specific figure Today he will work on general reviews for the scripts
Patrick
Responded to general review Fixed bugs in his pull requests Worked on pasting into existing dialogue Today he will work on importing multiple files Make a follow up in pasting new data file Additional on climatic data entry
Haward
Worked on finding points in a polygon Today he will be responding to issues related to yesterday task
Lily
Worked on general changes in pull requests and summary table Today he will be fixing the issues in his pull request Have some discussions
Chiara
Had a discussion to check video scripts in training course Today she will have a general check on the videos She will review names of the data sets
Maxwell
Added extra geoms and fixing bugs in them by testing them with John Worked on pull requests and assigning reviews to different people Today he will be working on pull requests towards his yesterday activities He will be reaching people who need pull request He announced that people need to work on issues that need small changes to be of priority so as to reduce pull requests at the end of the sprint
Roger
Worked on pull requests and commented on the progress of the activities that are of priority in the sprint
Shadrack
Reviewed activities in the pull requests Worked with Haward to locate fill dialogue Looked at Taylor diagram Today he will work on pull requests Promised to work with people who may need his assistance Work on new tasks and support Patrick on climatic data entry He will also have discussions with Roger
Stephen
Worked on translation system and managed to create a package that will be used in R-Instat Today he will work on pull requests on R-Instat regarding the package he created He will also be working through the GitHub activities Take a priority task
John
Worked on testing extra geoms added in R-Instat Today he will be taking a priority task
Beryl
Investigated slides in the supplementary video Finish editing video 7 today
Antoine
Worked on resolving comments in pull requests Had a discussion on climatic data entry Today he will be working on additional changes needed
Danny
Worked on pull requests and comments Today he will investigate issues on graph saving option Take urgent task related to graphs and translation Other priority task
This was the last day of the sprint. The away and the home team started working normally. We had our normal stand up at 11:00 am Kenyan time, which was coupled up with a sprint retrospective to determine how the sprint went, and to get feedback to improve future sprints.
The sprint retrospective included feedback on
- what went well
- what could be improved
- how things can be improved
Each team discussed these in half an hour and the responses are available here
The updates for the day were as follows
It was a productive week for the documentation team. The distributed their activities to each person as Wycliffe worked on data sets to ensure they are in the same format. Kelvin worked on general review of the scripts as Beryl reviewed the videos. Chiara was on the supervision of their as activities and uploading the videos in You Tube. The will have a meeting today to discuss their next move.
Danny
Had a discussion on data entry dialogue and worked on graph saving as well. Today he will summarize data entry dialogue and work on other tasks.
Haward
Had discussions on locating stations on a shape files Worked on changes in pull requests and today he will continue with them
Patrick
Worked on reviews in pull requests and made changes in them Today he will summarize importing multiple files and issues raised in advancing climatic data entry
Maxwell
Added extra geoms Had a meeting on how to plan how to carry out activities Today he will update the report of the activities in the week He will also review tasks of different people Hold a discussion the product owner
Shadrack
Had a discussion on locating points on a shape file Worked on rose plot and reviewed pull requests Progressed to his priority task and merged some pull requests Today he will have discussions with Roger and Wycliffe He will also work on extreme dialogue
Ivan
Worked on changes suggested in color points Attended a meeting Today he will work on two variable frequencies Ensure distributions to be merged
Lily
Reviewed pull requests and today he will work on summary tables and take the priority task
Antoine Worked on crowd system and today he will proceed to climatic data entry
Stephen
Worked on translation, pull requests and merged Today he will continue merging and finalize the translation system
John
Tested the added extra geoms Had discussions and today he will be taking a priority task
Roger
Worked on pull requests and commented on the progress of the sprint activities.
On behalf of the product owner, David made final remarks. He congratulated everyone for the good work everyone had done during the sprint and all the progress that was made was very impressive.