What is KWOC?
KWOC is a program organized by IIT Kharagpur that aims at helping participants learn how to contribute to the open-source world. This activity prepares students for various open-source programs, Google Summer of Code and Outreachy being the most popular ones among the list of many.
Selecting projects
I wanted to contribute to the projects on domains involving Python, Machine Learning, & JavaScript. Also had this itch to learn how to write documentation for an Open Source project.
Contributions:
Among the projects hosted, I contributed to the Face Recognition Attendance System mentored by AmeenUrRehman. Face Recognition Attendance System is a Python-based project that recognizes the face from the webcam and marks the attendance of that person in the Attendance in CSV file.
After that, I contributed to an amazing project ApanaBharat Bus Booking reservation System mentored by Pranjal Agarwal this project is a fully functional system developed using Python and Tinter(GUI) which is designed to automate online ticket purchasing through an easy Online bus booking system.
And last but not the least, I Contributed to DeGrasse mentored by Akshit. DeGrasse is a discord bot that is written in python for sharing interesting information about Space, Science, and Technology. The bot, in its current state, uses NASA's APOD API to send NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Closed PRs
https://github.com/exitflynn/DeGrasse/pull/9
https://github.com/exitflynn/DeGrasse/pull/12
https://github.com/Pranjal360Agarwal/ApnaBharat-Bus-Booking-Reservation-System/pull/24
https://github.com/Pranjal360Agarwal/ApnaBharat-Bus-Booking-Reservation-System/pull/24
What did I learn?
Working with OpenCV.
Working with NASA API & Discord
Writing documentation
Working with Data & APIs in Python
Got use-to with git and GitHub
How to communicate with mentors
Verdict:
My experience with Kharagpur Winter of Code has been quite good. I was initially not familiar with GitHub but learned about committing, merging, cloning, etc. By the end, I was pretty comfortable with GitHub. I also learned about various Image Processing techniques and OpenCV. I also solved many problems and learned about many new concepts. I also learned the mannerism of communicating with mentors and all the people associated with this. I would like to thank all people involved for such an enriching experience.