Guilds: growing and sharing knowledge

The Guild set out to explore the evolution of digital interfaces, tracing the origins of paradigms and patterns that are still present today. The journey included studying modern interfaces related to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and wearable devices, with a focus on the impact of artificial intelligence on the design of the future.

A particularly valuable moment was the workshop with Emanuele Bassis, during which we tested cutting-edge VR and AR devices and rediscovered historic technologies such as the Commodore 64 and the Game Boy, analyzing their interfaces.

The experience reinforced the awareness that every technology is the result of a complex evolution with deep roots. Through collaboration and individual contributions, the Guild developed a broader and more critical perspective on interface design, connecting past, present, and future.

Third iteration of the guild dedicated to developing the application for workstation booking management and office attendance tracking. Additional features have been developed, still using Flutter:

• notification management;
• grouped view of spaces;
• holiday management in the calendar;
• room booking;
• administrator interface

A graphical adaptation for web-browser platforms has also been implemented.

This Guild was created with the goal of improving “Scrum Quest,” the agile-themed board game developed by the previous “i3 Board Game” Guild in the second quarter of 2023.

Based on feedback from players, the team set the following goals for this new Guild:

• review existing materials and create content for the updated version of the game;
• balance the game to ensure it is sufficiently challenging, enduring, and fun;
• present “Scrum Quest” at “Play 14 Italia,” the serious gaming conference to be held in Florence from September 5 to 7, 2024

The Guild has achieved all its set goals, presenting a new version of Scrum Quest at the Intré Camp conference on October 2. During the unconference, a gaming session was proposed as part of the afternoon activities.

This second iteration of the Guild has continued the work started by the previous one in the first quarter, developing a Flutter application to manage desk reservations and attendance tracking in the office. In addition to the existing features (authentication, attendance tracking, and reporting), a new functionality has been introduced, allowing users to book desks through a dynamic SVG map, also built in Flutter. The team has also adapted the mobile version’s pages to be accessible via a browser, optimizing the code to ensure compatibility with both web and mobile environments.

The Guild will continue with a third session, aiming to:

• complete the web adaptation of the application;
• verify the correct functioning of operational workflows (such as booking a desk);
• add an administration panel for desk management.

During this philosophical guild, participants followed a journey guided by lecturer Elisa Belotti, exploring the views of great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Heidegger, and Popper. They tackled complex topics such as science, ethics, freedom, and bioethics.

Each meeting focused on dialectical discussions among participants, aiming to develop critical thinking and argumentative skills. The journey concluded with a debate, prepared in August, on the topic: “Is democracy still the best form of government?”, in which two teams defended opposing positions.

The same debate on democracy was later presented as an unconference session during the company camp, held on October 2 at the Diocesan Museum of Brescia.

This second group of “Video Production” enthusiasts followed a similar path to the other guild. During the meetings, all stages of the production process were explored: from planning and scriptwriting in pre-production to filming in production, using technical equipment for image, sound, and lighting. In post-production, the team focused on professional editing, enhancing the videos with special effects, audio editing, and music using Movavi software.

All team members acquired fundamental skills to work independently on video projects. During the guild conference at the camp on October 2, a training video on ISO 27001 regulations was presented, in which guild participants recreated three potentially dangerous office situations that violated the regulation. For the unconference at the Intré Camp on October 2, the guild hosted a practical workshop on creating and editing a video using Movavi.

This Guild was created with the goal of exploring the “behind the scenes” of many well-known software systems, using programming challenges offered by the CodeCrafters.io platform. The challenges involved creating simplified versions of Redis, Git, Docker, SQLite, BitTorrent, grep, an HTTP server, and a DNS server, each accompanied by a detailed guide. Participants tackled each challenge using the most appropriate programming language.

The main result of the Guild was gaining a deeper understanding of how various technologies work, such as DNS servers, shells, Git, Redis, and Apache Kafka. Through these challenges, members learned how to use APIs to manipulate low-level data structures (buffers, bytes, bits) in various programming languages.

The goal of the Video Production Guild was to learn the fundamental stages of video creation. Participants explored the video production process, divided into pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution.

During the meetings, various activities were conducted, including:

• courses on cinematography, storytelling, and video editing using advanced software like Premiere and After Effects;
• an in-person workshop with external instructor Carlo Teofilo, providing hands-on experience with technical equipment;
• an online lab focused on editing.

The Guild team acquired essential skills for independently working on video projects. During the guild conference at the Intré Camp on October 2, a video showcasing the knowledge gained during this training was presented.

This Guild was created to prepare for the Kubernetes Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) and Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) certifications. Participants studied topics common to both certifications together, with the valuable support of colleagues already certified in CKAD.

The main goal was to deepen knowledge of Kubernetes, but the group also experimented with advanced tools such as ISTIO, Helm, and Operator. During the meetings, they explored patterns like sidecar, adapter, and ambassador, offering the opportunity to gain new skills and techniques.

At the end of the journey, two guild members, Carlo Ballabio and Yordan Asenov, passed the exam and obtained the CKA certification.

The Guild was created with the goal of acquiring essential skills for using various service providers for application hosting.

During the meetings, participants practiced with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure to learn how to manage different environments, such as testing and production, for deploying and updating an application (the repository is available internally).

Visit our blog and read the following in-depth articles:

• Hosting a static website on Google Cloud Storage
• Hosting a static website on Amazon S3
• Fun with Google Cloud – Book to Phrases
• Data Warehouse: Amazon Redshift e Google BigQuery
• Analisi e tutorial di configurazione di IAM User e IAM Role in AWS
• Creare una Azure Function con Terraform per inviare notifiche tramite SendGrid