Membership

If you are interested in contributing to SIPB's computing services and in helping users with unusual computing questions, consider becoming a member. Full membership in SIPB is granted after becoming socially integrated and "Furthering the Goals of SIPB" for a sustained period.

Socially Integrated

A big part of the value of SIPB is in the social interaction. Many members spend much of their spare time hanging out in the SIPB office: hacking on personal, SIPB, or class projects or chatting with fellow SIPB members about topics technical and otherwise.

Prospective members are encouraged to hang out around the SIPB office during meetings (they're Mondays at 7:30PM) and at other times (check the door icon on sipb.mit.edu to see if the office is open). (Coming to at least four meetings is required to be membered, though usually this happens before prospectives are otherwise ready to be membered.)

You can also participate in SIPB activities like hackathons, cluedumps, and IAP classes. Our calendar contains many of our events.

"Furthering the Goals of SIPB"

"Furthering the Goals of SIPB", or FTGOSing, usually means working on some SIPB projects.

Our technical projects can generally absorb arbitrary amounts of attention. If you are already familiar with the relevant skills, you may be able to find the bugtracker and just get started. Even if you don't have those skills, if you talk to people involved in a project you're interested in they'll probably be happy to help somebody enthusiastic learn the necessary skills.

We also have a number of more organizational projects, such as running cluedumps in the fall, and IAP classes. Prospectives often take the lead on organizing these.

You can also start your own SIPB project if you're so inclined. The best way to start a SIPB project is to pick some computing-related problem that is important to you, find some like-minded individuals, and try to solve it, discussing your ideas and plans around the SIPB office, and reporting on your progress to the SIPB. The most successful SIPB projects have often been things that the people involved really wanted to do, and found resources or collaborators to do them through SIPB.

A possible route

There are many possible ways to get involved in SIPB, but one route is:

1. Take a look at the Projects page, and identify a project that looks interesting.
2. Look around the website, the bugtracker, and especially any tickets marked as being good for new contributors (look for terms like "hackathon", "starter", or "straightforward") to get a better sense of what the project is currently doing.
3. Ideally, come up with one or more "tickets" you find interesting. This could be a task from the project's bugtracker, or just something that bothers you about using the project yourself.
4. Talk with somebody involved in the project for advice on which possible ticket is best to start with and how to implement it.
5. Code your thing, and talk to somebody involved in the project to get it committed.

If you follow something like this process and get some contributions into some SIPB project, you're probably doing fine at FTGOS. You probably can't do all of that on your own, though. That's fine, since you also need to get socially integrated. Feel free to talk to people around SIPB about each of those steps, and somebody will probably be happy to help you through them.

The office

Prospective members are encouraged to hang out in the SIPB office anytime it is open, which it is on a typical weekday afternoon and evening. We strive to make it a fun and comfortable place to work on projects, homework, or anything else by providing an array of amenities:

• Nice chairs, big monitors, many computers, table space for laptops
• Music: ours (CDs or LAMP) or yours (via a certain "printer")
• Tons of equipment and supplies from video adapters to an oscilloscope to Band-Aids
• A diverse technical library, including popular textbooks
• Soda and snacks for late-night sessions, cheaper and closer than Verde's

You

If you have any questions about SIPB or the SIPB membership process, or ideas for projects, feel free to either drop by our office (W20-557) or contact the Chair at sipb-chair@mit.edu.