ERASER
CLOCK
CHALK

Alpha One and Only
Classroom

Google Summer of Code 2025
Ishaan Arora

My Work

Virtual Classroom

  • Fully customizable classroom: colors, desk layouts, and ambience to match each course.
  • Game-like student experience: move freely, pick seats, collaborate with friends; built-in attendance.
  • Central hub for learning materials with access to notes from previous lessons.
  • Real-time interactive whiteboard for drawing, annotating images, and sharing concepts live.
  • Instant download of whiteboard "snippets" so no notes are lost.
  • Transforms passive online learning into an active, collaborative environment.
Virtual classroom overview

Classroom Overview

Classroom customization

Classroom Customization

Seat taking

Seat Taking

Whiteboard

Whiteboard

Course page

Course Page

Automated Deployment with Ansible

I reconfigured the project's deployment pipeline to utilize Ansible, shifting from manual steps to a robust, automated process.

What I built

  • Playbooks to install and configure Python, Django, Redis, and Channels dependencies
  • Automations to pull latest code and manage environment variables securely
  • Service orchestration for Gunicorn/Uvicorn and Nginx (start, stop, reload)

Impact

  • Eliminated human error and reduced deployment time
  • Enabled consistent, repeatable deployments across environments
  • Prepared the stack (Django + websockets + Redis) for reliable production rollout

Community Outreach & Growth: 40k+ Views

  • Launched and managed the Alpha One Labs Instagram to grow an engaged community.
  • Published authentic reels: behind-the-scenes dev, mini tutorials, debugging stories, and light humor.
  • Achieved 40k+ cumulative views with one reel going viral.
  • Gained hundreds of new followers with strong comments and shares.
  • Turned the build journey into compelling content people want to follow.

What's Left

Status

  • Deployment pipeline with Ansible — merged
  • Virtual Classroom feature — complete and ready to merge

Why pending

The organization is reconfiguring the website’s deployment using the new Ansible code to ensure a smooth, deliberate transition.

Next steps

  • Finish deployment reconfiguration on the organization’s side
  • Merge and roll out the Virtual Classroom

Merge Requests

Key PRs

Acknowledgement

I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to my mentor, Daniel. His constant availability on Slack and invaluable guidance were essential to my progress throughout the summer. I'm also deeply grateful to Alpha One Labs for this incredible opportunity. This experience has been a major step in my growth as a developer, allowing me to contribute to a meaningful project and gain hands-on experience with real-world open-source work.