I realize this is short notice, and that very few people may indeed show up, but I'd like to get going and get as many people ready at least two days before the very first android hackathon down South.

At this point, I'd just like everyone who shows up to have attempted the Java/Android "Hello World" example (running it in the emulator, and if you have an Android phone, try running it on your phone). Please come with your laptop preloaded with your preferred Android development environment (I can tell you for sure that two or three hours is not going to be enough to download everything, so be sure to get started on this a couple of days in advance if you haven't done this already). Your choice of OS won't matter too much.

This first bootcamp will focus essentially on the nitty-gritty of mobile Android development. It's nothing very sexy, but taking this small step will confirm that we all have the right Java JDK installed, the right development environment, and the right Android SDKs and emulator libraries (and taking this small step is often the biggest stumbling block for a new people that want to learn about Android development).

At the mininum, get the 1.6 version of the SDK (there was a major shift from 1.5 to 1.6), and download the version 2.1 as well (the 2.1 SDK is somewhat backward-compatible to the lower versions of the API).

The second part of the homework will be to try the couple of tools we have at our disposal for debugging/tracing/profiling our application. This is also another essential skill that you're going to need.

This bootcamp will begin at 6:30 PM, the first two hours will be for the homework (in case anyone got stuck, or didn't have the time to do it all), and the third hour will be a general explanation and discussion of the underlying basics of the set up and tools we just used, and how they fit within the larger context of Android development.