Fringe Events
Get ‘hands-on’ at the Test Lab!
The EuroSTAR Conference Test Lab has become a firm favourite among attending delegates. That’s because the Lab is an opportunity to meet new friends and to learn something new outside of the conventional classroom setting or your working environment. This year at the Test Lab you can expect robots, some games, practical sessions for your testing and lots more.
It’s time for Test Lab
The TestLab at EuroSTAR 2018 will feature some open-source tools to try out, will give you the chance to explore unit test coverage and more. If that’s not enough, you can spend a happy moment playing in certification corner with IoT puzzles designed to illustrate techniques from testing exams, or take a robot for a walk. Caring on from the success of last year’s event, the Test Lab Party and Hackathon returns with DJ’s games, and a chance to pick up one of our coveted (yet cheap but very priceless) awards.
At the heart of the Expo, the EuroSTAR Conference Test Lab is your opportunity to give real, hands-on context to ideas you’ve heard speakers talk about in sessions. Run by testers for testers, we have set up a range of environments and testable systems to help you practice what you’ve learned. We have an open, friendly atmosphere to include you in conversation and discussion no matter what your level of experience, and have put together plenty of testing challenges to get you started.
You’ll find test professionals sharing how they test, consultants showing you how their ideas change their work, tool makers helping you to use their tools, and all sorts of ways to get your hands into the gritty business of work. Bring your laptops, tablets and smartphones, and join us to rediscover the joy of testing!
In a fine blog post from 2011 Shmuel Gershon described what Test Lab really is: “ It is a fun environment where one can come, meet an unknown tester and set off for an uncommitted testing session. [..] There is something magical in practicing with others – something happens when we experiment and practice… We gain insights when we attend conference track sessions. But we acquire the knowledge as our own property when we experience and share.
Experimenting adds innumerable layers to our learning experience. For starters, we engage multiple senses – a conversation is very limited on that aspect, and a frontal lecture even more so. The senses exercised on the Test Lab will add more than sight and tact, they add sensations of expectancy (as in “will this work?”, “will it crash?”), will add the wonders of error/failure (as in “no it didn’t”) and all you can learn from that.
So if you want to spice up your EuroSTAR experience and bring back experiential practice, don’t miss the opportunity of meeting passionate people at the Test Lab. And if you want to double-spice it, apply to be the next Test Lab apprentice.”
Last Year’s 2017 Test Lab Crew
Eddy Bruin – Test Lab Master
Eddy Bruin has been working as a test consultant from the beginning of 2008. His passion lies in the areas of agile, testing, usability and mobile. He helps teams in enabling feedback loops in order to deliver better products. Eddy loves giving training on Agile Testing and to discuss the topic over a special beer. Eddy currently is a QA lead for an international bank.
Stefania Ioana Chiorean – Test Lab Master
Ioana is a software engineer that has more than 6 years testing experience with a specialization in mobile apps. Currently located in Romania she is leading a small team in an outsourcing company. In her free time she contributes to Open Source projects while enjoying a coffee or a good wine. She is the Module Owner for Mozilla Reps and one of the MozTechSpeakers.
Test Lab Apprentices
This years Test Lab Apprentices have been selected for 2017. They are:
Raluca Duduman
Raluca has about ten years testing experience. She is passionate about test automation (Selenium, CodedUI, Protractor, Test Complete) and project delivery methodologies. She loves training other people and share her knowledge via conferences/workshops. In her free time she also writes articles about software testing on her blog. Currently, Raluca works as a Business Analyst at a company in Iasi, Romania.
Daan Koolman
Daan Koolman has been working as a test consultant since 2010. He likes testing in an Agile environment, so he can combine setting up a teststrategy, executing manual testing and programming test automation. Daan is always eager to learn and to try out new things an assignment (learning a new code language for setting up tests, using new tools, using new strategies, using creative test approaches etc.). Daan is currently an agile test consultant at an international retailer.
Open for Sponsorship
Each year the Test Lab fills up with testers trying out different tools, games, challenges and more. The Test Lab needs equipment to run successfully. If you are a company and would like to sponsor devices, would like to donate devices for the length of the Conference, sponsor challenges and events, then get in touch with our sponsorship team here.
Previous Test Lab’s!
The 2016 Test Lab was run by Bart Knaack and James Lyndsay with Apprentices Stefana Ioana Chiorean and Eddy Bruin.
The 2015 Test Lab in Maastricht was run by Adina Moldovan and Guna Petrova with Apprentices: Susan van de Ven, Jyothi Rangaiah and Carly Dyson.
The 2014 Test Lab at Dublin was run by Ruud Cox and Adina Moldovan with the support of and their crew: Erik Stärling and Ru Cindrea, as well as with the help of their apprentices: Emma Keaveny and Guna Petrova.
