Mentor or Classroom project/forum

So how would the Devs feel about some kind of ongoing mentor or classroom forum project.

For example

I would like to try and upgrade the Chess program that caused one of my sites to be hacked and only works in legacy mode.

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=346&t=100127

or

to turn this poker engine into a joomla component

http://www.phppokerengine.com/

or

to make plugins for Jforce
http://www.extremejoomla.com

I remember trying to access a database outside of joomla . I posted on J.org and was surprised that the only response was from a guy that didn't know. I never did figure it out and instead imported the database into the joomla one, which meant the component was off no use other than to myself.

I'm guessing most of the issues would be of a similar nature since it's unlikely that a potential student like myself would have issues too complex, and I'm sure it could provide good reading material.