Newcomers to Scipy development are very welcome; actually one of the main goals of the sprint is to help new people to get started. Last year's sprint was excellent - 20 people joined and we still have all-time highs in the commits per month and contributors per month graph to show for it:
https://www.openhub.net/p/scipy
If you have time and will be at EuroSciPy: please join!
Cheers,
Ralf