User talk:MattCruikshank

OLPC Ideas

Here are some of the ideas knocking around in my head - feel free to grab them from here and drop them into their appropriate categories, especially if you point me at where I should have put them.

Thoughts and suggestions

1. Categories the Activities by age ranges that are appropriate!

XO&U

1. keyboard tutor - shows you a picture of the keyboard, asks you to type the key it highlights
2. touchpad tutor - chase the mouse with a cat?
3. stylus tutor - follow the frog as he hops around
4. power tutor - sense if the pedal is being pumped or crank is being wound
5. display tutor

Day-To-Day

1. Alarm clock - wake up for school!
2. Calendar - keep track of important events - like their birthday!
3. Weather - get weather forecasts
4. Bulletin board - "School is closed." "Town meeting tonight."
5. Newspaper (maybe just part of the Bulletin Board)
6. Todo list - teachers can inject homework?
7. Today - a diary - passworded? A separate program called "Secrets"

Emergency

1. 911 - I need help!
2. Civic alert - "Tsunami!"
3. Refugee - "My family had to move, and now I'm lost. Help me find my family. There's my Uncle Dan, my cousin Pam..."

Fun & Games

Under 5

1. "Activity center." You push a key on the keyboard, and something happens onscreen, with sound effects, etc.
2. Aquadoodle - wherever you draw, the colors appear
3. Paint-by-numbers - turn a picture into paint-by-numbers?
4. Fingerpaints!
5. Jigsaw puzzle from pictures
6. Read books - follow-along words that highlight as they are being read aloud
7. Let's go to the zoo
8. Sing-along - play music. Pre-recorded, or recorded by other kids?
9. Tell me a story - it should *always* be able to tell a new story to the kid. Genetic Algorithm would be awesome.

Over 5

1. Building blocks
2. LEGO
3. Scrapbook - take a picture of a frog, of a leaf, of your house, something that makes you happy, something that makes you sad
4. Chatter - have the thing know thousands of questions that it can ask the kid - favorite color, what are you afraid of, etc.
5. Puppet show - each XO controls one puppet on screen - with voice chat (move the mouth of the puppet automatically?)
6. Virtual Easy-Bake oven
7. Virtual Barbie
8. Virtual Matchbox car

Over 10

1. Set
2. Carcassone
3. Settlers of Catan
4. Chess
5. Checkers
6. Uno
7. Karaoke - the XO judges how well you sing (Do Re Me)

Basic Education - organize by grade

1. Multiplication tables
2. Vocabulary
3. History
4. Science

Health

1. Period tracker for young girls
2. Counselor: 20 questions for finding out what's wrong with a kid...?
   1. How do you feel today? (Happy, Sad, Okay)
   2. Why do you feel sad? (I am hurt, Someone else is hurt)
   3. ...Or "What happened today?"
   4. Someone was sick
   5. baseball, basketball, soccer - learn how to play games
3. Scoreboard - keep track of the score of games between different teams?

Community

1. IRC
2. Voting

Tools

1. Measurements!
   1. Measure this! (If it's smaller than an XO screen, we should be able to measure it!)
   2. Show a ruler on the screen
   3. Let someone draw an outline in two dimensions. Let them twist it sideways, and draw an outline for the third dimension - estimate length, surface area, volume...
   4. Count off one second intervals
   5. Exactly how heavy is the XO?
   6. Use network strength change to determine how fast someone is running towards you (antennae down on the runner!)

How to

1. Learn a language - teaching English to kids in Thailand, etc.
2. Cooking - how to purify water
3. Construction -how to build and maintain a latrine
4. tie knots
5. recipe book - family recipes, suggestions

Capabilities

1. Text-to-speech and speech-to-text would be awfully useful
2. Text-to-speech (DONE WELL) would be great for read-along books
3. Act like GPS - try to map the network to physical space, to help people meet up - bookmark locations - build maps
4. Is it going to be able to talk to a printer (in their school for instance), or not?

For Teacher

1. Attendance
2. Look at homework
3. Assign / keep track of grades
4. Send home a note for the parents

Business

I know, it's supposed to be OLPC, but children grow up and need jobs...?

1. Cash register
2. Inventory system