Olin university chapter/archives

8/29/07

Olin students visited the OLPC office on August 29, 2007. Here are the notes as transcribed from the board.

Random

• Community service group led by Nikki
• Mel is OLPC liaison, will be on IRC (nick mchua) every Friday 3-5, and available through email.
  • What IRC channel on what network, and what e-mail address? GregMarra 16:19, 4 September 2007 (EDT)

Why University chapters are great

• Cutting edge technology
• Variety of perspectives
  • catching details
  • more dedication
  • more experience
• publicity
  • awards

Standards

• Financial independence
• Professional quality

Impact

What you do goes beyond your classroom walls - instead of making your software design project available to... say, Allen Downey, you make it available to thousands of children. "You're going to do it anyway... why not release your work in a way that other people can benefit from it?"

Continuity

• easier to make big things, long-term projects - can "pass it on" to

later students

• "apprenticeships" with students learning from those with more experience
• transfer of information between colleges
• development communities keep people motivated

Networking

• between schools
• between students at Olin
• between students and profs at Olin
• between Olin profs and profs from other schools
• between Olin students and students at other schools
• between all of the above and the free culture development community

What you can do

• development
  • hardware
  • software
  • content
    • textbooks
    • pictures/art
    • curriculum
    • games
    • lessons
    • music
• translation
• outreach
  • to local businesses
  • give demos
  • work with local kids
  • to government
• research/IS/passionate pursuits
  • in education
  • in engineering
  • in computer science
  • in sociology...
  • you want to do it, we'll find a way to make it happen

General Tasks

• administrative support - serv/core/"hey president miller, dr m., et al, we're doing this!" (greg, ellen, andyp)
• outreach program - running demo requests (ollie, once Olin gets some XOs; ollie, ping mel when the XOs arrive)
• flash conference through ideatree (molly)
• wellesley liason - do they want to help? start their own chapter? (andyp)
• talk to professors about advising projects, helping out, and especially about allowing Olin students to do OLPC projects for course assignments
  • POE (abarry) done
  • SCOPE - coordinate student interest in a team (sallen)
  • ECS (steveo)
  • ICB (velin & ollie)
  • focs (yifan + ilari)
  • wired ensemble (?)
  • analog digital (steveo)
  • discrete (?)
  • software design (greg) done

Olin todo for OLPC

• apply to Developers program (Nikki coordinating)
• Olin chapter blog (kelliott coordinating)

OLPC todo for Olin

• development image (w/ Steveo) - standing by for questions
• swag - for expo; nikki will ping with how much is needed.
• documentation (w/ Molly, Yifan, Sallen) - waiting for projects to start
• "volunteer day" at the office - postponed til spring.
• spring OLPC conference w/ other area schools (later) - postponed til spring.
• university chapter blog (later) - postponed til more chapters come.

Talking to People

Software Design

Greg Marra met with Matt Jadud, the professor for Software Design F2007, and discussed possibilities for producing something for the OLPC as part of SD. Matt was intrigued by the possibilities of tying into POE, and went to speak with Oscar/Brad. SD will likely be tailoring our final projects to be something for the OLPC in (Scheme/Python), pending the class generally liking this when we ask on Weds, Sept 5. The final decision will likely be ready on Friday, and Matt wants to talk to Mel more in-depth. Also, Matt knows lots about OLPC-ness already, which is awesome. GregMarra 16:22, 4 September 2007 (EDT)

As of Thursday, Sept 6th, word from Matt is that we will have the option of working with the OLPC for our final projects, including working in conjunction with kids in POE, as part of Software Design GregMarra 00:09, 7 September 2007 (EDT)