User:Mchua: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 21:52, 29 November 2013

@	mel laptop.org

help@

This user is a Support gang volunteer.
Specializes in: documentation, peripherals, new volunteers, grassroots

IRC	Nick: mchua

This user is a spare parts hound.

This user is a member of the Volunteer Infrastructure Group.

en	This user is a native speaker of English.

zh-1

这个用户是能够有助于满足于基本水平的 中国人。.

ja-1

この利用者は少しだけ日本語を話すことができます。

This user's time zone is UTC-5.

My name is Mel Chua. I'm not active in OLPC these days since returning to graduate school; this page is more an archive than anything else. Feel free to contact me with any comments, questions, or ideas you might have.

English is my native language. I have a basic understanding of ASL und mittelstufe (B1-B2) Deutsch.

Quick reference

You might be looking for...

My talk page - for leaving me a message.
My Planet Laptop blogposts.
My projects - to see what I'm working on, have worked on, or should/would-like-to work on.
My braindumps - Thoughts in progress that are not yet fully formed or ready to go to main wiki. Probably inaccurate, half-baked, or some combination of the two. You have been warned.
/Templates - things I've made that may be useful for wiki-users, including Firefox bookmark shortcuts.

Interests

My volunteering interests include Community testing, Support gang, OLPC Chicago, and the ILXO grassroots office in Illinois. I am an alumni from (and involved in the OLPC groups of) IMSA and Olin as well as University chapters, Boston pilots, and Grassroots in general. I ran the first Jam in Boston 2007 and continue to assist with coordinating and presenting at Jams and other events. On the technical side, I'm a wiki sysop and create documentation and templates on this wiki on a regular basis and generally like making it easy for new contributors to get started. I'm also involved upstream with Sugar Labs, the project that creates the user-facing software that ships on OLPC's XO laptops, and with Fedora, the project that creates the underlying operating system that ships on the same.

Current goals and projects

I tend to set my goals in 6-month cycles. This list is super-flexible; stuff changes all the time, random cool ideas come up, and so this has deliberately been planned with lots of wiggle room. As things change, I (usually remember to) edit this page to reflect that.

My current goals are working with OLPC's software upstreams - namely, Fedora and Sugar Labs - to build capacity there and give OLPC a richer selection of resources (both code and people) to draw from as a downstream that is doing great things.

My last cycle focused on (grassroots) Boston pilots and having them running as a self-sustaining, scalable, distributed, and well documented model that can be adapted to other locations. Much of my initial focus was on the Cambridge Friends School deployment, as it was the first in the area to go live. It's an example of a deployment with no full time deployment employees (or indeed, employees at all) anywhere; this is a model optimized for a $0 manpower budget.

History

I've been an OLPC intern (content and grassroots) twice (summers of 2007 and 2008), an employee once (QA/Support engineer for 3.8 months between 2008 and 2009), and - what I consider to be my most important role - a volunteer since January 2007. There is an archive of weekly updates that sporadically describe in more detail what I was doing at any given point in time.

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 __NOTOC__
-= Who are you? =
+{{userboxtop}}
-Mel Chua, full-time OLPC volunteer and itinerant Boston-area hack of all trades. Electrical and computer engineer by [http://www.olin.edu training], educator by passion, artist by hobby, journalist by accident, everything else out of sheer curiosity. Pressed for a short job description, I would say that I engineer educations.
+  {{user mail |mel|laptop.org}}
+  {{User support-gang |documentation, peripherals, new volunteers, grassroots }}
+  {{user irc |mchua}}
+  {{User community repair}}
+  {{User VIG}}
+  {{user en}}
+  {{user zh-1}}
+  {{user ja-1}}
+  {{user time zone|UTC-5|world}}
+{{userboxbottom}}
+My name is [http://blog.melchua.com/about/ Mel Chua]. I'm not active in OLPC these days since returning to graduate school; this page is more an archive than anything else. Feel free to [http://blog.melchua.com/contact/ contact me] with any comments, questions, or ideas you might have.
-= Reaching Mel =
+English is my native language. I have a basic understanding of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_sign_language ASL] und mittelstufe (B1-B2) Deutsch.
-I am often around the OLPC office at least every few days. Leaving a message on my [[User_talk:mchua|talk page]] or sending me an email (my first name at melchua dot com) is the best way to reach me 99% of the time. I usually respond within 48 hours. If you need an immediate response, text my phone at 736.869.7373 (increment each digit by 1 to get the correct number; for instance, the area code is 847).
+== Quick reference ==
-Note that leaving me a voicemail message is the slowest of them all; I have to get a friend to transcribe my voicemail (I'm hearing-impaired and lipread) so it usually takes about a week for me to reply to those!
+You might be looking for...
-= About me =
+* [[User_talk:Mchua|My talk page]] - for leaving me a message.
-[[Image:Mchua_portrait.jpg|150px|left]] I keep a blog of entropic thought at [http://mellory.blogspot.com http://www.mellory.blogspot.com] I program (primarily in C, C++ and Python, but can pick up other languages), build simple computer peripherals (primarily using PIC microcontrollers, though I'm looking to branch into other platforms), and am learning web programming and interface design. Feel free to grab me if you think I'll be helpful for a task.
+* [http://blog.melchua.com/category/olpc/ My Planet Laptop blogposts.]
+* [[/Projects|My projects]] - to see what I'm working on, have worked on, or should/would-like-to work on.
+* [[/Braindumps|My braindumps]] - Thoughts in progress that are not yet fully formed or ready to go to main wiki. Probably inaccurate, half-baked, or some combination of the two. You have been warned.
+* [[/Templates]] - things I've made that may be useful for wiki-users, including Firefox bookmark shortcuts.
+== Interests ==
-What... is your quest: To make a world where makers make themselves. (I need to come up with a more elegant wording of this.) Eventually I want to get two PhD's, one in engineering and one in education, and become a professor teaching and researching at the (currently shaky and fledgling) union of the two disciplines. I am currently preparing for a research trip involving an around-the-world plane ticket and visits to engineering colleges around the world to see how engineers are taught in different parts of the planet.
+My volunteering interests include [[Community testing]], [[Support gang]], [[OLPC Chicago]], and the [[ILXO]] grassroots office in Illinois. I am an alumni from (and involved in the OLPC groups of) [[Illinois Math and Science Academy Chapter|IMSA]] and [[Olin university chapter|Olin]] as well as [[University chapters]], [[Boston pilots]], and [[Grassroots]] in general. I ran the first [[Jam]] in [[Game Jam Boston|Boston 2007]] and continue to assist with coordinating and presenting at Jams and other events. On the technical side, I'm a wiki sysop and create documentation and templates on this wiki on a regular basis and generally like making it easy for new contributors to get started. I'm also involved upstream with [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mchua Sugar Labs], the project that creates the user-facing software that ships on OLPC's XO laptops, and with [http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Mchua Fedora], the project that creates the underlying operating system that ships on the same.
-What... is your favorite color: Yellow.
+== Current goals and projects ==
-Drugs of choice: Python, soy milk, and TAing intro engineering classes. Discussions on the future of education and learning and where technology falls into this. I have fairly radical ideas about classroom structure (my preference: none), information distribution (my preference: everything is freely world-readable and world-writable) and student evaluation (my preference: feedback yes, grades no), but these ideas are still quite open and under formation and I love talking to people about these and related topics.
+I tend to set my goals in 6-month cycles. This list is super-flexible; stuff changes all the time, random cool ideas come up, and so this has deliberately been planned with lots of wiggle room. As things change, I (usually remember to) edit this page to reflect that.
-I am Chinese and my family is from the Philippines. I was the first person in my extended family to grow up and be schooled outside the developing world, and the first to develop hardware, software, and participate in internet communities. I grew up as a "disabled" kid with a hearing loss severe enough to warrant a host of technological aids, special classes, and a full-time sign language interpreter. This has shaped many of my attitudes towards education, access, technology, globalization, and development.
+My current goals are working with OLPC's software upstreams - namely, Fedora and Sugar Labs - to build capacity there and give OLPC a richer selection of resources (both code and people) to draw from as a downstream that is doing great things.
-= Projects =
+My last cycle focused on (grassroots) [[Boston pilots]] and having them running as a self-sustaining, scalable, distributed, and well documented model that can be adapted to other locations. Much of my initial focus was on the [[Cambridge Friends School]] deployment, as it was the first in the area to go live. It's an example of a deployment with no full time deployment employees (or indeed, employees at all) anywhere; this is a model optimized for a $0 manpower budget.
-== Current ==
-* '''Jams'''
-:* Working on resources and a framework for future content [[OLPC Jams]] of different types. In particular, I am in the middle of writing the [[How_To_Run_A_Jam]] cookbook.
-:* Setting up the parallel [[CurriculumJam_Fall2007|Curriculum Jams]] that are slated to run this fall - I'll be attending the one in [[CurriculumJam_ManilaFall2007|Manila]]. Contact me if you're interested in running or participating in a Jam in your area, especially if you'll be in Manila in the fall.
-* '''Internships'''
-:* Developing the [http://wikieducator.org/Summer_Of_Content_Funding_Proposal Summer of Content] program, starting with coordination of the [[Summer of Content 2007]] round, currently ongoing.
-:* Serving as one of the OLPC project mentors for the [[Summer of Content 2007]]. If you'd like to work with me, drop me a line via email or my [[User_talk:Mchua|talk page.]]
-* '''Testing'''
-:* Starting [[Review Squads]] of young testers and teachers to give feedback on our content. Now recruiting Squad Members and Squad Leaders!
-== Potential ==
+== History ==
-These are some ideas I had kicking around that I would like to tinker with at some point; if you'd like to work with me on one of these, offer support, or even adopt it as your own project and go (I'm not clinging to or possessive of these ideas by any means!) go for it.
+I've been an OLPC intern (content and grassroots) twice (summers of 2007 and 2008), an employee once ([[Testing|QA]]/[[Support]] engineer for 3.8 months between 2008 and 2009), and - what I consider to be my most important role - a volunteer since January 2007. There is an archive of [[/Weekly updates|weekly updates]] that sporadically describe in more detail what I was doing at any given point in time.
-* OLPC webcomic
-* Rosetta Stone clone in Pygame
-* Front-end for music composition (GUI for Lilypond? Something to translate between TamTam and Lilypond?)
-* "Heathkit" style build-your-own peripheral kits for the XO (solder your own gamepad, etc)
-* Intro to electrical engineering through taking apart & developing for the XO
-* [[Ad Libris]], a lightweight metadata structure spec for the [[Library]].
+[[category:OLPC interns]]
-== Past ==
-* I was one of the coordinators of the [[GameJam_BostonJune2007|first OLPC Game Jam]].