MassXO

OLPC Boston

About

The Boston Interest Group is a way for people in the Boston area and surrounding locations to talk about and work together on OLPC. We aren't necessarily interested just in trying to bring OLPC into classrooms in Boston (although we generally think it's a wonderful idea) we're also interested in volunteering/contributing to the project.

OLPC Boston IS

1. a nucleation point for exchange between local groups, towards the OLPC Boston office and back, and with other groups worldwide
2. helping in organizing XOs for the local groups
3. supporting and cherishing the autonomy of local groups
4. focusing on rough consensus, grassroots involvement, and working projects

OLPC Boston IS NOT

1. going to do a local pilot in your school (although we'll encourage and support you if you want to do one yourself)
2. going to tell you what you are and aren't allowed to do (although we're always up for idea-bouncing and brainstorms)

Contact and chapters

Mailing list

If there's enough demand, we'll set up a mailing list. If you'd like to have an Boston-OLPC mailing list, post a link to your contact info (wiki userpages work) below - the minimum number for starting a list is 10 recent requests.

1. User:AuntiMame
2. User:Jnk27
3. User:Js
4. User:davewa
5. User:seven
6. User:sjf
7. User:Iluvpandas4
8. User:pinke555
9. User:denro55
10. User:Mima
11. User:Culseg
12. User:dbs
13. User:TJB

Jabber server

Some nice person has created a jabber (chat) server for New England. To change your XO's stting to allow access to this server

  sugar-control-panel -s jabber nejabber.homelinux.org

then restart(Ctrl-Alt-Erase) Sugar.

Chapters

If you know of any Boston area schools, organizations, individuals, or groups of interested people who have organized or want to organize a Grassroots group or an University chapter, please ask them to add a link below.

Olin_university_chapter

Existing projects

If you're in the Boston area and have a project you'd like to share, please link to it below.

Events

Future Activities

* Monthly Meetup! 25 March 2008, 6-8PM -- Cosi restaurant, 290 Main St (Kendall Sq), Cambridge, MA. In the back room.

* Play Date 2 April 2008, 7PM (ish) -- Cosi restaurant, 290 Main St (Kendall Sq), Cambridge, MA. In the back room.  Mike Lee from the Washington DC Users Group and creator of the [XO Lego viewfinder] is going to be in town. Bring for XO and show how you're using your system!

Can you help? Want to come? Want to help plan? Let User:AuntiMame know.

Proposed Meetup Discussion Topics

• Writing a basic Sugar activity.

• First World Tweaks (installing Opera, Flash, Gmail, etc.)

• The Terminal is Your Friend (using the Terminal activity and what all that stuff means)

• Disassembly, and more importantly, reassembly of the XO hardware.

• Using your XO remotely (VNC, USB2VGA devices).

• Emulation of the XO on PC/MAC.

Past Activities

• 29 January 2008 Meetup http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1861.0
• 26 February 2008 Meetup http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2173.0
• 3 March 2008 - 6th Annual Acton Star Party
• 8 March 2008 - Saturday Fun Meetup - http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2142

Project ideas

If you're in Boston and want to work on a project with someone local, post ideas here.