Olin university chapter

This is the wiki-homepage of the Olin college OLPC university chapter. Please edit!

Office Hours

Office hours are up in the air right now, but weekly Boston grassroots meetups will be happening in Cambridge (see Boston Saturday OJ for information). We will try to coordinate rides for a couple of visits a semester.

XOs on campus

This is out of date - will be fixed soon!

There are currently 9 XOs on Olin's campus. To check out a machine, contact Greg.

• 1 B1 machine in storage
• 2 B2 machines in storage
• 1 B4 machine in storage
• 6 working MP machines in storage
• 3 broken B2 machines in storage
• 2 broken B4 machines in storage
• 4 broken MP machines in storage

(all MPs and other broken machines belong to the Olin repair center)

Projects

To see all projects associated with Olin's OLPC chapter, check out our project page.

Courses

We are running an independent study course for peripheral development. Initial planning for the course can be found at our Wikiversity page.

Current documentation and project details can be found at inertial navigation peripheral.

Repairs

Olin hosts an on-campus repair center run by students. Our repair center works at cost of shipping and parts, with volunteer labor from trained students. Besides helping out G1G1 donors, the Olin repair center also plans to support any pilot or test schools in the area with repairs.

Past brainstorming for the repair center lives at /Repair center.

Software development

In the capable hands of Yifan and Arash. Ilari is also heading up an effort to get us a shiny website and repairs tracking system.

Details live at /Software.

Pilot school involvement

Olin's OLPC Chapter is getting involved with the pilot at the Cambridge Friends School. Sandra is heading up our pilot efforts.

Meeting minutes and details live at /Pilots.

Events

Olin hosted a community Jam during the spring semester. The chapter is planning to host another jam during the 2008-2009 school year.

Meeting notes

Archives of minutes can be viewed at the Olin university chapter/archives page.

Check-ins

repairs

• people interested in repairs - good
• will try new plan: people buy parts and have them shipped, then we repair
• laptops breaking in AC 313 - evil room or bad chargers?

stucourse: developing a USB peripheral for XO

• going well

software

• not sure - haven't met for two weeks
• sitting and coding not productive?
• sending website about sugar week

pilot

• also not sure
• people don't know what we can do for them

Grassroots event

• mass XO user group - day at olin
• people want to meet other XO owners
• have speakers, networking
• repairs workshop
• discussion
• early afternoon-evening
• food
• enthusiasm, happy people, thumbs up
• probably next semester, maybe between finals an expo
• publicity: ask people to blog about it, event site
• need webmaster

action item: Sandra in charge, Colin, Nikki, Elsa, will help

Charter

• no charter + Nikki will hopefully graduate sometime = not sustainable
• leadership positions besides chapter head?
• chapter head = contact with 1cc
• structure at the moment:
  • head - project - people
  • project - people
• project timelines?
• documentation? needs to happen, someone could be responsible for it (a secretary type person)
• Nikki wants to train people - doesn't want leadership next year
• elect people in the winter, train in spring
• need relationships...more than one semester
• trips to 1cc: Fedora this weekend, everyone else can come
• Olin van - get trained and drive to children's museum saturdays
• elections now? clearly it is election day
• next friday, elections for head/pong person and documentarian/recorder
• reelection? people can run for reelection if they are not seniors (must serve from spring to next fall and then train)
• how do we elect? speech? nominations? email everyone? candidate's choice?
• for now, wing it. if not, write it up
• do we need a charter? yes, write up transition of leadership, don't need much more

Enthusiasm

• can has?
• more brainstorming projects - get projects people are passionate about
• field trips!
• candy
• SAC != SERV
• design challenges
• what makes things pop out?
• celebrity endorsement - Randall Munroe?
• what does 1cc think we should do - or what do individual people at 1cc thing we should do?
• make it intense: 24 hours learn python bonanza
• give people homework
• ask the users - pilot school?
• Python lessons
• more rigidly defined projects - timeline, goal
• less meeting, more actioning
• seeing direct effect of laptops
• Olin's own pilot school - needham, wellesley?
  • get high schools involved - programming, testing(revive review squad)
• deployment penpals
  • Rabi(OLE Nepal)
  • talk to Peru kids
• outreach to other Oliners
• brainstorm direction of chapter

internships?

• deployment internships - keep ears open

Action items

• Yifan will drive to 1cc this saturday and wednesday of sugar sugar boot camp
• Elsa - design challenges
• Aaron will work on brainstorms and Nikki will help
• Yifan and Tank will teach Python lessons
• mumble to 1cc people- Xy
• sign at 1cc people - Elsa

Design Challenge

Initial ideas: Give people a bunch of groups the same task (i.e. on the level of specificity: make a game that teaches addition) and 24 hours to design and program. Programs could then be refined more gradually and possibly merged with each other to produce a final product

This would occur between finals and expo, so that people presumably have some time (I think?) and so that post-work could take place over winter break, when people also presumably have some time.

Contact Information

The current Olin OLPC Chapter Pong Person is Nikki Lee. Contact her for general questions.