Summer of Code/Ideas
Ideas
School Server
Design of the admin interface
- The school server needs a graphical admin interface to configure/set all the services.
Core Software
Java
Package and integrate the IcedTea open source bootstrap of OpenJDK Java with browser plugin for the XO. Deliverables would include:
- Binary, source and rpm dependencies for icedtea and icedtea browser plugin
- Java enabled xo os image
- Integration of packages into autobuild branch
Print Support
Print support in Sugar would be useful in many scenarios. The ideal project deliverables would include
- Integration of a printing infrastructure (CUPS ??) into the XO-1 software images
- Modification of Sugar Control Panel to set up the printer (add/select default printer?)
- Modification of at least one activity (Write ?) to support printing
- Making a printing activity, that follows sugar GUI guidelines?
Integration of Speech Synthesis Technology into Sugar
Integrate speech synthesis with all activities, not just Speak, and provide for karaoke coloring. See Mokurai's article on adapting Same Language Subtitling for literacy to the XO.
Desirable Features for Sugar Speech Synthesis Plugin:
- Provide Sugar Speech Synthesis Configuration Management Tool
- Karaoke Style Coloring in Sugar Environment
- UI for configuration Control
- Accent gets set on the basis of locale
Journal Sharing support
Incorporate the Distribute activity into the shell At the basic level this will require:
- A way to initiate a transfer (a button in the Journal, a contextual option on an object, a drag'n'drop operation)
- Notification to the receiver
- Some method to indicate progress to sender and receiver, with a way to cancel
- A journal entry for the receiver containing the resulting file
Necessary future support:
- Transparent support for interrupted connections
Mesh Networking
Tools development
As we reach for increasingly larger numbers of nodes participating in mesh network testbed, it is evident that sophisticated methods and tools for monitoring, logging and debugging will become necessary. Project deliverables include:
- Maintain our mesh network testbed
- Review different methods for controlling and monitoring large numbers of machines (control over wireless vs. control over ethernet, stored logs vs. online logging, etc)
- Implementation of network application + GUI to remotely control, configure and analyze logs from mesh network experiments on large testbed
Health Software
- Helping building software to interact with the different health peripherals.
- The software has to be able to display and interpret different bio-signals (e.g EKG. EMG..)
- Integration of other FLOSS software like OpenMRS.
Libraries
pygame/sdl
Add as much support as possible using the Geode graphics processor.
xo3d
Develop the xo3d library based on work started by User:Wade. This is a flat shaded software 3D renderer with support for objects, lighting & clipping, exposed to Python. It also features a matrix and vector math library.
Activities
This list of desirable activities is largely a grab-bag, meant to spark ideas. There are plenty more at Category:Software ideas. Part of the work of doing your SoC application would be to do a preliminary evaluation of existing open source options in a domain and their adaptability to OLPC. Python and/or GTK-based programs are the easiest to adapt. Also present in the platform are Javascript, C/C++ (of course), and Smalltalk (squeak). See Sugar and Developers/Stack for further info.
Applications should show serious thought about what can be achieved in the short time available. Whether you are starting from scratch or adapting an existing app, fewer well-implemented/adapted features are far preferable to many poorly-implemented ones. In either case, but especially in the case of an adaptation, a solid foundation makes it easy to add (back) in more features later.
My FilmCity(@INDOKLEY)
Record your songs and upload. Download the songs that is give by the "Music" Teacher. Make Playlist from the list of Songs(here we can resirict the list of songs according to the MUSIC TEACHERS) Upload Video Download Video
Flash Card
The student and mentor would evaluate open source flash card programs together, and then either port or adapt one to XO. The flash card program would be developed with a Sugar-specific UI and features. It would feature one of the well known flash card memorization algorithms for tracking student progress through each deck of cards. (see Drill and test software)
Master Mind
Implement the well known board game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game)
Typing Turtle
A game-like typing tutor activity would be developed by the student. Existing open source projects would be evaluated for ideas. Features would include adapting to student progress, support for all XO keymaps (take a look at Keyboard#Languages_other_than_English for information on supported keyboard layouts) and written languages, progress tracking graphs, the ability to locally customize the program, etc.
Board & Card Games
A suite of board and/or card games would be developed by the student including things like Chess, Checkers, Othello, Mancala. They would all be built on a common framework so that more games could be developed easily. Features would include multiplayer tournaments (including chat & spectator support), good computer AI, interactive game teaching, game recording & playback, etc.
Finance
The student would develop a simple financial planning program, basically the simplest possible version of Quicken. It would provide a simple income / expense register, monthly tracking, budget planning, expense & income categories, and a loan calculator.
This activity idea came from a request by the Nepal deployment.
3D Software Renderer & Game
A simple flat shaded 3D graphics library would be developed by the student for the XO platform, with an accompanying game. The game would be something exciting and multiplayer but non-violent, I'm thinking about a first person firefighting simulator (where you shoot water at animated fires and rescue victims) or something like that. The game would be designed by the student with direction from the mentor.
Micropolis (SimCity)
I have a long list of interesting ways to develop Micropolis (aka SimCity), which I have written about on my blog!
The source code is on Google Code, and I've been working on finishing up all the grunt work that requires familiarity with the code and would be hard for other people to do, to enable other people to work on the higher level stuff that depends on that.
There are two Micropolis projects:
- The old "micropolis-activity" which is the original TCL/Tk version of SimCity for Unix, which I ported to Linux and adapted to the OLPC.
- The new "MicropolisCore" C++/SWIG/Python module that I've cleaned up and I have started developing a user interface.
It would be best to put effort into developing the new MicropolisCore code for the long term, although there are some small tasks that could be done with the old TCL/Tk code for the short term.
Inferno
There's a variety of work that is left to be done in Inferno on OLPC, things that might be best done by a student include:
- fontfs - mapping OLPC fonts to inferno native fonts
- metafs - mapping file system permissions to OLPC model
- camera/audio support
- new window manager for Inferno which better matches OLPC paradigm
- integration with OLPC collaboration framework
- integration with OLPC internationalization mechanisms
- edutainment applications written in Limbo for OLPC
Language Learning Activity
A tool to learn foreign languages would be a great addition for the XO. At it's most rudimentary form, it can be a dictionary, but something advanced would be preferred, perhaps in the lines of LingoTeach. From Ivan Krstić's blog entry, Astounded in Arahuay:
“The kids really want an activity to learn English, but there isn’t one on the laptops” responds Mr. Navarro. “The 1st and 2nd graders all use an online dictionary, but the Internet connection gets slow with that many users. It’d be nice if a dictionary was on the XO directly.
Embed twexter into activities
twexter software formats twin text (twext) for language learners.. twexter can work with all kindsa tools/activities like moodle or scratch or mediawiki or wixi so we can grow multilingual.. twexter can also annote same language text, for example by translating complex english to "basic english"
Document reader with annotation capability
Port Browse to WebKit
[Webkit] is somewhat lighter than the current Xulrunner engine powering the Browse activity. Porting Browse to use Webkit might see some performance benefits.
GIS activity for XO
Engineers Without Borders, Timepedia, and International Symposium on Digital Earth want to work with OLPC to create community-based mapping data collection systems that will feed to global mapping and analysis projects, which will then feed back to the children and their communities. Environment, health, agriculture...
Enhancements for Measure
- Feed generated data from simulations or the software synthesizer into the Measure activity.
- Add sensor support to Activities such as TamTam that would allow musical pitch, tempo etc to be controlled by sensors
- Make a video context analogous to the audio context that currently exists. Along with showing a real time video stream, show RGB values, a histogram etc.
- Make triggered logging possible (similar to triggered logging in Oscilloscopes)
- Some more immediate plans here Measure/Plans
- Sensor based input into games. For example control a game character based on light intensity
Make activities programmable
More generally, support snap-together programming of XO activities in the manner that Turtle Art and Etoys provide internally.
Improve DrGeo
The DrGeo activity (interactive geometry) port need to be finished and improved in different areas.
Parts to be written
- implementation of the macro-construction system. It is a system to record a set of constructions as a function the user can save and use repeatably. See the original implementation.
- implementation of the script system. A script within DrGeo is code hooked to an interactive sketch, it is used to perform calculus. See the original implementation in Scheme. The script language will be Smalltalk based.
Parts to improve
- Improve the load time, the load time is now unacceptable for the user and make DrGeo unadapted for the OLPC.
- Define a journal type entry to save/load.
- Improve the user interface, particularly the access to the construction tools.
- Improve the locus sampling, it is by now suboptimal.
Other suggestions for improvements, see the DrGeo tracker.
Email activity
Develop a light, functional and usable email client
inlight of the kids it should log them on automatically.
it would also be nice if the app created an email automatically based on the user name of the system, on a free site. Like gmail.
Also because of connectivity the app should be able to keep things on the system. I want to be able to write an email when I'm not connected and have it sent when I become connected
Mind mapping activity
Ivan Krstic reports on his blog that a teacher in Arahuay requested a mind-mapping activity. Homunq 13:23, 7 March 2008 (EST)
Listen and Spell
A simple game to help children learn to spell words correctly using speech synthesis technology. Words will be spoken, and the child will be expected to correctly spell it.
The game can have the following features:-
- Difficulty Level - Easy/Medium/Hard
- Multiple Dictionary Sources
- Contextual Dictionary Lookups - The application can lookup words related to specific keywords, speak out a small description of the word, and then expect the child to spell it.
- Mesh Challenge - Children can collaborate over the Mesh Network and challenge each other in a mulptiplayer game. The child will type the word on his XO, this will be spoken on the other XO, and the player must spell it correctly.
A very basic activity draft that can be suitably scaled is available at talkntype
Misc
Eclipse based development environment for Activities
An [Eclipse] plugin which would allow software developers to easily write Python based activities for Sugar. Some of the features can be
- Integration with an Xnest/Xephyr window which would run the activity being developed in Sugar
- Easily accessible developer documentation
Sugar Factory
Sugar Factory is an automated method for Sugarizing non-Python applications. Albert Cahalan has some of this working now.
Extending Gnash
Extend Gnash to read more data formats, in particular those at OLPC.tv, and Mary Lou Jepsen's presentation at the Greener Gadgets Conference. Integrate Supat's SSS code and move it upstream.
Mediawiki stuff
I have seen a fair amount of discussion of the possibility of having school-level wikipedias. The issues involved are offline browsing (static content, caching, at 2 levels: global<->school server<->xo) and editing (multilevel synchronization - a problem that probably cannot be "solved" but can be attacked). This person would need to have architectural vision and PHP skills. If there were such a proposal, I would suggest that they could spend a little extra time supporting/mentoring my Summer of Content proposal for a multilingual wiki. Homunq 12:18, 2 March 2008 (EST)
Sugar adaption for the Nasa Colombian ethnic community
One of the 91 indigenous cultures that still exist in Colombia is the Paez people (aka Nasa). They have their own traditions, customs, world view, mother tongue (Nasa Yuwe), i.e. their own culture. It could be possible to take cultural elements into the Sugar Interface, not only language, to provide Nasa children a suitable and familiar interface. Santiago 18:01, 8 March 2008 (EST)
Sugar Debian packaging
- Help in maintaining and packaging sugar and activities in debian.
=== Interested Student -GSoC 2008 I would like to work on developing the admin interface for the school server. Please let me know what kind of interface you need and any other requirements? Contact me at dev[dot]sandip[at]gmail[dot]com.
I am very keen to participate for various ACTIVITIES listed on this page like Boardgames,Email Client and few others..developing them will be a great opportunity to benefit society !Looking forward to be mentored by interested mentors.. thanking you .. Rajan Vaish IRC:vaish GTALK : vaish.rajan@gmail.com
@INDOKLEY We can add one more activity.Name of the activity is "MY Music World". In this we can add some inspiration songs. Right now i am just talking about music but we can extend that link into "My FilmCity".
In this ,child record his/her voice and able to upload and can share with other friends circle. We can also provide some download links that are uploaded by "Music" Teachers. i think u like my IDEA...
OLPC Team can contact me on Gtlak ,Yahoo,MSN and orkut Gtalk: indokely@gmail.com Yahoo: mundel@yahoo.co.in MSN : indokely@gmail.com Orkut: http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=9779335716818819883
>>> I want to help OLPC by developing the finance application. In addition to what all has been mentioned in the ideas section for finance, I would like to add another feature where-in a OLPC user will have an online identity in a separate Finance portal meant separately for the OLPC users. Here OLPC user can keep a track of the loans he/she has taken from a friend , and thus the loan data may also be visible to other OLPC finance users. This will make money-lending more reliable and simpler. The idea can later be extended to include proper bank transactions. Also I have an idea for implementing a model barter system, the details of which I will file in my OLPC GSoC application. Thank You, Debjit Saha mail and messenger: dkd903@gmail.com messenger only: dkd903@yahoo.co.in IRC Nick: dkd903/dkd903_/dkd903__
I would love to be involved in the production of the typing turtle application or with the board games. I attend the University of Glasgow and have produced an Othello AI already, I would love to produce more and to try and standardise setting up of more games. I would also love to try and help epople to type correctly and would use this to learn about other keyboard layouts and how they work. If you would like to contact me, please do by email or on MSN trancendenz(@)gmail.com
>>> Hello, my name is Carlos Ríos, I'm from Chile, and I want apply to help the OLPC project, I want participate on the School Server's design. I would like participate in the GSoC to help you. To contac me, my e-mail, Talk & Messenger: crosvera at gmail.com Thank You.
>>> Hello, my name is Norbert Schultz.
I am studying at TU-Dresden/Germany but currently I am at the INSA Lyon/France for an exchange semester until June/08. The Project with the Xo3d Rendering Library/3D Software Renderer+Game interests me, is there a way to get more information about this? I already got some experience within Computer Graphics and Game Engine concepts; if you like you can contact me at norbert<dot>schultz[at]insa-lyon<dot>fr