Configurations, Starting Applications, Current Working Directory

On starting up my Raspberry Pi today I found that my keyboard layout was set back to British, so I will have to find out how to permanently set that. No time right now, though. I did try starting Midori from the command line, which I found, obviously, required the X GUI to be started up. LXTerminal hangs on that command as long as Midori is running so I will have to learn about how to allow it to move on once the target program is running.
What I wanted to learn today I did learn, which is how to know where I am when the GUI is not running. This is not something you really know even with the GUI but the graphical illusion of a desktop gives you the feeling you are somewhere. So on the command line it helps to type 'pwd' to know your current working directory and 'ls' to know what directories and files are in your current location.

Changing Keyboard Layout in Linux

Here's my learning for today, although I learned a lot just getting a picture on here and uploading it. (Once I added a USB hub it was a snap.) Open the LXTerminal and type setxkbmap -layout us. The LXTerminal is pretty fancy in that you can even get a right click menu on it (to copy from and to).

Here's my source: http://how-to.linuxcareer.com/linux-command-line-basics-for-beginners-part-3

Raspberry Pi Photos

We'll see if a photo attachment is automatically inserted into a blog post when sent as an email...

Raspberry Pi!

I have a Raspberry Pi! I have a lot to learn as I am barely familiar with Linux at all. But I've decided to learn 1 simple thing a day on it and blog what I learn. My goal for today, for example, is to find out how to change the keyboard mode from UK to EN! I know there is a command for that. (There's an app for that...) Eventually I will set it up in my school's library for students to use it and learn what they can do with it. It is exciting because in this age where computers are ubiquitous black box proprietary devices kids need to also see them as things to tinker with and learn to control in ways they want.

Hmm, how to get a photo I took of the Raspi on here to upload...

Wow, even more challenging than getting a photo on here it seems is getting Midori to handle publishing or saving a post with the blogger platform. It did warn me that there might be problems.

Ok, so I'm emailing it to the blog. I have to use my Outlook Web App account since my gmail account won't work in Midori either. Now, just for the record I don't have a problem with all of these hurdles. To me it's an indication of how sophisticated and at the same time inaccessible the software is that we have come to depend on day-to-day.

LED Driver project, work in progress

I've been interested in the Arduino for a while now and played with it a little bit. Until now the most involved project I've done with it is playing around with variations on using it to program a web server with an ethernet shield. Well now I'm deep into something that is introducing me to the complexities involved in working a project up as a prototype with breadboards and then taking it to the next level by soldering components together on a generic PCB. I'm using a Philips 4794 LED driver to extend the Arduino's control of LEDs beyond the 8 or so it can control directly with pinouts. Actually I'm using 6 LED drivers to control 43 LEDs that spell out my son's name traced along his toddler version of his written name, bringing his early signature to life in a blinky way. To figure out the components and schematics I relied a lot on this post and this post, and then this post to extend to multiple LED drivers.
So, first the prototype:

 You can see here the Arduino (Duemilanove), breadboards, one LED driver, lots of leads.

And here the LEDs and the circuitry behind.








For programming I used the example in the first link above and changed the value associated with the count variable to include larger numbers of LEDs. I still don't really understand how the program works and ultimately I would like it to do something a little different than it does so I will have to figure that out later. But since that worked for 16 LEDs I started working on a more permanent version. That work in progress is below. There is a lot of soldering to do. By the time I finish, he will be in college:

All 6 LED drivers are soldered in and I tested the circuit to make sure my sloppy soldering
would work with one LED, which I was lucky enough to catch blinking for the camera.

Sloppy soldering...I will blame the cheap soldering iron until
I get a better one and will have no excuse.

Build Your Own Computer

It's been a long time since I've written anything for no particular reason but being busy. But I recently had 20 high school girls in a class doing something I have to write about. As part of a day full of STEM activities in our high school I had a bunch of girls put together some old PC desktops we were planning to put out to pasture. It was a morning full of anticipation, exploration, frustration, and finally, pure exaltation. I provided scaffolding in the form of a Prezi they could explore  as they needed, gave them screw drivers, and pointed them towards the pile of parts. The best moments were booting up. With some false starts and reseated processors the Dell and Windows splashes started appearing on screens around the room and the girls yelled for joy. They were so excited and proud of their work.

Do Women Make Technology Differently?

This is a very nice post by Carla Diana. It makes me more determined to bring opportunities to my school for girls to make technology.

Great Student Opensim Build: St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Basilica, Maderno's Facade

A ninth grade student at my school, Susannah Meyer (she was happy to be credited), just finished an amazing build for her history class Renaissance Faire event. I really did very little of this beyond advising her on how to approach it and it's really gratifying to see a student get so much out of an experience like this and produce something that is such a sight to behold! She didn't do any more than the facade of the building, but that was plenty to tackle. As you get into the details of a piece of architecture like this you begin to appreciate what an immense task it is to make the real thing.

Students Managing Their Own Data

Moodle RSS block

Post on Tumblr

Post pulled into Moodle page

I'm trying an experiment this year with my high school robotics students. I had been wanting them to document their work in a fun and creative way so I thought I would have them set up Tumblr accounts so they could easily post not only their code but videos and photos with their phones. Then I got thinking that I could pull in the RSS feeds from their Tumblrs to our Moodle class site. There's a block, or widget, for just that in Moodle. Then I thought why not just put them in the teacher role and give them an assignment to figure out how to connect up their own feeds. They didn't know what RSS was but I explained the concept and the purpose and gave them a couple hints. A few of them did figure it out and the rest did the next best thing, which was adding a link to their Tumblr on the page.

Why go to all this trouble? I think this exercise is important because they need to have experience making things with web tools for real purposes, not just using the web.

UPDATE on this: So one of my students got re-blogged by a porn site. I had to end the experiment. Fortunately I caught the spam before she could see it. Made me disappointed in the Internet.

Maker Faire NY

I had the great fortune of attending Maker Faire NY for the second time. What a thrill! And this time the highlight was bringing some of my students. I decided to bring a few students from each age division of our school so everyone from young to old could enjoy it. I plan to have the students present pictures and videos to their peers and talk briefly about what they found inspiring and exciting.

What amazed me was that most of the projects on exhibit were different from last year. Of course some things have already become and deserve to be standard fare, such as MakerBots and the Life Size Mouse Trap. But the growth of affordable 3D printer technology was evident with so many more types on exhibit. I'm just amazed at the successful effort to coordinate so many new makers and their work in one place. What an event!

Some highlights were watching my older students attend a 25 minute presentation at the lockpicking booth so determined to learn the secrets inside the average lock, seeing the younger students' delight at 3D printers printing chocolate and cheese, the middle schoolers playing with the robotic drummer, walking into a wacky techno duo set bathed in technicolor patterns with Game Boys and Casios hanging off the musicians, and interacting with so many kinds of robots. Putting Flip cameras in the hands of the students was great because as our groups split up to explore different areas I got to learn about twice as many amazing projects than I would have had we stayed in one group, like the keyboard-on-a-glove.

The best thing about the whole trip was the chance to show girls the huge variety of applied science and technology there was to see. It was a great step in our effort to help them see themselves as makers of technology and not just consumers of it.