Pseudo-Weekly Update, June 28th, 2008

(Added an expanded update from BicycleWORKS!)

Theresa is razzing me, and she has every right to. =) This past month has been a bit of a blur. So without further ado, news from BWORKS.

A good part of the past month at ByteWORKS was devoted to reorganizing the shop and the storefront.  Matthew spearheaded the effort to get all of our computer hardware coherently organized. And new shelves have joined the old to help hold all of our incoming and outgoing donations, recycling, and grad-ready computers.

And this past weekend was the end of our break, and the beginning of a new session of the Earn-A-Computer Class:

We started a new Earn-A-Computer class this week.  We have 12 eager, attentive students in this class which looks to be one of our most successful classes.  This week's class was Introduction to Computers, which covers the basics of how computers work and shows the students the main parts of the personal computer.  Students get to see and handle motherboards, CPUs, RAM and hard drives, which provides a first-hand education about how computers work. Next week, we'll be breaking in a new instructor who will teach the Internet class.  This is always exciting for the new instructor, and existing ones as well, because we'll have more assistants available to help students who are having trouble during the class.  The extra flexibility of having more instructors doesn't hurt, either :-)

- Nate

And this past weekend was also a graduation; we have another new class of BicycleWORKS alumni. It was a beautiful day outside for the last session, where the kids got their bicycles and had an orientation ride around the neighborhood. 

Earn-A-Bike Class:

The June Earn-A-Bike group graduated Saturday June 28th. Seven kiddos were able to ride his/her bike (along with new helmet) on some drills in a parking lot, then through Tower Grove Park led by Tom, Richard, and Kelly. It turned out to be a short ride through the park, which was a very good idea. We got back to the shop around 11:40AM, and spend the next 45 minutes getting their lights installed and locks coded.

All in all, this was a great group of kids, they were so, so happy with their bikes.

Classes will resume on July 12 with a new group of kids.

Bicycle Shop:

It was a busy month at the bike shop. We had just short of 100 volunteers stop by to help out for a total of about 350 hours of time. We helped over 70 kids repair their bikes on our sidewalks and fixed up the 8 bikes needed for the kids class. We donated about a dozen bikes to Bicycle Redemption in North Saint Louis and collected another 65 bikes for our Bikes to Developing Nations Project. We have been unusually busy from 7-8 pm Tue and Thursday and have not been able to keep up with demand.This last week in June we made a big effort to clean up the shop to get it ready for the next class and a new month of bicycle building.

-Eduardo

And another graduation is soon to come...

The pilot program for the Mentorship Program has ended, and we'll be giving a presentation to the Board of Directors, as well as a demo presentation to the kids in the Earn-A-Computer program, to attract more students.  This is very exciting for our pilot student, who will take part in the presentation by telling everyone about his experience.  Topics will include what was learned, what the easiest and hardest parts were, and what could be improved about the Mentorship Program.  The presentation and the notes from the pilot program will be available for Byteworks volunteers, and possibly the public.  Stay tuned for an update next week.

-Nate

And I'll close out this week's (month's?) update with a bit of a history lesson, thanks to a kind donation. It's useful for kids to know how these things used to done back in the day. 

-Bill

Weekly Update, May 31st, 2008

Following on last week's regular graduation at ByteWORKS, we had our make up week, where students fill in classes they missed in the regular session. Two students arrived to make up the Scratch programming class, and one for the final Email class. Teaching a student or two at a time gives you a real chance to focus that can be harder to do in the larger class. At the end of the morning three more students collected their certificates and picked up their computers. And we have another potential student for the Mentorship program.

And it was graduation week at BicycleWORKS. On top of that the volunteers have been working tirelessly as always on keeping on top of the continuous stream of bikes coming through the shop. (And yes, I did notice the pun, and left it in anyways.) They have been doing a remarkable job, and we'll be hearing more from them in the coming weeks.

The volunteer meeting brought us up to speed with what's going on with the Bworks board, and allowed us to get into some plans for the future. In the ByteWORKS Workshop, we'll be taking advantage of the time off between class sessions to reorganize the classroom and the workshop, from shelving to networking.

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As Theresa mentioned back in the April 12th entry, this year marks the 20th anniversary of Bworks. The Saint Louis Bicycle Works, Inc. started rolling back in 1988, and ByteWORKS joined them in 1998. There's a historical summary of our organization on our wiki. On your read through, you'll see that Bworks has had plenty of ups and downs over the years. But throughout, it's been a positive force in the Shaw community.

I've personally been volunteering with ByteWORKS for about half a year now, and have been absorbing a bit of the history along the way. I find myself remarkably impressed with the fact that just a couple of years ago, the whole of ByteWORKS on the ground (classroom, workshop and storefront) rested on the shoulders of just three dedicated volunteers. Today we have about a dozen volunteers on the Byte side any given week, from a rotation of many more. I've considered it a privilege to work alongside such a group of dedicated, hard-working, talented, and just fun-to-be-around people.

Something my father has mentioned often to me is that whatever talent or sophistication you have, there are some jobs where you can bring all of it to bear. Teaching easily falls into that category. Kids are seriously perceptive; they can easily tell when you're approaching them with respect, and they tend to respect you in turn. (As an aside, it's interesting to note how often the students in our classes are surprised to learn their teachers aren't being paid for the time they devote.)

I have tremendous respect for the hard work and dedication that I've seen at Bworks. Keeping respect in mind, for the kids as well as ourselves, will be a good foundation for the future of ByteWORKS and BicycleWORKS. I'm looking forward to where we go from this anniversary.

Also, starting this coming Saturday, Theresa is taking a seriously well earned vacation. We'll miss her around the shop, and I hope to do as good a job blogging the Bworks story for her to read in her off time as she did for Doc during his.

Bill

Weekly Update May 24, 2008

All Volunteers

There will be another All-Volunteer meeting on Saturday, May 31. Agenda and details will be posted to the staff and shop groups.

- Theresa

EAC Class

Graduation class was this week! The 12 graduates received diplomas, an e-mail address, and more importantly, a computer and six weeks of computer classes. Byteworks congratulates these students, and we encourage them to use their computers to further their education as well as create their own presentations, reports, and computer programs for the world to see.

The instructors would like to send a special thank you to the workshop crew: Matthew, Josh, Bill and especially Theresa, who is in charge of the workshop but has been handling many other responsibilities that are equally as important.

Again, congratulations to the students and volunteers for a successful Earn-A-Computer session.

- Nate

Mentorship Program

This week, the pilot student was taught the concept of “pseudocode” http://www.unf.edu/~broggio/cop2221/2221pseu.htm

Pseudocode is the concept of writing human-readable code on paper or a whiteboard instead of jumping immediately on the computer and hacking away.

Using pseudo-code, we showed the pilot student a possible solution for one of the requirements of his project. The advantages of Pseudo code really stood out. We could show high-level logic more easily on the whiteboard than we could on the computer screen. We didn’t have to worry about techhy details, and we didn’t have to worry about damaging the student’s existing project with code that we later had to omit or change.

These lessons (such as pseudo-code, and hardware, and typing) provide a refreshing break from working on one project. They also help the student along with his project by showing alternative and better ways to accomplish the project.

We look forward to hearing what lessons the student thought were valuable, and will definitely incorporate these lessons into future mentorship programs.

- Nate

Workshop

This was Graduation Week. Thanks to Matthew, Josh, and Bill, for heroically coming to the rescue, hauling up monitors from the basement, preparing the peripherals bags to go with the EAC machines, and not least, for toting computers and monitors out to cars, helping the parents and children.

We helped out another local non-profit with an iMac (they had been donated one but it wouldn’t boot up), worked on reinstalling XP on a donated box and Ubuntu on another, both for resale, sorted out the triage pile and loaded up Doc’s truck again.

There are 12-14 identical computers, small profile ones, in boxes right now, in the triage area. Right now, it’s unsure what they will be used for. The original idea was to use them for EAC machines, or for the childrens advanced program where they will build their own computer. However, the specs are: P-III 450 MHz, 64MB PC100 SD-RAM (note, using 133 doesn’t work), no CD and no mounting brackets (also, requires slimline CD). We do not have sufficient RAM inventory to upgrade these machines to meet our minimum specifications for the EAC program, and we don’t have slimline CDs and missing mounting brackets, either. Also, there is very little room in the case, making it far less than ideal for first-time computer builders. So any suggestions for how to use them are welcome.

I managed to test all the printers in the triage pile; workable ones are in the retail room and priced by Dr. Walter, ready to sell, while those that didn’t work went into his truck, along with all the other computer recylables he hauled to W.I.T.S. Now the triage area is cleaned out, and there is space for next Saturday’s lunch to go with the meeting.

- Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update May 17, 2008

All Volunteers

Notice to all volunteers: Jennie is our Volunteer Coordinator. If you have not completed and returned the surveys she sent out, please do so.

We are going to schedule another all-volunteer meeting (hopefully not quite as long as the first one, though!) – suggested date is Saturday May 31, time is 1:00pm (after makeup classes). Doc suggested we cater sandwiches from Thurman Grill, which sounds good. However, I am also planning on bringing in a big batch of mini key lime pies. So if anybody else wants to bring in goodies to snack on, sounds great.

Topics will include:

• more about the Board of Directors
• volunteer orientation and training. There is grant money earmarked for this purpose. Jennie is working very hard at gathering information.
• June tech project: reorganizing the physical shop (inventory, cleaning, etc.)
• June tech project: migrating data to new retail computer
• June tech project: reorganizing the network
• June tech project: updating the classroom computers (update Debian, fix ssh keys, restore /home/student/ directory on all but the Instructors machine, update Ubuntu, update Windows, including antivirus, Firefox, Open Office, others?)
• June general facilities project: clean, organize, upgrade
• others?

Attendance will be limited to volunteers. Since the adult Earn a Computer program is currently on hold, and the current childrens session will graduate before the end of the month, then June is a perfect time for us to do some work on our infrastructure. If you are a techie, great, we can use you, for work on the network, or the classroom, or the triage pile. If you are not technical, great, we can use you, for cleaning, organizing, building storage shelves, moving monitors, or for working on revamping the adult program, or the kids program, or helping Jennie with the volunteer handbook, or any one of a billion other things. This would be a good time to have some training/orientation for all volunteers.

- Theresa

EAC Class

The EAC Class for this week was “Computer Programming using Scratch” http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/scratch_programming_class

This class is a bit difficult to teach, because there are so many features of Scratch that are interesting to the kids. The kids tend to just try doing things, such as making Scratch move and draw shapes, or even create their own characters. This is fine, except that some students are behind the instructor, some kids are way ahead of the instructor, and other kids are so far off track that it wastes a considerable amount of time just to get them back on track.

Nonetheless, a quiz was given at the end of the class, involving questions such as “How many degrees are there in a circle?” and “How many degrees are between the sides of a square?”, and the questions were answered quickly. So, I’d have to rate this particular class as a success.

- Nate

Mentorship Program

This week was sort of a lazy week. The rigors of teaching the Scratch class and the beautiful weather outside was a good excuse to get a soda across the street and just to talk about basic computer and Byteworks stuff, such as what kind of computers we have available in the shop, etc. Nevertheless, the pilot student became very attentive in the last 45 minutes (when everyone else was gone, not surprisingly), and we got back on track with his helicopter game. The student learned the difference between absolute and relative assignments (pretty deep stuff!), and how to create properties for Sprites, so that we could keep track of which sprite has a baseball. If that’s too deep for you, then consider enrolling in the Mentorship program!

- Nate

Workshop

Doc was in a good part of the morning, and looks to be feeling better. He was able to address a lot of things, including:

• XP licenses (we are in good shape; however, note that these licenses can only be used for student machines, not for resale)
• upcoming project – shelving in basement
• upcoming project – get the last of monitors out of temporary storage (and then store in basement on convenient new shelves)
• met with Clarence to begin discussions about how adult class program will change

Next week is Graduation Week. The “grad ready” computers are good to go. However, we still need:

• gmail accounts for students (Nate said he was working on this)
• “grad ready” computers for all graduates (done)
• printed Graduation Certificates (will do next Saturday morning)
• prepare bags with two power cables, mouse, keyboard, speakers (count depends on grad count)
• bring up monitors from the basement (count depends on grad count)

Jess’s student picked up her computer – Bill was kind (or brave) enough to search the basement, and located the machine based on serial number.

Karen (new BOD secretary) received some training on uploading notes to the staff Yahoo group site (last week received training on using Open Office, and exporting as a .pdf file).

There is a big pile of triage to sort through:

• cables, etc. to sort out
• monitors to test
• need to do a “printer fest” – whole bunch of donated printers, supposedly all good, need testing, then mark for sale

Gross-out notice: bugs in the computers. Not software miscalculations, but scurrying insects. Big. Old. YUK. Suggest we choose a week and bug-bomb the place.

This was the first week of our new policy: you play, you help out first. Bunch of kids ran the vacuum cleaner, wiped down desks and keyboards, before class this morning. Good policy. We’ll keep it.

- Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update Saturday May 10, 2008

EAC Class

The EAC class went well on Saturday. Dave taught the OpenOffice Impress course, in which all of the kids created a personal presentation about themselves. Some great presentations all around, and a lot of good focus. A good bit of summer energy as well, which a couple of new volunteers did a great job of helping contain. - Bill

Mentorship Program

The Mentorship program took a parallel track this week. Our student brought in his computer for a few upgrades to bring it up to speed with the newest student software image and version of Scratch, the language we’re using for his project. We ended up spending most of the session doing some hardware upgrades to his computer, with him doing most of the upgrades himself. (He has a great aptitude for it.) We got some good hardware lessons in this week, and are looking forward to getting back to his software project next week. - Bill

Workshop

Good news was Dr. Walter was in on Saturday. The bad news is, he’s probably going to be out for a while. He returned a truckload of computer equipment he was working on at home. Then, he had us load up his truck for a W.I.T.S. run, where he was also going to meet with Angela resolving some confusion regarding our next batch of XP licenses for the adult student machines. For the next week, Dan will check phone messages during the week, and I’ll do callbacks on Saturday. We need more volunteer cross-training in general, and now’s probably the time to start.

Some more new volunteers are joining us. Two are wanting to help with the classroom, a guy named Phil, who has experience teaching computer classes, and the fiancee of Brian, another volunteer. Unfortunately I’m terrible with names, and don’t remember hers (Danielle?). Jen, there are filled-out survey forms waiting for you in the shop.

Bryan also donated a nice digital camera, to be used for the advanced workshop that’s in planning stages. It will be useful for the shop, for Dan to take pictures of items to be sold on eBay, and for the graduation photos.

Lots of donations came in; boxes of cables and peripherals, a load of machines and monitors, etc. The guys pitched in and promptly tested all the monitors, tagging the good ones and moving them downstairs, and putting any bad or undersized ones in the W.I.T.S. pile. A donated machine had a valid Windows XP license tag on it, so that’s being reinstalled and the machine readied for sale.

One thing that came up in discussion today is this: we are a very popular destination for the local kids from 10:00 - 11:00, because they are allowed to come in and play on the computers before class. The suggestion is that this is a privilege which can be earned, by spending 10 minutes helping to clean the classroom, vacuum the floor, wipe down the desks, and the like. I like it, for two reasons. First, we have no one doing any of that work now. Second, it helps to instill the value of earning things as opposed to being handed them. Comments and suggestions? - Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update, May 3rd, 2008

Byteworks Weekly Update, May 3, 2008

EAC Class

The Word Processing class was featured this week. This class is one of the more difficult classes to teach, due to the disparity in typing skills between the students. Some students finish typing early, then begin to experiment with the hundreds of other features of word processors, such as large fonts, bolding, colors, etc. This is fine, but it distracts other students who haven’t completed their typing excercises yet. Several Byteworks volunteers have created this page http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/word_processing_class_issues where we intend to discuss this issue to improve the class for everyone.

Nonetheless, the class was a success, and the students were eager to answer questions about the points they learned. The main points of the class are:

1. Save your work often
2. Use proper grammar and spell-checking
3. Use easy-to-read formatting
4. Use copy/paste instead of retyping long sentences or paragraphs

Mentorship Program

The Mentorship Program was a big success this week. This week’s goal was to animate a helicopter by taking an existing image of a helicopter and rotating the blades using KolourPaint. Bill and Nate had prepared this solution prior to the class, and the class went smoothly, and the student was attentive and learned how to use different applications to solve a problem. Next week’s assignment should also go smoothly, because Bill has outlined a solution.

Workshop

Seems like it was a Windows kind of day ... finished readying a computer for Voices For Children, a Windows 2000 machine that needed the antivirus program registered, and a modem installed. That was picked up Saturday morning. Next it was finishing up a Windows XP machine, which was being purchased by a member of the SNIA. That one needed lots of updates (27 updates! Reboot! 16 more updates! Reboot! Wait, no, there’s more! Reboot!) to the operating system, and also various program updates and installs, including Adobe Acrobat Reader, Firefox (with the AdBlock Plus plugin), and Open Office. A third Windows XP machine, for our treasurer, needed accounting software installed, and data migrated from an old Windows 98 machine.

Back in the shop, Matthew got a very nice machine ready for sale, with a fast processor and SATA hard drive. Matt worked some more on the machine we are hoping to use as a RAM testing station, but it seems there are “issues” ... either mainboard or processors or something else. So, we may keep trying, or we may just give up the ghost, and use a different machine.

There was a big box sitting on the doorstep, an overnight “drop-and-run” donation. The Pentium II machine we have no use for, but some of the other bits are good – keyboards, mice, wireless networking setups, cables, and the like.

All the EAC graduate machines are built and ready to go. We still need to assemble the bags with peripherals and cables, and bring up monitors from the basement. We have several weks before graduation, so are in good shape there.

See you next Saturday!

Nate

Theresa

Weekly Update, April 26, 2008

Mentorship Program

Our pilot student continued to make progress with his project. Bill and Nate worked with the student to create a timeline for completing the project. A major goal of the Mentorship Program is to show students how to set goals for themselves and manage their time to achieve those goals. We expect to demonstrate the pilot student’s project to Board Members and family in early June. Best of luck to our pilot student and the Mentorship program!

EAC Class

The subject of the Earn-A-Computer class this week was the Internet. This is a popular class with the students, and they’re very eager to follow along with the instructor. Students learn that the Internet is made up of millions of different computers, and that it’s not owned by any one company. The students always enjoy the part of the class when the instructor tells them to point their browsers to http://64.236.29.72 :)

Byteworks puts heavy emphasis on teaching safety on the Internet, and more than half of the class time is dedicated to this subject. Byteworks stresses to students that it’s o.k. to inform their parents/guardians about anything that makes them feel unsafe on the Internet. We use the questions found at http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm to teach the students what to do in specific situations. The students are eager to read the questions out loud and complete a quiz after they’ve read the points.

The students also got a big laugh out of Point #10 of the kids rules, which points out that students should help their parents use the Internet. How true.

Workshop

Thanks to Brad and the other volunteers, a further five computers were made ready for the current batch of students. The “Grad Ready” count now stands at 15, which should be enough to cover the whole class plus a few spares. Nice job, guys!

Matthew has built a new “Retail Computer” for the front office, with the new 8.04 “Hardy Heron” Ubuntu, and running Windows XP via vmware. Nice is that rebooting is no longer necessary – to switch between operating systems, all that’s required is a combination of keystrokes. CLICK – and you are running Windows – CLICK – now you are running Ubuntu. All that’s left is determining which software application are required, installing them, and then migrating the data over.

A large number of identical machines were brought up from the basement and put in the “triage” pile. Some of these machines will be used for the upcoming “Learn To Build A Computer” advanced workshop. The rest will be used for the childrens EAC machines.

Ubuntu 8.04 Install CDs Robert emailed some of the local LUGs to let them know that we have install CDs available. ByteWorks is charging $2 to cover materials costs, or people are welcome to bring in their own blank CDs instead. Currently available versions are for Desktop, Server, and Alternate, for i386 and AMD64. Bill was making ISO images of the xubuntu and kubuntu CDs of 8.04; once those are on the server as well, another message can be posted.

The LUG people are supposed to send an email to BWorks “info” account first, so we know how many copies of which images are requested. Last Saturday someone showed up with no advance warning; however, he generously gave us a $100 donation!!! So we didn’t really mind making him a special CD.