Software Freedom Day 2014 – Tsakane
0A bunch of us celebrated Software Freedom Day this year at a very special school, African School For Excellence in Tsakane (near Brakpan). The day was a tremendous success, with 106 kids attending (on a Saturday!!) our technology roadshow.
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- The school consists of some pre-fab buildings and is in the process of creating more permanent structures
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- Learners on their way to ASE
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- ASE from the skye taken by Arnold during one of the quadcopter demos
The day started at 9.30 with Jay (the school’s founder) introducing us to the learners (a very special experience – all of us got cheers, even the software developers!).
The day started with Jay introducing us and explaining the day to the learners
Then the group was split into three, rotating through two classrooms, each with three tech tutorials. The group not in either of the classrooms spent some time dreaming and scheming about their upcoming projects and interacting with demos in the tented area.
Class room 1
In room 1, Cable (assisted by Neil) presented electronics for kids and showed off some of his home built bots. Next, Toby was taking the kids through some tools for learning programming. And finally, Raoul brought it together with Arduino.
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- Cable show and tell about his electronics for kids project
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- Toby introducing programming
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- Cable and Neil’s electronics4kids poster
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- Cable and Neil’s display of robots and electronic projects
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- Kids enjoying the electronics session
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- Raoul introducing Arduino to the learners at ASE
Class room 2
In room 2, Guy was introducing the learners to InkScape and open clipart. This was followed by Jeandré, who introduced Blender. And, Richard showed how to turn a 3d design into a physical object. Philip demonstrated some 3d printed objects and the power of combining 3d printing, programming and electronics.
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- Guy is demonstrating the art of 2d design using InkScape
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- Jeandre showing how to turn 2d object into 3d using Blender
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- Richard fascinates the kids with 3d printing
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- Richard demonstrating the printing process
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- Philip brought along some 3d printed items
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- Philip combined electronics and 3d printing to spark some ideas
Demos outside
The kids that was waiting for their chance to experience the tutorials, were treated to some demos outside. This included 3d printing using the RoboBeast, vacuum forming, fpv flying planes, quadcopters, hexcopters, rc cars and Robohands.
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- Kobus explaining about quadcopters
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- Kids trying on the robohands
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- Nico getting ready to fly FPV
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- Vacuum forming phun
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- Fascinated by 3d printing
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- RC cars
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- Robobeast printing batman
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- Hands on training with the vacuum former
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- Arnold busy setting up the FPV projector.
Snacks
After having their brains loaded with lots of new ideas, their stomachs got loaded with some healthy snacks provided by Standard Bank – thanks Philip Snyman!
Making it last
It is phun to have these events, but we aimed to make a lasting difference. To this end we donated a couple of PC’s loaded with videos, tutorials, software, demo’s etc. and installed it in the library.
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- Guy busy ensuring that the software works as planned
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- A couple of donated (thanks Toby and Arnold) computers, monitors, keyboard, mouse, network cables was configured as learner stations in the library
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- Learning station installed in the library with free and open source software, tutorials and videos
University of Johannesburg solar car team sponsored a RepRapPro 3d printer:
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- Toby hands over to Jay (founder of ASE) the 3d printer sponsored by UJ Solar Car Team
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- UJ Solar Car Team sponsored this RepRapPro Printer
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- RepRapPro sponsored by the UJ solar car team
And RoboBeast sponsored a Morgan 3d printer:
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- Richard (from Robobeast & Robohand) hands over to Jay (founder of ASE) the Morgan 3d Printer sponsored by Robohand
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- The sponsored Morgan 3d Printer busy printing a demo piece
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- The Morgan 3d printer, designed by Quentin Harley, won the Gada prize for personal interim manufacturing
At the end of the day
Got this nice group photo taken at the end of the day. We were also thanked personally by (just about each and everyone of ) the students!
Group photo at the end of the day
Timelapse of the ASE Roadshow
Philip build and setup up a Raspberry Pi with a Raspberry Pi Camera Module to take a photo every 10 seconds during the event. The product is this time-lapse video of the tented area at ASE and it condenses 4 hours into 1 minute.
Thanks!
Thank you to Standard Bank for donating and Philip Snyman for organising the snack packs.
Thank you to UJ Solar team for donating the RepRapPro 3d printer.
Thank you to RoboBeast for donating the Morgan 3d printer.
Thank you to Arnold and Toby for donating the hardware for the library servers.
Thank you to everybody from House4Hack that planned the event, made the website, prepared and presented tutorials, assisted in the class rooms, prepared demonstrations, made videos, took photos, made time-lapse videos, manned the demo stands, FPV plane flying, FPV quad copter flying, operated the 3d printers, operated the vacuum former, donated hardware, downloaded and configured (free and opensource) software, moved tables around, cable tied table cloths, answered millions of eager questions, loaded and unloaded cars, hearded cats etc. etc.
A special thanks to Beth van As for capturing the day in photos.
The House4Hack team consisted of
- Cable and Neil Maharaj
- Toby Kurien
- Raoul Diffouo
- Guy van den Berg
- Jeandré M
- Richard van As
- Philip Booysen
- Beth van As
- Arnold de Bruin
- Kobus van der Walt
- Nico Rautenbach
- Schalk Heunis
Thank you from ASE
Received this letter from Jay, head of school:
Hello team,
