TimeLapse is computer software for the Sugar Learning Platform used to gather periodic data (sound and images).  It is the first software activity developed by Sugar Labs DC and runs on the OLPC XO-1 laptop. The idea for TimeLapse grew out of the exciting, eclectic, interdisciplinary meeting of scientists, computer programmers, pedagogues, and hardware hobbyists originally brought together by the OLPC Learning Club DC.

Dr. Frank Linton, who has an observation bee hive in his house, was interested in studying the relationship between the sound made by the hive and the health and well being of the bees inside.  He wondered if he could use his XO laptop to gather periodic sound sampling from the hive.  This real world need became the seed for the development of TimeLapse.

Over the past two years, with Dr. Linton acting as customer, Jeff Elkner, and a group of young programmers from Sugar Labs, DC have made steady improvements to TimeLapse.  The current release is the first one that is installable through the Browse Activity in Sugar, making TimeLapse easily available to Sugar users all over the world.

Come celebrate the accomplishment of these talented young programmers.  Bring your XO and try out TimeLapse for yourself.

Update: TimeLapse is now available for download on the Sugar  Labs activities site.

Note time change!!!
When: Saturday, January 16th, 2010, 1 pm to 4 pm
Arlington Career Center
816 South Walter Reed Drive,
Arlington, VA 22204
(Contact Page, Map, Aerial Photo, Bus Info)

Walter Bender of Sugar Labs will join in by video conference from Cambridge, MA.

We’ll also raffle off an original copy of the new XtraOrdinary 2010 SD card!

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, August 15th, 2009, 10 am to 1pm
Where: Gallaudet University [map, aerial photo], Student Academic Center,
**NOTE ROOM CHANGE: We are UPSTAIRS from the old meeting rooms in the basement on the first floor [floorplan], Classroom 2 SAC1210 and Classroom 3 SAC1211, Washington, D.C. 20002

This month, we are back at the Gallaudet Student Academic Center in the AV-equipped classroom one floor above the multi-purpose rooms where we used to meet. We have another informative presentation by our own Kim Toufectis on options for streaming audio in your XO-1 browser. Kim went on to investigate audio after researching his presentation on cloud computing.

Kim will present a survey of sites he’s tested that work for streaming music and news via the XO Browse Activity’s built-in open source Gnash player that handles Flash files. If time permits, and some of our command line experts are around, we’ll also demonstrate how to set up the XO to play MP3 audio from a USB flash drive. Mike will do an update on the OLPCorps Africa deployments [see the team blogs].

We will also raffle off one or more sets of folding paper eco speakers.

September 19th, we’ll back at the Arlington Career Center with a special presentation on the activities of the first few months of Sugar Labs DC by Jeff Elkner and plans are shaping up for a demo at the meeting of the upcoming XO 1.5 laptop (essentially an upgraded motherboard)!

Don’t forget to sign up for our meeting announcement email list if you’re not already on.

8/14: Adding links to use during the meeting:

OLPC Teachers’ Mini-Deployment Guide book sprint in DC

Prezi Zooming Presentation Editor

OLPC Blog OLPCorps Deployment Update

OLPCorps Sahn Malen, Sierra Leone Blog

8/15: From the meeting:

Kim’s presentation

Adobe Flash version test 

Location change! This month we are deviating from our plan and meeting at Nortel Networks again where we have a more convenient environment for doing software updates to the XO laptops.

What: Family XO Mesh Meetup
When: Saturday, October 18th, 2008, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: Nortel Networks, 101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, DC 20001 [Map]

As the title of this post suggests, we’re going to show things related to open source software and hardware. First, we’ll pass around the very first copies of OLPC XO Laptop and Sugar User Interface printed manuals! My copies are pictured above. They look an feel fabulous. These print-on-demand books can be ordered from Lulu.com or you can download the PDFs for free to print yourself or read on a computer screen. The manuals are the result of a team of volunteers working with the FLOSS Manuals project. FLOSS stands for “free, libre, open source software.” The FLOSS web site offers an ever growing collection of community authored manuals for various popular open source packages. More than just PDFs to download, the web site lets you build your own custom PDFs by selecting only the chapters you want. Each chapter is written in a self-contained style. Adam Holt, who called in to the last meeting from OLPC Headquarters spoke at length about the recent book sprint event in Austin during which the majority of the content of the two OLPC manuals was authored. I know many of our club members have been pining for good documentation in printed form. Be happy now! Even better, if you don’t think a FLOSS manual covers a topic you need, you can jump in and add content to benefit others.

The bulk of our meeting time will be devoted to helping anyone who wants to upgrade to the new Sugar 8.2.0 update. I’ve been using it for a while, and it makes my XO feel like a brand new laptop with speed and usability improvements as well as a raft of bug fixes. As always, there’s a small gotcha: this new release is best installed clean on your XO wiping out everything on it in the process. If you have files in your Journal you wish to keep, they should be dragged to a USB drive. Customizations such as Adobe Flash, Firefox, Opera, Java, web radio, video players will be lost. We will likely be able to help reinstall some of these customizations, so please let us know in advance (curiouslee [at] gmail.com) so we can be prepared and do post to the discussion forum. This new update is the one that will be shipped with the upcoming Give One Get One 2008 program now being offered via Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/xo.

One very pleasant surprise in this new Sugar update is that the Scratch Sensor board now works with Scratch! Scratch was demonstrated a few meetings ago by Richard Bullington-McGuire. It’s essentially a way to program animations and games using pieces of software code that snap together like Lego bricks. The sensor board, now marketed as the PicoBoard for USD$50, plugs into the XO’s USB port to provide light, sound, resistance, push button, and slider inputs to the Scratch environment. One club member suggested an alarm system for a child’s bedroom could be created with Scratch and the sensor board. I hope to demo this at the meeting.

Do try to check back here a day or two before the meeting in case there are any updates. I am only planning to send one email update. Not on our email list? Go here.

Here are links my photos, presentation slides and archived audio from the meeting. The automatic MP3 capture from FreeConference.com worked exceedingly well and also provided toll free numbers to those dialing in. We were, however, constrained to staying near the speaker phone at both locations, but that was workable.

The audio is stored on OurMedia.org, which offers an embedded audio player or downloading in various audio formats. I’ve posted my timestamped annotations on the page so you can advance the audio player to the portions you want to hear. With the slides open in another window, you can follow along the audio of my trip report.

Thanks again to the teams at Nortel for helping with logistics, Anna Schoolfield for calling in from Birmingham on a busy Saturday and to the new and regular attendees for bringing your energy.