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One Laptop Per Child Application Development

Posted by timothy on from the be-the-chicken-hatch-the-egg dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This OLPC (One-Laptop-Per-Child) tutorial teaches you how to develop Python activities for the XO laptop. It covers the ins and outs of Sugar (the XO user interface, or UI) and the details behind activity development. You will also learn about Python programming, Sugar application program interfaces (APIs) for Python, and platform emulation with QEMU. Learn OLPC application development and help the worlds children."

33 comments

  1. Yet another sign-in-required alphaworks article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Please editors, at least check if the main article requires you to sign-in. There must be other rubbish you can post that doesn't require bugmenot to be read in full.

    Thanks,

    Anonymous IBM-coward

    PS. No, I'm not new here. Why do you ask?

  2. Marketing to the inevitable by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

    Any good books in the works on how to write hot games for that platform? Think of the market! (3. Profit!)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    1. Re:Marketing to the inevitable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm using a combination of Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame, Pygame and the documents on the OLPC wiki site. For the record, Pygame is installed on the XO by default and actually has a few added things like the ability to access the built in camera and mesh network.

    2. Re:Marketing to the inevitable by Threni · · Score: 0, Troll

      Yeah, cool 3D hardware on that thing. And any decent coder won't need a book to port reversi, zombie and lemonade.

    3. Re:Marketing to the inevitable by Darkael · · Score: 1

      Think of the market! (3. Profit!)

      Well, this isn't such a far-fetched idea, considering that EA donated Sim City to the OLPC project and I don't think it was a completely altruist move.

  3. Food? Power? Water? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Can you write an app that makes food for them? or electricity? or running water?

    1. Re:Food? Power? Water? by ajs318 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      OLPC is for people who already have food and water. Ting! Next, please.

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
    2. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Minwee · · Score: 4, Funny

      But can it teach them not to feed the trolls?

    3. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Marcion · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yum install nut-nutrition

      NUT records what you eat and analyzes your meals for nutrient levels in terms of the "Daily Value" (DV). The
      program uses the free food composition database from the USDA. By experimenting, you can find the optimal level
      of the various nutrients and how to implement this with foods available to you.

      --
      My little Linux and tech blog
    4. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      That's not terribly useful unless you limit yourself to prepackaged frozen crap.

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    5. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Marcion · · Score: 1

      >That's not terribly useful unless you limit yourself to prepackaged frozen crap.

      Not at all. You can still weigh organic ingredients.

      If you have a 100g of carrots then you look it up, if you have an 100g bowl of rice you can look it up.

      The USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors is quite comprehensive. You can enter your own data too.

      --
      My little Linux and tech blog
    6. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      If you care to spend more time plugging your recipes into your computer than your face, sure. How many grams in a pinch anyway?

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      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    7. Re:Food? Power? Water? by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Do you have a better way? Seems that spending a few minutes on nutrition is a pretty good use of time, and once you have some standard recipies you don't have to keep on entering data.

  4. Re:Yet another sign-in-required alphaworks article by Marcion · · Score: 0

    Yeah, so annoying. Slashdot should not reward paywalls.

    --
    My little Linux and tech blog
  5. And THINK before you code by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    Keep in mind that not all kids are well intentioned.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:And THINK before you code by pembo13 · · Score: 1

      Is this different from anyone else?

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    2. Re:And THINK before you code by elrous0 · · Score: 1

      In the fact that these scams are legally tolerated in many of these countries, yes. But, even if it wasn't, the OLPC people are idealists who probably haven't even thought of the possibility of these computers being used for this sort of thing. Just as with the porn controversy, it's likely to catch them off guard if they don't think carefully before they code. An open system is great until people start exploiting it for all the "wrong" reasons.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:And THINK before you code by try_anything · · Score: 1

      An open system is great until people start exploiting it for all the "wrong" reasons.
      It's still great even then. Sticks, stones, knives, wheels, writing, domesticated horses, the postal system, electricity, narcotics, light bulbs, and email are all used for bad purposes, but they're used to far greater good effect than evil. I'm sure criminals will have a field day with the OLPC, but people will be too busy managing the positive effects to care. It's very hard to design morality into tools, especially with code, yet tools tend to have positive effects. Even explosives might break even, given their use in constructing dams, railroads, and other infrastructure that helps protect people against regional and temporal fluctuations in agricultural output.

      Anyway, I imagine a 419 scammer would use exactly the same tools as a small e-commerce site: CRM, mailing lists, maybe some basic filtering to do triage on incoming email. The only difference is that they would populate their mailing lists by buying email addresses in bulk instead of asking customers to opt in. Well, plus they need a program to convert everything they type into all caps. So I agree that no one should write a program like that :-)

      I'm not even sure that 419 scamming is really such a bad thing considering the context. At least the kids doing it aren't fighting in rebel armies or eking out a premodern living somehow. Eventually the economy will have to grow and modernize, and when that time comes, investors will probably be wishing there were more people with basic computer literacy, i.e., more people who worked on 419 scams instead of making an honest living in factories or on farms.

  6. full article pdf by slack_prad · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www6.software.ibm.com/developerworks/education/l-sugarpy/l-sugarpy-pdf.pdf

    --
    Sent from my desktop computer
  7. Can we get a OLPC simulator environment yet? by compumike · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What would really spur development is if we could get a software simulation environment (ala VMware, Bochs, etc) so that developers who don't have the hardware could play with stuff. Also the keyboard on the actual OLPC is tiny, which adds an extra challenge for (adult) developers.

    --
    NerdKits: educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation.

    1. Re:Can we get a OLPC simulator environment yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      yet?!?!!!

      they have made virtual machine images available for quite a long time.

    2. Re:Can we get a OLPC simulator environment yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quemu system images are available (this developement paper also descirbes how to install quemu and run an emulated system).

    3. Re:Can we get a OLPC simulator environment yet? by wjsteele · · Score: 1

      Also the keyboard on the actual OLPC is tiny, which adds an extra challenge for (adult) developers.

      So, plugging in a full size USB Keyboard won't work?

      Bill
      --
      It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
    4. Re:Can we get a OLPC simulator environment yet? by sleigher · · Score: 2, Informative

      A USB mouse and keyboard both work.

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
  8. Audacity, gcc,etc.etc. by Bananatree3 · · Score: 2, Informative
    There are hundreds of packages you can download by simply typing

    Yum Install ...

    Audacity downloads and is practically turnkey. GCC works out of the chute. People are even getting Free Doom to run on it. The limit isn't the tech but the experimentation of packages.

  9. Think of the punctuation by SleptThroughClass · · Score: 1
    "Learn OLPC application development and help the worlds children."

    And start by teaching them the proper use of the apostrophe.

    1. Re:Think of the punctuation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      And maybe we can all start teaching the n00bs how to use blockquotes. Moran.

    2. Re:Think of the punctuation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow dude, get laid.

    3. Re:Think of the punctuation by Daedone · · Score: -1, Troll

      Perhaps right after they look up how to spell moron... ?

  10. Re:Yet another sign-in-required alphaworks article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  11. Maemo! by try_anything · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sugar and Hildon are both small, simple desktops based on GTK, so hopefully it will turn out to be no great effort to adapt Hildon programs for Sugar and vice-versa. Let's face it, we do a much better job at developing applications that we use ourselves. How can I develop an application for children? I've mostly ignored them since I was one myself, and if conventional wisdom is correct, adults are doomed to underestimate them, even when we are forewarned of this danger. But I know what I like -- simple study tools and educational games are fun to play on public transit and other dead time, or just ostentatiously improving oneself in a big comfy chair at the local coffeehouse. If they can also be used by children on the OLPC, well, that's a hell of a warm fuzzy, and a good line to use on chicks. (Can it be... a massive convergence of the interests of narcissistic hipgeeks and developing-world children? Count me IN!)

  12. The Record Application... by bagofcrap · · Score: 1
    .. only let you record up to 45 seconds.

    Thats not long enough, so change it: How to let the Record activity to record than 45 seconds of audio.

    1. Re:The Record Application... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you familiar with the SP-1200 and the endless amount of music it has been used to create?

      "One of the attributes of the SP-1200 is its extremely small amount of memory, roughly 10 seconds."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp-1200