Archive/Current Events/2012-02-02

Sugar Digest
1. I was in Colombia last week and had a chance to meet up with some Sugar hackers in Bogota. It was nice to catch up with Rafael Ortiz and Pilar Saenz and to meet Fabian Prieto. The interest in Sugar in Colombia is on the rise, so it is great that there is a local community that can offer support.

In Cali, I met with Eduteka, a comprehensive education portal used throughout the region. I gave them a mini-Turtle Art workshop with the goal that they would be able to write a plugin for a simple USB IO device that they have built.

2. Speaking of USB IO devices, Tony Forster is having fun with the Freetronics Leostick, an Arduino "on a stick". It looks really cute. I haven't been able to find a price for it anywhere on the Freetronics website, but it looks quite promising. Tony also pulled together a for Turtle Art into shape (based on the work of Ian Daniher).

3. Speaking of Turtle Art plugins, I have begun working on a new plugin to explore nutrition. The idea is to have a variety of food "blocks", each representing a polynomial description of their nutritional value. Numerical value blocks will accumulate factors such as calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, calcium, iron, fiber, salt, vitamin A, vitamin C, saturated fats, cholesterol, et al. The blocks can then be used to calculate the various nutritional value of a recipe or diet. Eventually, I'd like to add various operations such as the impact of cooking. Stay tuned.

4. Along with Pacita Pena and Martin Oesterreich, the first release version of the I Can Read activity is just about ready. Keep an eye out on activities.sugarlabs.org.

5. Quote of the week: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." &mdash;Richard Feynman

In the community
6. There will be an eduJAM! in the week of May 7-12 in Montevideo. Details to follow.

Tech Talk
7. The Devel Team has been making great progress on the new features for Sugar 0.96.

8. AlanJAS (Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn) has embarked upon an ASLO cleanup. See for the details on all of his analysis work. There are many small tasks that need attention. Please jump in to help if you have time.

9. Sugar is a learning community: I love reading Sascha Silbe's patch reviews. I learn something every time.

Sugar Labs
Gary Martin has generated SOMs from the past few weeks of discussion on the IAEP mailing list:

Visit our [plant.sugarlabs.org planet] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.