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== Sugar Digest ==
 
== Sugar Digest ==
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1. Marvin Minsky was fond of saying that there is nothing more dangerous than when a roomful of people all agree with each other. We don't have to worry about that in the Sugar community!!! Marvin also observed that "it's very important to have friends who can solve problems you can't." The diversity of our community is its strength.
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1. Sugar Labs will be participating in Google Code-in again this year. Ignacio
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Rodriguez and I are the program administrators and are gathering
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suggestions for bite-sized tasks in coding, documentation, research, design,
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and outreach. We'll also be scouring the open issues in the various
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Sugar-related repos for tasks. Please pass your suggestions our way. Also, if
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you are interested in mentoring, please contact me. Finally, it would great if
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you could help spread the word about the contest among educators so that we can
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reach out to as many potential participants as possible (the contest is open to
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13-17 year olds). GCI is a great opportunity to recruit new talent into the
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community. Details of the contest are available at [https://developers.google.com/open-source/gci/resources/contest-rules developers.google.com]. The Sugar Labs page
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describing our participation is at [[Google Code In 2017]].
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Another Marvin quote relevant to our current quest to define ourselves as a community: "Our present culture may be largely shaped by this strange idea of isolating children's thought from adult thought. Perhaps the way our culture educates its children better explains why most of us come out as dumb as they do, than it explains how some of us come out as smart as they do." As Laura Vargas put it recently, Sugar Labs is a community "where you can learn how to design, develop and deploy high-quality Free Software." Within our community, children and adults are working together.
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2. There is a new release of Music Blocks available [https://github.com/walterbender/musicblocks/releases/tag/v2.1 3]. Features include a
 
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marked improvement in performance and lots of bug fixes. Tip of the hat to
2. Sam Parkinson is our new release manager. Sam, a former GCI winner from Australia, has been responsible for many of the patches to the Sugar toolkit over the past few releases and has also been one of our most prelific code reviewers. Martin Abente, our release manager for the past four releases, has agreed to mentor Sam during the transition. Tip of the hat to Martin for all of his contributions and continued support.
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Devin Ulibarri, Edgar Quispe, and Euan Ong for their contributions to this
 
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release.
3. Mariah Noelle Villarreal just got back from the Google Code-in reunion, where she represented Sugar Labs. She had a chance to meet Ezequiel and Piotr, our two winners, and spend time with members of the other participating projects. Mariah brought multiple copies of Sugar on a Stick to hand out and reports that there was a positive reception, especially among some of the parents in attendance. She also voiced some disappointment with the degree of awareness of Software Libre among attendees. FWIW, Devin Ulibarri and I are working on a new paper regarding the importance of Software Libre to education. Stay tuned.
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4. I just got back from a trip to Santiago, Chile, where I was hosted by the education division of Fundación Chile. (Cecilia Rodriguez Alcala Garcia, formally of Educa Paraguay, was responsible for my invitation to run some workshops and give a keynote address at Creo Chile.)  The theme of my workshops was programming as a vehicle for engaging in critical thinking. I introduced Turtle Blocks and Music Blocks first to a team of engineers from throughout the foundation, then to an executive group, then to a "hacker" group attending the Creo Chile event, and finally to a group of children and their parents. I was assisted by Andrea Vasquez Garcia, without whom I would have been lost. In addition, I participated in a workshop run by a local rap artist, Nelson Bobadilla Alvarado, and an educator, Francisca Petrovich Ursic. We did a collaborative, interactive Music Blocks program, whereby we could programmatically participate in the performance. A bit crude, but I learned a lot in the process. My keynote, which I have uploaded to [[File:FchBender2016.pdf]], focused on Sugar and the role of Software Libre in education.
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In the workshop for executives, I was challenged to write a Turtle program to calculate the expected value of the number of coin flips required to get three heads or three tails in a row. My response can be seen at [http://walterbender.github.io/turtleblocksjs/?file=threeinarow.tb].
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One sub-goal of my trip was to seek advice regarding a reference machine for Sugar. Alas, I was not yet able to get a definitive answer, as the foundation does not directly distribute hardware and the ministry of education has a wide variance in the types of machines they distribute. But I hope to get some feedback on this topic in the coming weeks.
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While I was in Santiago, Chile defeated Mexico in the Copa América. I credited the win to Sugar (and the Chilean futbol shirt I was wearing). Hopefully it will mean that Sugar will find a warn reception in Chile.
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5. Google Summer of Code is well underway. Mentors are writing mid-term evaluations this week. Be sure to check out the great work being done by our interns, including [https://github.com/sugarlabs/edit-fonts-activity], [http://vikramahujagsoc.blogspot.in/], [https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar-toolkit-gtk3/pull/313#discussion_r63140566], [http://musicblocks.net/2016/06/13/multiple-rhythm-rulers/], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAHUOBJ7fqk], and [https://iamutkarshtiwari.wordpress.com/].
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6. On the flight back from Santiago, I wrote a Python script to convert glif files into Turtle Block projects. (Tip of the hat to Eli Heuer for providing me some sample glif files.) The results are quite fun (See [http://walterbender.github.io/musicblocks/?file=a.tb]). Next up, a version where each knot and control point is represented by a turtle, and thus the glyph will be editable.
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=== In the Community ===
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7. Gary Stager has written a nice [https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-06-07-as-the-maker-movement-turns-45-gary-stager-pays-tribute-to-m-i-t-computing-pioneer-cynthia-solomon tribute to Cynthia Solomon] in celebration of the 45th anniversary of the Maker Movement.
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8. Please join us every 1st Friday of the month at UTC 1900 on irc.freenode.net #sugar-meeting.
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=== Tech Talk ===
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9. Sam has announced the second release leading up to Sugar 0.110. Recent changes include:
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* James Cameron fixed Gtk 3.6 compatibility and an edge case with bundle erasure
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* Utkarsh Tiwari added a WiFi password visibility toggle
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* Abhijit Patel added a PopWindow api for sugar toolkit
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* Sebastian Silva fixed Broadway compatibility for `sugar-activity`
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* The [http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Tick_based_animation smooth animations feature] landed
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* Git submodules are now supported by the bundlebuilder
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* Improved Gtk 3.20 support
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* Misc bug/interface fixes
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Sam has been busy updating the [https://developer.sugarlabs.org/sugar3/sugar3.graphics.icon.html API documentation] and is soliciting feedback. Also, Sam has updated Fedora [https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/samtoday/sugar/ COPR] with the new versions of the Sugar packages. Tarballs for sugar, sugar-toolkit-gtk3 and sugar-artwork are in the usual places on the download server [http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/glucose/].
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10. Tom Gilliard reports the availability of Sugar spins for Fedora24 ([http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/unofficial/releases/24/x86_64/Fedora-SoaS-Live-x86_64-24-20160614.n.0.iso x86_64],  [http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/unofficial/releases/24/i386/Fedora-SoaS-Live-i386-24-20160614.n.0.iso i386]).
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=== Sugar Labs ===
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11. Please visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet].
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3. Congratulations to Lionel, Sameer, and Adam for being re-elected to the Sugar
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Labs oversight board. (And thanks to everyone who voted for my return to the
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board as well.) Our next meeting is on 3 November at 19UTC in the #sugar-meeting channel of irc.freenode.net.
 
<noinclude>
 
<noinclude>
   
== Community News archive ==
 
== Community News archive ==
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==Sugar in the news==
 
==Sugar in the news==
 
{|
 
{|
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|14 Dec 2018||'''PR Times JA''' &ndash; [https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001954.000002535.html 2020年必修化のためのプログラミング学習ソフト「Music Blocks」教員向け研究会 参加者募集中 ~経済産業省『「未来の教室」実証事業』] Programming learning software for 2020 compulsory "Music Blocks" Recruiting participants for faculty members ~ Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry "Future classroom" demonstration project
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|14 Dec 2018||'''PR Times JA''' &ndash; [https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000001947.000002535.html 話題のプログラミング教育を体験しよう!] Programming education with Music Blocks
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|31 Aug 2018||'''GMO''' &ndash; [https://coeteco.jp/articles/10307 Fusion of programming and art, mathematics. Gakken × "Music Blocks" プログラミングとアート、数学の融合。学研×「Music Blocks」]
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|23 May 2018||'''Vida Actual''' &ndash; [https://www.elpais.com.uy/vida-actual/adolescente-uruguayo-google-le-pidio-deje-hackearlo.html El adolescente uruguayo al que Google le pidió que deje de hackearlo]
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|16 April 2018||'''The Verge''' &ndash; [https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17233946/olpcs-100-laptop-education-where-is-it-now OLPC's 100 Laptop was Going to change the world &ndash; then it all went wrong]
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|8 Mar 2018||'''Oxford News''' &ndash; [http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/16073375.Schoolboy_wins_trip_to_Google_HQ_after_coding_contest_victory/ Schoolboy wins trip to Google HQ after coding contest victory]
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|9 Nov 2017||'''Open Source''' &ndash; [https://opensource.com/article/17/9/linux-kids What's the current state of Linux distros for kids?]
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|-
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|align=right valign=top|17 Aug 2017||'''ABC News''' &ndash; [http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/google-awards-uruguay-high-school-student-10k-finding/story?id=49249604 Google awards Uruguay high school student $10K for finding security bug]
 
|-
 
|-
 
|align=right valogn=top|02 Nov 2016||'''BBVA''' &ndash; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puA2NH2uVQQ&feature=youtu.be Sociedad de la Creatividad - desafíos de hoy para el futuro] (video)
 
|align=right valogn=top|02 Nov 2016||'''BBVA''' &ndash; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puA2NH2uVQQ&feature=youtu.be Sociedad de la Creatividad - desafíos de hoy para el futuro] (video)
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|align=right valign=top|7 Oct 2014||'''Kauffman Report''' &ndash; [http://www.kauffman.org/blogs/policy-dialogue/2014/august/paraguay-thirsty-for-21st-century-education Paraguay Thirsty for 21st-Century Education]
 
|align=right valign=top|7 Oct 2014||'''Kauffman Report''' &ndash; [http://www.kauffman.org/blogs/policy-dialogue/2014/august/paraguay-thirsty-for-21st-century-education Paraguay Thirsty for 21st-Century Education]
 
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|align=right valign=top|25 Sept 2014||'''ANEP''' &ndash; [http://www.anep.edu.uy/anep/index.php/897-fecundo-intercambio-de-jovenes-de-todo-el-mundo-en-encuentro-de-programadores Fecundo intercambio de jovenes de todo el mundo en encuentro de programadores]
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|align=right valign=top|25 Sep 2014||'''ANEP''' &ndash; [http://www.anep.edu.uy/anep/index.php/897-fecundo-intercambio-de-jovenes-de-todo-el-mundo-en-encuentro-de-programadores Fecundo intercambio de jovenes de todo el mundo en encuentro de programadores]
 
|-
 
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|align=right valign=top|12 Jun 2014||'''Producción Nacional''' &ndash; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YbRCMRpstg Innovando con XO] (video)
 
|align=right valign=top|12 Jun 2014||'''Producción Nacional''' &ndash; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YbRCMRpstg Innovando con XO] (video)
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|align=right valign=top|14&nbsp;Apr&nbsp;2010||'''National Science Foundation''' &ndash; [http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116638 XO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama] ([http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inxOg-dt6rw video])
 
|align=right valign=top|14&nbsp;Apr&nbsp;2010||'''National Science Foundation''' &ndash; [http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116638 XO Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham, Alabama] ([http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inxOg-dt6rw video])
 
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|align=right valign=top|02&nbsp;Apr&nbsp;2010||<div class="NavFrame collapsed"><div class="NavHead">'''Dailymotion''' &ndash; [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xct0lp_un-jour-a-paris-ensembles-pour-olpc_tech Un jour... à Paris... ensembles pour OLPC et Sugar...] (video) </div><div class="NavContent">{{#widget:Daily Motion
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|align=right valign=top|02&nbsp;Apr&nbsp;2010||<div class="NavFrame collapsed"><div class="NavHead">'''Dailymotion''' &ndash; [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xct0lp_un-jour-a-paris-ensembles-pour-olpc_tech Un jour... à Paris... ensembles pour OLPC et Sugar...] (video </div></div>
|id=xct0lp
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|width=420
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|height=336
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}}</div></div>
   
|-
 
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|align=right valign=top|15&nbsp;Mar&nbsp;2010||'''nbc13.com''' &ndash; [http://www2.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/article/video_birmingham_city_students_opt_to_spend_spring_break_in_class_xo_comput/138224/ Birmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps] (video)
 
|align=right valign=top|15&nbsp;Mar&nbsp;2010||'''nbc13.com''' &ndash; [http://www2.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/article/video_birmingham_city_students_opt_to_spend_spring_break_in_class_xo_comput/138224/ Birmingham City students opt to spend spring break in class, XO computer camps] (video)

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