Improve Sugar on a Stick

The Hard Work of Making a Simple Solution

Sugar on a Stick has tremendous potential. Kids love it, teacher's see the possibilities.

To scale we need to make it SIMPLE

Inspiration

Amy Smith "Do the hard work needed to find a simple solution. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”—and it is the key to this type of design work."

Get inspired by the design process of her coal creation device: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqI63IEg3MM There is background in her TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_smith_shares_simple_lifesaving_design.html

Where we need to simplify

Make it work to both boot and to run on the computers current operating system.

This is clearly possible, LinuxliveUSB has a this working for Windows.

• We need a Mac and Linux Virtual Box or other VM Solution.
• We need a simple, elegant, Sugar specific UI that is presented to the user when they insert a stick into a running windows machine.
• Make it work with Macs

It kinda works sometimes now. Some macs reboot if you do magic incantations. Some don't. A Virtual Box "boot helper" VM that started the boot in virtual box then looks to the stick was created by Dave Bauer but it doesn't work on all Macs yet.

'XS integration needs to work simply and elegantly

• Backup and Restore
• A simple UI for recreating a lost or broken
• Give teachers the power of Moodle - We need tools for teachers to manage student work on the XS and to push files to students sticks

Understand Stick failure and how to reduce it

See Notes:[1]

Make it simple and elegant to create sticks for your whole class

• Not a lot of steps for drivers etc. and it works on most of the computers in the kids houses
• Teacher decides what files and activities are included
• No command line usage, an enoyable Sugarish experience