I can try it out. Do we not have access to pip?
You should have pip access at the user level assuming I had installed things correctly. I think I also installed Git + Git Bash on all those computers at one point…but might be wrong.
I’m not sure if user level PyGame would break the build software, since it needs to include libraries into the executable file. I’ve always installed them at root level, so I don’t have experience with that.
It should be okay from some of the reading I’ve done… But if you want after your next set of classes, I should be around and we can take a look/give it a shot.
Sounds good.
Here is a big Thank You to @simurghi for kicking off a great series of classes. It was wonderful to see your original announcement and even more so to see the enthusiasm for the classes and your addition of more.
I try to never miss an opportunity to encourage others to share their knowledge by offering a class, especially electronics, programming, microcontrollers,… I believe that the huge number of pre-Covid classes we had were a big part of our wild growth. It’s exciting to see the increasing number of entries on the calendar. If you need a little more incentive, DMS awards techers a $50 honorarium if you meet a few simple criteria.
Need an idea? Here is my recent thread requesting suggestions for classes.
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It’s my pleasure. Do we have any arduinos and raspberry pis available for use at the DMS? I know we use some for the Shapeko, but any available for programming? I haven’t checked in a while, but they hard to find due to covid. Have they gotten more accessible now?
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@artg_dms has some in the Electronics Lab available to teachers. Art is great to work with and is open to acquiring more as needed. Check what is available, come up with a plan and make your case to Art for additional supplies needed.
I chose to furnish all parts for my classes but totally support the idea of ELab developing a supply to make it easy for others to start training.
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I would need to get more familiar with the raspberry pi first. Maybe I could do a unix class on it down the line or figure out some good beginner projects like you’ve done. I’ve done a little bit with the Sense Hat, but that’s it.
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Last summer, I requested Art to acquire four of the kits linked below to make it easy for someone to teach Arduino classes and he did. This is a neat kit with ten sensors pre-wired. Noone has picked up on using these but I’m hoping they get used soon.
I could take a look at them and see if I can complete the projects on my own. I do have a little bit of experience using a raspberry pi and raspbian, so I could talk to Art sometime and see if the project is something I could do in the future.
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Electronics should have maybe half a dozen raspberry pis if I recall, and we should have a good handful of arduinos (and if not, I’ll donate a couple dozen).
If I remember correctly, while these can be used for classes, they cannot go home with people at the end of them- so they are fine for teaching programming, but not something for building an entire project around really.
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ELab has both Arduino Unos and Raspberry Pis.
Adam @excalbian was looking into creating Pi classes and may remember the model.
Going on recall here - enough Pis w/ enclosures of a given model to use the monitors and keybrds in the Pillar Rm. Will need to purchase mem cards.
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Yes - there are at least 6 working Raspberry Pi 3 (I’m pretty sure either the base 3 or the 3+ and not the newer variants). We also have enough memory cards (10-12?) to run all of them in a classroom setting.
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3D fab has a few they might can loan
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New section has filled up. Perhaps I need to add a third section in the future?
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So, an update. I’ll probably keep it to 2 sections for now, as the classes get longer and as the material gets more in-depth. I might do an additional section on a different day, but I’m not sure. I had some no-shows to both sections, so I might hold off a bit on that for now.
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So, I’m down to 2 students now (and we had a good time on Sunday). Had one no show on me, so I wasn’t eligible for honorarium. I can now see firsthand why a lot of DMS teachers quit after a while, since it stings to feel like your time is wasted.
Maybe we need to rethink the way that honorarium works? I get that the old system was abused, so we need restrictions, but the current implementation creates this adversarial system where teachers feel directly slighted by no-shows and cancellations, as if I get no shows / late cancellations, I feel like money is being directly taken away from me.
I don’t need the money (I mostly teach for member dues), but maybe another way would be to abstract the financial aspect a bit? Maybe waive membership and give out free merch instead of payments and rework the requirements? I believe that was the original intent of the system. And for the people that do need the income, we can do scholarships?
I’m not sure, these are just some ideas I’ve thrown, but I think the current system kills most desire I have to teach “niche” classes for underutilized spaces and as a teacher, I feel heavily penalized/burdened for no fault of my own. It seems like this system will not work if we want to expand the role of teaching and attract more teachers to fill out the calendar.
This is mostly just me venting my frustrations as a teacher, but I do think we need to address the issue at some point.
I’m aware that I can privately charge students for a class, but since I’m halfway in, this leaves me in an awkward position where I need to start charging for the rest of the material, teach for no honorarium for the next 3 months, or outright cancel the class, none of which are ideal.
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Multi-part classes are always a challenge. Serial classes are extra difficult as they require a serious commitment from the attendees, miss one class and you’re behind. Teaching programming, without even a Blinky LED has very little direct payoff for most people. This is why make and take classes are the gaining support. They are not serial, but the student gains additional knowledge each class. Maybe you can teach Python as part of an ESP32 class. Maybe show how a very simple vision project works. Or maybe how you can take snap shots from a camera board. They will have to slog through advanced topics, such as data structures and lists. They will learn things, but it will be interactive.
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Yeah, I’m planning on restructuring my course so that it - in theory - has standalone classes rather than being sequentially linked. Now that I’m getting to flow control, I can do simple projects, such as a calculator or a guessing game, and maybe moving onto tic-tac-toe or something.
I’ll probably leave modules and frameworks for after I finish the fundamentals and get some simple projects up.
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