The 5th Conference in India is definitely on!

It will be the week of August 17, 2009 held in Pune, India.

If you haven’t already, email to register and to get more info : fab5@fabfoundation.org

A big wind storm with hail, rain, lightning, and thunder hit Jalalabad quite late in the season.

A Brief Update (from Day 1)   (Joe, can you please post on the blog, too?)

The fab lab is awesome - I took some photos and sent super low res to
Joe Murphy and asked him to post on the blog, look for those in a day
or two.  (they are posted~joe)It’s super clean and organized, nothing like the small debris
and dust laden, box cluttered state in January.

Students from Bagrami and other villages nearby have started coming to
the lab since a month ago.  They’re being taught in 1 hour shifts but
in smaller class sizes, between 8 and 16 students per teacher.  The
topic appears to be “Windows XP” with somewhat confounding skills like
changing the caption size of windows and icons or the background
image.  Nonetheless random students were able to demonstrate for me
what they learned and what the effect was of what they were doing.
There are approximately 200 of these new students with only slightly
under half female.  A female adult “guard” is present in the lab who
is also the cleaner and lab housemother - in particular she is
something like a chaperone and her presence a key enabler for the
students to attend.

Most of these students plan on attending “full time” through the
summer.  There are two female teachers and two male teachers plus
Talwar.  Wahida is likely to be in the USA for the summer and will ask
Fawzia to come to the lab in her place during the summer.  Yesterday
was my first visit and the students talked a little about some summer
hopes (the smallest girls really lit up and beamed when they decided
to build a dollhouse/playhouse).

OLPC XOs are technically working but worse for the wear - see in a
couple photos the keyboard covers are all … rotting.  Keys have
fallen off and the entire rubber piece will fall off if the computer
is tipped or inverted.  There is a lot of pen ink on the covers and
working parts of the XOs.  There are only 10 instead of 16 - we’re
going to have to figure out where the others are.  (There are 9 in the
lab and one is with Naqibullah).

Inveneos, Dells, and projector seem to be fine though I haven’t done a
detailed review.  The staff are working towards a review presentation
around 1 June.  Guards, teachers, students, everyone has requests for
more of everything, from computers to salaries to tea and sugar.

FabFi antennas on the Taj roof are ok, they have started to look a
little funny as repeated wet - sand/dirt - wet cycles attack them.
The GATR ball is similarly fine though dirty.  Most components, such
as the rubber stopper feet on the cable pulleys or the coating on the
cables, have become melted/brittle/welded shut or other “accelerated”
aging. There appears to be something amiss with our transmit path to
the satellite, hence non-working internet and intense sadness from all
the internationals.

I’ve talked with OpM folks and still need to talk with the other two
groups interested in a FabFi workshop, that will get scheduled for
this coming week.  Also this Friday at least a couple of the t-shirt
club kids and I will (hopefully) go visit the PRT bazaar and discuss a
summer program of a t-shirt booth there.

Today (day 2) I get to meet with the full time female project manager
that will lead the summer’s development projects and get the
internship/job shadowing awards made. The interns will be the assistants
to the USAID Afghan PM for Jbad/Gardez and include tasks like will
include going to the project sites to take photos and create weekly
updates on the computer as well as a end-of-summer report … possibly with a presentation to the Mayor at the end of the summer!

\

Scout is adorable and walks nicely on a leash.  I’ve taken her on
short walks outside the compound.  She has a 1.5 year old german
shepherd friend, Jack, who comes over several nights a week.

I’m convinced it’s a couple hundred degrees but apparently it’s only
in the mid to high 90’s.  I haven’t caught up on sleep and the heat
contributes to me passing out shortly after dinner.  Jbad and
surroundings are gorgeously green and the distant Nuristani mountains
still have snow.

Can anyone help reduce these knitting machine requirements for our Afghanistan Fab Lab down to a few suggestions:

Budget: aprox $300-450 or $1,000+ if computerized

Usage: mostly utilitarian knits, unless digital interface in which case would want to do sheets with letters and words

Gauge: as all purpose as possible.  I’ve seen yarn available locally that is just a little thinner than the cheapest stuff you buy in bulk at the craft stores here.  Interested in using non-standard yarn, ie, tightly twisted plastic bags.

Software: is there such a thing as a digital / computer interface?  In particular if you can scan in an image (clipart, not necessarily a complex photo) and have a resulting pattern magically knitted?

Width: I need to be able to ship through the USPS so the box can’t exceed 46″L x 35″W x 46″H, 70 pounds.

Are there other considerations I need to know about?  I’ve never used a machine before.

Thanks, Amy.

Hi everyone, I’m buried in writing and deadlines (and a little bit of math) but everyone wants an update with Afghanistan.  Lots going on, very exciting….

• Full time female staff funded and selected, through end Sept (with my hopes to find continued funding).    She’s going to be responsible for economic development projects, women’s resources, help with organization/budgets/reporting for various projects, and possibly lead organization of a grass-roots women’s medical needs training & fabrication program.
• Two full time internships funded - shadowing western project managers and helping with reporting, ledgers, and all aspects of project managing.
• We’ve got about $700-800 set aside for the machines and materials to go in the women’s resource center.
• I’m 95% likely to go in late May/early June to get several projects underway, I’ve got about 75% funding.
• Virtual beginners’ FabFi workshop in late May / early June!
• Post Fab5 FabFolk trip to Af shaping up with business and med projects focus.  That’s late August through September.
• Summer activities with education curriculum, in particular a joint effort with educators in San Diego and Jalalabad via iEARN.  Also an implementation of the first Fab Academy module : The Laser Cutter.

So Haakon and Gunn went to Kenya by themselves on Thursday with 375 kilos of excess baggage and boxes.  They had to take apart the laser cutter and ship it in smaller pieces in the baggage (yikes).  But they arrived in Kenya  with everything in tact. They did not even have to pay excess baggage as Haakon pulled in some favors from friends at KLM. They were able to slip by customs without paying import duties, a pretty tough task with all that baggage and the boxes.  ARO met them at Nairobi airport with van and they drove to Kisumu from Nairobi.  Everything is in the lab and set up and working (whew!).   They are milling circuit boards today.  The computers work well.  They are headed into Kisumu proper to pick up a blower for the laser cutter and will test that on Monday.   Wow wow wow!!!!!  Kudos to Haakon and Gunn and Jorgen (for getting them ready and packed).  And welcome to the network KISUMU! Congratulations one and all!!!!

The internet connection doesn’t yet support the bandwidth needed to connect, but Haakon says they are working on it.  It’s odd that we did see and hear the Kisumu lab for a brief moment on Friday.  I wonder if it’s the Polycom settings maybe, rather than the bandwidth that is causing problems?

–Lass

An ATTiny45 microcontroller based voltage and resistance meter that you can make in the fab lab!

Click on the picture to go to the project page.

I get a lot of email suggesting projects and products that can be done in Jalalabad (and other) Fab Labs.  Once you’ve gotten a taste of the ability to actually affect the situation around you, it’s easy to go wide-eyed in a million directions.  Let me share some guidance when considering what’s appropriate for larger scale group projects.

As a reminder, Fablabs are about empowerment via digital and tech enable-ment rather than soley the use of regular hand and labor skills.  Any of the projects we collectively undertake must look towards utilizing our strengths as a viral and distributed network.

The simple question we ask is, “how does (digital) technology enable ____?” How can we leverage the fruits of the last several decades to address hundred year old problems for which waiting through a hundred years hasn’t solved? Broadly we can look to the developments in our own countries and communities to see how digital communications have changed banking, contracts, and business.  How instrumentation has changed farming and livestock husbandry.  How viral, project based learning has transformed education.

In a place like Jalalabad, needs are pervasive.  No single thing is unnecessary, all things are desperately needed.  Until or unless we have trillions at our disposal we must focus on our strengths and core - that comes from 1) things that are open source and shareable, and in that sense somewhat digitally transmittable and reproducible and 2) computation technology enabled. And especially in Jbad, we must continue to find ways to show the uncontroversial need for high speed internet.

Finally, for any FabLab project in which outsiders / internationals are involved, a key metric of success is when the outsider is no longer needed for the project or impact to continue on.  We want to take the trainings wheels off sooner than we think is ready, knowing that there will be bruises and scrapes to come, rather than train in a unintentional reliance.

Personal projects are a completely different animal. Personal fabrication is just that - something made for a market of ONE… and then often many others when they see how cool your project is. Again you bring to bear all the tools and advantages you can gather but the transmittable and duplicatable requirements relax to simply being shareable and open. You can think of the group projects as gateways to newer users tackling personal projects and becoming fabrication empowered.

Amon and I agree that CAPS has done a great job here - Both sites could definitely be successful labs. (Sorry, check back for pics in a couple days).

0) Weather in Chicago fouled travel plans; Amon and I arrived 5:30AM.

1) visited Eugene Field site, in particular with Cindi and Clark.  Awesome people. Tight community and space.  Key finding is the “art space” is available which is a change since Colin visited.  Very comfortable with this site as a successful fablab, however, the Spirit payoff is unclear.

2) visited Kendall Whittier site and related projects, in particular with Trinna.  Visited several KWI projects including food bank and youth literacy program.   Proposed space is awesome - 12,000 sq ft former hardware store.  Many details are currently unclear - there is no “Mel” (but believed that they can ID one), they do not have fund for rent (well outside of Spirit support), no clear idea what goals of entire space will be.

3) talk with Tulsa Engineering Society about FabLab in Tulsa with Diama and Mark.  Mark gave presentation to audience of aprox 12.

4) missed Spirit tour (not enough time)

5) dinner CAPS/Spirit/MIT debrief.  Amon/Amy will make a list of traits & parameters for lab evaluation.  Diama/CAPS will score the two sites against those parameters. Independently,  Mark/Colin/Spirit will determine multiplier weights for parameters based on importance to Spirit’s goals. We’re expecting this to reveal Spirit’s sensitivity to time, outcome preferences, etc.  This isn’t meant as a final and binding decision.

I was away from my computer and missed this chat from Soshanguve Sough Africa and haven’t responded yet.  I’m wondering if anyone else has ideas or thoughts - either directly addressing Skhumbuzo or in general about converting learned skills to income.

I was wondering if you could assist Skhumbuzo in any way. He used to be our electronics intern at Soshanguve fab lab, and has now mastered the fab processes, especially on the electronics side of thing. He is currently working on an AVR open source development board and is done with most of the circuit modules and coding but however wishes to also make money from it. Do you have any idea on how he can achieve that?

Our taxi got lost resulting in talking our way through the security line and sprint to gate, where we waited for very late departure from Boston.  In Chicago, sprinted to Tuscon gate then wide-eyed faster sprint away from Tuscon.   Three women talking to Amon at the same time resulted in a longer and faster sprint landing us in Fayetteville (Arkansas) where a very tired Avis lady stayed late and found us a car… so we could drive to Tulsa.

It’s always an adventure.

Howdy folks, I’ve gotten a bunch of emails in the last couple of months asking what can be done to help with long term fablab.af support.  

To those who’ve written, thanks for putting up with the delay in email responses, and sorry about the non-personal mass response.  I’m down to the final paper deadline (technically overdue now) which I’m hoping to get out the door on Friday.  Or Saturday.  :)  It’s been a horrible 1.5 months but I’ve finished (and passed) my qualifying exams and I’m told that there’s only one more miserable hurdle left, but that’s a year off.

I struggle with openness and sharing of all the fabfolk / fab.af activities because many of the people and groups I’ve talked with would not be comfortable with our tentative discussions being blogged or broadcast, but at the same time there are lots and lots of people who want to be more involved or more apprised of what, if anything, is going on. 

I genuinely don’t know what to say or do here other than acknowledging that there are not contracts or MOIs in place that guarentee future funding for fab.af.  There are promising organizations and programs but at least for now would not like to be called out for possible support.

Two topics that everyone wants to know about:

1) institutional ownership
2) physical site-ing

INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP

The thing that I’m somewhat delinquent on is future institutional ownership of fab.af.  This is the organization, not the person(s), that is responsible in the end and holds any and all legal, liabilities, and responsibilities for the lab.  They may sub out some of those responsibilities but in the end it goes back to them. 

I would strongly prefer that this organization is the Jbad/SD Sister City Organization as they have the most competence and presence in all the relevant areas.  (This is likely news to the majority of the members of that group, which is also why it’s weird to share stuff like this in public.)  The sister city organization may ask other groups to administer day to day or curriculum or restocking care and feeding tasks and implement other joint projects but the “adult” ownership and overbearing sense of responsibility would be theirs.

So far I’ve taken Art Mendoza on a whirlwind tour of a small part of the FabLab vision.  He was enthusiastically behind the sister city organization taking over ownership of the lab but could not — this is important — could not speak for the group and would not commit until better understanding what it would mean, what it would sign them up for.

This is beyond what curriculum to teach or which students to focus on, those smaller details.  This all the external stuff to include filling out and filing boring forms.  The sister city organization has demonstrated their ability and desire to do this, with a long term interest and end-to-end completion, in their other works in Jbad city.

So that’s where we’re at.  Sherry/I need to meet with Art/Steve/Fary/? and in particular explain the business end of lab ownership and maintenance.  Art/Steve/Fary have to want to discuss and read.  We need to define - and implement - a transition plan for FabFolk to release and the Sister City Organization to take over.   It’d be important to me/FabFolk that the FabLab continue to operate as a FabLab with all the Fab concepts and ideals intact.  Sure, they might want to run and use the space as a computer teaching center but that’s not a FabLab.  So, we need to discuss.

Art was here in Boston a couple of weeks ago and we got the ball rolling.  I’m pretty sure that his time as SETC and seeing the Learn to Teach / Teach to Learn folks in action have given him a good glimpse of Fab beyond the baby steps in Afghanistan.  We haven’t even begun to figure out when or how to meet with all the Sister City folks that would be a sufficient quorum for them.   

So how can you help here?  I don’t know.  There are a million good ideas for various programs to collaborate with (we just found out that there’s a huge iEarn population in Jbad) but those aren’t owners.  Does your organization want to consider taking on this responsibility? 

 

PHYSICAL SITE-ING

It is nearly impossible in Jbad to find a “perfect place” where we also have a guarentee of being able to stay long (long) term.  We’ve put a lot of money into site preparation and improvements where the lab currently lives.  From the users’ perspective, they need to believe that no matter what happens - the Americans leave, ISAF leaves, whatever - that the lab is an Afghani resource.  Maybe someone tries to destroy it, but it’s their loss.  The Afghani’s that we’re working with now are unable to have the kind of ownership necessary to carry the lab through various challenges.  The ones that might have that power may also be part of the problem (and not share).  So what’s happening now is the lab occupies one entire building of a compound that is being run (currently) as a Western guesthouse.  The problem with this is that there is no Western business guy that owns or runs the guesthouse where the guesthouse is the point.  (It’s being carried along by friendly individuals who hope the boarding rate can more-or-less cover costs and they don’t lose too much money). 

The lab _can_ move (again with the caveat that the Afghani’s can’t feel like the lab is being taken from them).  Until or unless someone is willing to make a real livelihood of running that guesthouse (long term commitment or intentions) and sub-leasing the FabLab building we’ll always have a tentative feel and the community will never feel like it’s something they own, that at any time they could be barred from use or the equipment could be taken from them.

How do we address this when the entire population basically feels this way about every aspect of their lives?  As far as I know, the realistic answer is: money, as in, enough backing to lease (or buy?) for a long term (2+ years at a time, minimum).  Thoughts?

Amon and I are headed to Tulsa, Oklahoma next week to scout for Spirit Aero and CAP’s new Fab Lab.  CAP’s Tulsa Initiative “helps families in economic need achieve self-sufficiency … [and] improve the prospects for the long-term economic success of very young, low-income children, their families and the communities in which they live.”

In a nutshell, Spirit is providing the start up funds, CAP will “run” the lab administratively an an integral part of it’s many programs.  It’s still early and there’s much to discuss about all the rest of the details (for example, Spirit is hoping to have technical mentoring and help come from their ranks).

If you’re in the Tulsa area and interested in Fab Lab discussions drop me a line.

Fab5, the fifth global fab lab conference, will be held in Pune, India the week of August 17, 2009.

Here are some rumors :

• A mobile lab! The Indian National Innovation Foundation (http://www.nif.org.in/), which is now a part of India’s Department of Science and Technology budget, wants and can fund a mobile fab lab. So, analogous to what we did for FAB4 in Chicago (http://mobilefablab.blogspot.com/), we can have a mobile fab lab on-site at FAB5 in Pune, and then take it on the road afterwards.
• A workshop to generate research proposals.  Yep, the US National Science Foundation is interested in providing travel funds to bring researchers together … to write research proposals.  Four or five main areas that we’ve identified so far: field instrumentation, medical applications, thin computation, thin communications, and digital design processes.
• The following group projects will unveil their distributions: FabFi, Thinner Client, and Fab E-Bench.  You’ll be able to make these projects, help test and develop, and take them home with you!
• It will cost approximately $2,000 per attendee to travel, so labs need to start working out their budgets!  At this moment there are some possible, limited travel costs help in the works for attendees coming from India, USA, Spain, and Norway. (There is still expected to be zero registration / attendance cost.)
• Matching funds!  Maybe. Lots of work to offset around half of the travel and attendance costs for attendees.  Don’t know more to tell you any details, but it seems info to be released imminently.
• If you are considering attending, be sure to check on the visa process in your country to find out how much lead time you will need for processing.

It’s a little uncanny - despite being so incredibly different, there are these surreal moments where the labs strongly echo each other and you wonder if there’s something buried in our DNA. Each implementation is creatively unique, and I think it’s so cool, so cool. The same, but different.

AFGHANISTAN:
Today Todd and Kate proudly posted pictures from the chess sets made in Jalalabad, 9 months after the lab equipment hit the ground. (Photos by Todd H.)

PRETORIA HUB, SOUTH AFRICA:
Which reminded me of the chess set that Lindiwe made in South Africa in March 2006, 9 months after that lab was installed was installed in June 2005.

SOUTH BRONX, NEW YORK, USA:
and the recycling themed chess sets that Michael made in the South Bronx, New York, 8 months after the mobile lab arrived there in November 2007. (Photos by Michael S.)

Each of these groups made their projects independent of each other, none of them wrote to say “I saw the chess set that this other lab made and I thought I’d make one too”. They spontaneously got to chess on their own. If that wasn’t weird enough, the gestation period is the same across labs too. I’ll have to troll through my pics to see if there are hidden chess sets from other labs around the world too.

Rodney in Soshanguve, South Africa is busy at work building a robot about the size of a child. It’s just extraordinary to follow along : http://soshfab.fabfolk.com.

Thinking about Afghanistan & Pakistan today, and phrases like “porous border”. They don’t mean just the mountainous informal crossings - take a look these videos from the border crossing at Torkham from this November:

I’ve got my head down working - big deadline on 31 March coming soon, real soon. Which seemed like a good reason to post some random photos of Afghan kids working too.

 

 

This is so cool: users in Afghanistan surprised us last week with an email message: they’ve made their own FabFi link, #5 in the country. The latest site to come online is an orphanage roughly in the center of Jalalabad. 

I had to pester Brandon for a while to send along some pictures of the install.

Their connection is made through a few hundred meter hop to the water tower at the public hospital then back to the FabLab and out the GATR inflatable dish (still going strong) via Intelsat. 8,000 miles in about 800 milliseconds.

Neat, huh?

In related news, I’ve finally managed to get the FabFi 1.0 distribution published so you can make some for yourself.  It’s still not a “download this package and it will automagically do everything for you”, but thanks to much diligence on Keith’s part, the entire router configuration will be that easy.

I snuck up on Nadya working late one night on her HTMAA RFID circuit…

Back on Jan 2 I wrote,

As I mentioned before, the users have been quite prolific and there is hardly anywhere to stand in the main room in the lab. Promise four: as soon as the fat pipe is back I’ll start uploading pictures. You’ll love them. Colorful and creative, that’s my tease.

Well, it’s been a little longer than anticipated but finally here are some pics of the lab as found in December 2008, after a couple month’s absence from international Fab Folk.

The FabFolk are developing Fablab made Pashto native thin terminals with local RF or wired connectivity to a thin server with FabFi backhaul. They will be “text only” and dedicated to a small number of targets so it’s always G-rated and basically could only be used as two-way electronic ketab. Uses Wikipedia Pashto as database, which we maintain a mirror of in the Fab Server Room.

Ahead of the hardware, Pashto wikipedia already exist and can be accessed by any web browser.  There are only around 1,300 entries (compared to English wikipedia with 2,800,000 entries).  This can be seen as a feature because local users - professors, students, office workers, farmers - can put what they see fit into the wiki and it “moderated” only by others that can read/write Pashto, thus it is something by and for them.  This effectively opening up discourse among Pashto readers from all over.  Introducing the process and intellectual work can be done advance of the thin client hardware and being able to see locally generated content will be super cool when that comes up - everything would be locally made from end to end.

Help needed :

• teach people (from the University, schools, and lab) to gather info on a topic and add to the existing wiki, similar to ”book reports” from grammar school.  These reports can be on topic, including non-threatening things like fables and fictional characters.  Users will be very proud of the concept of being “published”. 
• help Bagrami school teachers implement adding & using wikipedia in their teaching curriculm
• establish a way to capture and share “I want to know more about this” requests which we can help make connections to those that can answer.   Perhaps collecting the unlinked / unwritten topics in the wiki on a single dashboard page?
• from Pashto readers to moderate and clean up entries - do this anytime from anywhere, takes as little as a few minutes or as much as you can spare

Note: The client & server hardware, software, and networking development and debugging work will be done in South Africa summer 2008 and is character map independent.  All circuits and software have been made and tested to a limited degree - we’re now looking for help with final integration and testing. After the first field deployment in ZA, a 1.5 revision will be deployed in Afghanistan in late fall.  In parallel ZA will deploy the FabFi 1.0 (as found in Jalalabad) and integration with thinner client/server.

Description: Create a step-by-step picture guide to clone computers using Clonezilla.
Performance Period: ASAP, complete by April 12
Location: Cambridge, MA, USA or with physical access to a Fab Lab with standard Dell and/or Inveneo computers that will allow you to clone their machines
Payment: External USB hard drive (320GB - 500GB) and USB thumb drive (~2GB)

We have updated disk images of deployed lab computers on USB hard drives. Clonezilla must be used via USB media (some of the deployed computers do not have CD drives). You create a guide that will be used by labs all over the world, many of which are very limited in English. In essence, you will run through the entire procedure taking pictures at key junctures then compile into a printable and web publishable guide.

I envision a laminated flip book or spiral/velo bound manual but exact output format can be discussed. Bonus points if the image drives and USB stick can be somehow integrated into the device - perhaps a small flip book that is hot glued onto the top of the drive.

In lieu of cash payment, you keep an external USB hard drive (somewhere between 320GB to 500GB depending on what we buy for cloning) and USB thumb drive — the very equipment you will use for the photos. You maintain rights to the images and guide in addition to our use.

You must come to the MIT campus or have access to a Fab Lab with standard Dell and/or Inveneo computers that will be willing to let you clone their computer(s). If at MIT, camera and other equipment can be made available. Editing work can be done anywhere.

The T-Shirt Club needs mentoring, in particular to expand to a manageable business serving the bazaar at the PRT.  An important point to remember is the real lesson of the club is the computer and business skills, so it is important that in addition to fulfilling their t-shirt making and delivering promises, the accounting books and plans must be kept by club members so they get experience doing it hands-on.

• contact and coordinate with the PRT to get badges, permissions, etc. for the club to set up a “booth” at the Friday bazaar
• mentor in product selection, options, etc.  An example is the club members are mostly printing on white shirts which is often the least desirable color for custom shirts.  Would muscle shirts, womens shirts, etc. help or hinder their business model?
• mentoring in accounting, business management, extrapolation, etc. in particular with respect to the PRT bazaar business
• help club members maintain an electronic order book and system for keeping track of orders taken and fulfilled, money collected, and so on.  review finances, plans, etc. with club on a weekly basis
• discuss with club members the goals and limits for order taking (in particular we are concerned there will be too many orders)
• help make a postcard brochure explaining the club and fablab to hand out at the bazaar (these can be mass printed in the USA and shipped to Af on about a week turn-around)
• help prepare a first quarter 2009 summary of their club (prospectus) for the fablab.af website

Teach local users to clone computers using Clonezilla.  Most likely all machines in Jbad need to be nuked.  As configurations and software change, we will keep computers updated by periodically providing disk images. 

It will be important to explain the theory and process as well as the simple mechanics of cloning to not just lab staff and teachers but some of the more advanced users.  It is our intent to share the open source Clonezilla program.  A few users come to the lab with their own laptops or have computers at home and the process could be useful for them as well especially because Windows viruses are rampant.

For more information, see:

• http://www.clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/liveusb.php : Clonezilla USB drive live version instructions
• http://www.clonezilla.org/download/sourceforge/ : Clonezilla download area (note ISO version only for booting off of CD)
• http://scripts.mit.edu/~emu/fab/?p=995 : Instructions to make and restore images (assumed Clonezilla on CD)
  

MIT UROP Wanted : Thinner Client to support TC and FabFi deployment in South Africa

We’re nearly done with the development work on a $10-ish thinner client and thin server system with a FabFi long-haul backend.  UROP wanted to debug, test, and help define the protocol for many meshed nodes and sub-systems and make a finished product for deployment in mid-summer.  The first field deploy will be local users in Soshanguve (near Pretoria) South Africa during July, then in early fall we’ll integrate lessons and changes and deploy a Pashto-native text only client in Jalalabad Afghanistan.  Additionally the UROP will make and maintain a website/blog/wiki similar to the FabFi project [site|blog|wiki].

This is a collaboration among the South African CSIR, Cisco, Schneider, FabLabs and more.  UROP will be guided by professionals in their fields and be expected to be able to teach  workshop users on making, installing, and using the final products.

Candidate should have some background in microcontroller programming and networking protocols.  UROP can begin now - 1/4 time or more in the spring, full time in the summer, with continuation in the fall if desired.

DIY Electronics Bench
Any Location
Project Duration: summer 2009
Total Cost: $11,000
STATUS: taking applications / settle on lead host location / fund raise for stipends / have funds for materials

Fab Electronics Bench
Develop a “do-it-yourself” electronics test bench that can be made at any fab lab.  The test bench includes a voltmeter, ohmmeter, low-speed (10MHz) oscilloscope, frequency generator (also low speed), and DC power supply. Most circuits and software have been designed and tested but need to be refined and packaged. Create distribution package for download. Lead a workshop(s) teaching users to make bench suites.

This is a continuation of our electronics bench work.  In making each piece of instrumentation, a user learns circuits, soldering, microcontroller programming, some mechanical work (for the enclosures and probes), then get to take home a fully functional and very useful suite of equipment.

Location: several locations are under consideration - suggest yours!
Funds available to users:

• project materials: Yes, aprox $2k for all materials and equipment needed for development and deployment.

• travel: None. We may be able to help MIT undergrads and grads apply for funding from MISTI and similar programs.

• accommodations/boarding: none in addition to any lab’s capabilities. (some labs can offer very low priced rooming, at least one is free based on space availability. Ask about specific locations.)

• stipend: estimate $9k : $1k per month per user, 3 users.   MIT undergrads may UROP.

Help wanted:

• identify and work logistics with host lab(s)
• raise funding for stipends
• staff for development and workshop work (taking applications now to build a team)
• coordinate workshop participants and timing

Those ever-industrious fabbers in Soshanguve South Africa just started a blog:  check it out at http://soshfab.fabfolk.com/

Interested in setting up a fabfolk.com blog for your lab, site, or project?  Contact me…

East Cleveland MC2STEM school, 18-20 February 2009

Apparently your videos don’t exist unless they’re on youtube! Landing at KIA (Kabul International Airport) and driving out of Kabul on the Jalalabad road in June 2008. 

The below video is outside of Kabul approaching Pol-e-charki. Notice how nice the road is, how smooth the traffic is, and the relative normality of the other vehicles.

Some labs purchase a computer controlled embroidery machine in addition to the “core” set of equipment.  The vast majority of the use in labs involve personalizing - sewing your name, logo, and so on onto things.  Several years ago there was a grad student that used conductive threads and created keypads and musical instruments. 

I recently asked some people to ask their sewing-gifted friends how they might see a sewing machine used in places like Afghanistan where women are already really really good at hand embroidered products which don’t require electricity or several thousand dollars of seed funding for the machine, software, and computer. 

It’s a particularly pertinent topic as we make our goals and plans for the Afghanistan lab because the machine that was shipped to Afghanistan was accidentally broken.   The only way we’ll get a replacement is to fundraise or save Fab earnings.  It’s about $2,000 plus tax and shipping - which we could easily spend on plenty of other worthy things.

It seems to me that the most important utility of the sewing machine is that it’s something that’s considered “ok” for women.  In learning to use it they accidentally learn to use computers and the same skills as all the other fab processes.  If we really believe that’s what we’re doing then simply having one machine isn’t enough either, it needs at a minimum to have some kind of access and program go along with it, especially something that empowers without threatening an existing niche group.

I got one response and I’m hoping that it will encourage some more ideas and thoughts; I’m posting her response slightly modified below.  (Modifications are mostly removing off topic comments because it was an email chain…)

Reposting a public OLPC announcement.  Neither Fab Folk nor I am affiliated with this program and you are welcome to apply as you see fit.   I would love to see one or more proposals based out of the fab communities in Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya (similar to our Bagrami trial).  Contact me if you want to be put in touch with others interested - we can put together a very strong proposal!

http://www.laptop.org/en/participate/get-involved/OLPCorps.shtml

Join the OLPCorps Africa Movement

Active students spark revolutions and inspire movements. Our learning movement is no different. With this in mind, we have started the OLPCorps Africa project. We are equipping teams of students from around the world with 100 XOs, hardware, training, and financial support to expand learning in Africa for children ages 6-12. We’re looking for agents of change capable of leading the first global grassroots movement in learning.
Student-led teams will:

* travel to one of the 53 African countries of their choosing for 9-10 weeks
* participate in a 10-day orientation in Kigali, Rwanda at OLPC’s office
* receive up to $10,000 (USD) per team to cover operating costs
* deploy 100 XO laptops, including hardware and support
* collaborate with up to 100 other teams as part of a life-long global network empowering a generation of children
* send one representative to MIT/OLPC’s all-expense paid summit from Oct 10th-12th 2009

Eligibility

Undergraduate and graduate university students of all nationalities and fields are encouraged to apply. Students enrolled in the fall 2009 semester and upcoming spring 2009 graduates are also eligible. Finalists will be required to provide proof of enrollment before the start of the internship.

Requirements

All interns must be proficient in English, have a valid passport and approved visa, and all immunizations by the start of the program. At minimum, teams must consist of 2 people. The project must take place within one of the 53 African countries and for 9-10 weeks. All members of the team must attend the orientation in Kigali, Rwanda from June 8-17.

The applicant must have support from local or national officials or a letter of support of an NGO that is supporting the project. In other words, successful applicants will have a letter of support testifying to 1) involvement, and 2) sustainability.

Apply

Teams may apply by submitting a project proposal to OLPCorps@laptop.org by March 27th, 2009. Proposals should be titled: “OLPCorps: Your University Target_African_Country”

Hard copies of proposals will not be accepted. The proposal must be in English and may be no longer than 750 words, but may include hyperlinks.

Your project proposal should focus on educating children ages 6-12. Be sure to detail where you will carry out your project, what exactly you will do, and how you will reach children who may not be in school from June-August. You should emphasize who your local partner will be throughout the project, who will carry on the project when you leave, and how they’ll do so. Preference will be given to teams who can demonstrate some technical competency and a focus on rural environments. The strongest proposals also will illustrate clearly how children will become agents of change, instead of simply objects of learning during the project. Accepted teams will be notified by April 10th, 2009.

See our OLPCorps wiki for guidance on how to develop your proposal and ensure you have covered key points.

Questions

All questions or concerns relating to OLPCorps Africa should be directed to OLPCorps@laptop.org.

Ready for some gossip on possible new labs?   Some upcoming labs coming on line within the year

Providence, Rhode Island, USA - run by AS220.  Moving into a renovated giant fabulous artists’ loft space as we speak!

South Bronx, New York, USA - SSBX will be moving into their new permanent fab lab by May. They’re not technically a new lab because they’ve been operating out of the mobile lab for the last year. But their new space is finally ready for them, and the mobile lab will be refurbished and move on.

Bilbao Spain - opening late May, early June. Run by the Innovalabs.

Guang Dong, China - opening in May. Sponsored by the Chinese government and run by an industry-government education initiative. First of an expected many all over China.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA - site scouting late March, opening around August through October. Sponsored by Spirit Aero and run by CAPS.

University of Nairobi, Kenya - currently unpacking, opening sometime late this summer

Manchester, UK - finalizing in March, opening TBD

Michigan, USA - finalizing details now, opening soon!

Champaign Urbana, Illinois - working out details now and finding a location.  A community services oriented center run by the University.

Nairobi, Kenya (off university grounds) - under works, expected to come online around late fall

Cripes, that’s a lot of new labs!

Fab Lab OLPC Field Deployment Trial

Bagrami, Afghanistan

Total Cost: $110,000

Project Duration: 1 year beginning Fall 2009

STATUS: under development / have not begun funding search

Fab Lab OLPC Field Deployment Trial in Bagrami (see original draft proposal here): we’re still looking to outfit an entire class at the Bagrami school with laptop computers that have built-in cameras, speakers, and microphones to take advantage of the internet wireless and Fab Lab in their village.

Initially we thought the OLPC “XO” laptops would be perfect.  We’ve got 16 laptops being test driven by various Bagrami users (mostly teachers from the local school).  The hardware is well built but we’re starting to have serious second thoughts about the operating system, Sugar.  One of the criticisms has been why we would have students learning Sugar when the lab runs Ubuntu Linux and the rest of the world (the NGOs and USAID) appear to run Windows.  Another is the lack of depth and range of “things you can do” - maybe we just haven’t figured it out.  There’s some work stateside (OLPC is right across the street from Fab Central) and continued training and field testing in Bagrami.  We’re also keeping an eye on how the official OLPC launch is going at the Istequal school in Jalalabad.

Regardless of which laptop we choose, we’ll need to raise funds to :

• $30k : buy 100 laptops at between $180 - 300 a piece;
• $1k incidentals like printers, ink, and power strips
• $60k : housing / stipend; if we use the XOs there is not an appropriate “computer teacher” in the area nor are these laptops and uses appropriate for random self-discovery.  $30k housing (food inclusive) and $30k stipend split among 1 international for 9 months and 2 additional internationals for 6 weeks
• $15k : travel (three internationals)
• $5k : shipping, customs

We’re likely to go with some scheme where the top “n” students in the class get to keep their laptop, for keeps, while the rest get passed down to the next class.  That’s all still open for discussion with the primary inputs coming from the teachers, headmaster, and what is sort of the local PTA.   (Approximately half of the population of Bagrami are school aged children attending this school.)

We’re collaborating with a pedagogy researcher at OLPC to define some real learning metrics and measurands.  As far as we can tell, we also need help developing a curriculum with similar to the “STEM” curriculum in the USA but tailored for the practical needs and local preferences.  We want to be able to show quantifiable improvements in a student’s educational quality and content as a result of the $200-300 investment per child.  Additionally we want to make sure that the activities the students do with the computers reinforce and apply the concepts they are learning at the same time in their classes.

Where we need help:

• funding, proposal/grant writing, etc.
• hardware research (in particular things like testing the Linux for XO with Fab Lab machines as output)
• hardware preparation (install, configuration, developing ways to easily maintain the machines over a year)
• curriculum
• Pashto language support
• identifying and use of external educational materials and resources (ie, age appropriate MIT OCW)
• pedagogy metrics, constructing an evaluation system for use, impact, and feedback
• pedagogy evaluation (multiple times through the year)
• staff for deployment in Afghanistan
• volunteers for deployment in Afghanistan
• remote (video conference via internet) teachers in various topics

A couple of weeks ago I visited the folks at GATR in Huntsville, Alabama for a couple days to get some belated training on antenna set up and maintenance.  Those of you keeping up with the Jalalabad deployment know that I’ve spent several months puzzling through the same topics without the benefit of pre-deployment training. 

I was promised wonderful warm and sunny weather which kept me motivated while digging my truck out of the snow-ice chute of my driveway in Cambridge.  Instead we had gusty winds and rain with temps in the low 40’s .  Oh well, at least I didn’t have to wear a head lamp and blow on my fingers.  That would have been a proper field simulation.

There have been quite a few upgrades since the balls that we have in Jbad, most of them making life much better for the installer.   I saw lots of beta work that will make life better for the maintainer, the one that most people are probably eagerly awaiting is the electronically controller blower with negative delta pressure measurement.

something I didn't have in Jbad - a manual!

Everything you need, including tools, come in two wheeled cases that can be checked on to a commercial aircraft.

Hold down plates and cable pulleys upgrades: the bottom of the plate have a roughed coating and the pulleys rotate and lock into positions to remain in plane with the cables.

I was embarrassed to have not noticed previously that the labels on the ball correspond to the hold down plates positions. (There's no tarp at the Jbad site).

slightly open top / front zipper

it takes about 10 minutes of inflating to get to this point, and it is important to have someone watching the pressures

basically the same blower which must be kept upright (as shown) or the dials don

squeezing off the blower inlet to the front hemisphere which is smaller than the back chamber

Around this point in my solo run is where I popped about 1/3 of the internal springs because the delta pressure was negative and the parabolic reflector pointed in the wrong direction. Make a visual check through the windows to make sure that the front / top chamber has more pressure than the bottom / back.

The pulley and guide can be rotated in two dimensions and locked to lie in the same plane as the cables.

The new ground sheet was pointed at the s/c azimuth when it was laid out and staked. Now the meridian of the ball is aligned with the stripe on the ground sheet.

Legs to hold the feed assembly to the ball are color coded with small red or white stripes.

The feed assembly was redesigned to be super easy for one person to install from the ground.

slots at the top

quarter turn thumb screws at the bottom

attach the RF cables while the feed assembly is on the ground and within reach

the polarization alignment mark is on the bottom of the feed assembly so you can see it from the ground

The whole set up process, without breaks, is around 45 minutes long with one helper (pretending to be a novice). Hans, another guy going through the training with me, who comes from TV satellite comms (think CNN and ESPN “live on location”) says that’s on par with rigid dish set ups.

Everything more or less went smoothly, even the recovery from a few mistakes, so I didn’t get much experience with on-going maintenance and troubleshooting issues. The GATR folks say that the ball in Jalalabad is the longest running antenna they have, and in a somewhat extreme environment. I came home with a pile of material about the modem and the sat network system - I’m hoping to get a clearer understanding of when it’s time to call the NOC vs. GATR for help and make a troubleshooting flowchart for the non-experts left in the field.

Hello fabulous fab labbers!

A couple of quick items…

1) We’re in the process of updating the fab Website, and we’d like to include an up-to-date page that lists all the fab labs in the world. To that end could you please send me the following information, this week if possible? (And please, if you know of a site, that I might not know about, send me their contact info.) 

• Primary contact name at your lab
• Street and mailing address of your lab
• Contact phone number
• Contact email address
• Website address (if you have a Website) a PICTURE of your lab, inside or out, whatever you think demonstrates your lab character.  (Be creative if you wish…)
• GPS coordinates, if you know them.

This will be on the world wide web, so be sure the info is good for public consumption and won’t clog your personal email box with  public inquiries.  Please send this week if possible.

2) April 9 is the deadline for the 3rd annual Fab Egg competition. What cool egg decoration can you make in the traditional way, or better yet, in the fab lab way?  To encompass all cultures and religions this year, let’s consider it a  Rite of Spring (or if you’re in the southern hemisphere, Rite of Fall). Deadline is Thursday April 9,  when we will show off our creations on the Polycom at 12PM Boston time, 6PM Norway time (the rest of you can figure it out…)  If you don’t have access to a Polycom or the Internet, email me your pictures– or better yet, upload your images to the fab site (good exercise for you) and send me the link.  Also include a description of how you made it.  We haven’t determined the prize yet- but NO it probably won’t be a free trip to Norway!  The more machines you use in the creation of your egg decoration, the better!

Last year’s winners were:

• Ghana Fab Lab took First Prize — hands down –for the Communal Easter Egg Table.
• Lass placed second for the Vegas Egg.
• Scott Zitek  (Lorain County Fab Lab) placed third with his Eggship Enterprise.

Here are a few, still working links to some of last year’s entries:

• http://fabinnova.india.googlepages.com/egg
• http://www.mediamatic.net/page/23403/en
• http://img.cba.mit.edu/img/?v=t&d=080321_fablab_lass_egg
• http://fab.cba.mit.edu/world/people/lass/Eggs/Eggs2008/lasseggs08.html

Hope all of you are well and prospering.

Lass

If you didn’t get this message directly emailed to you and would like to be added to the Fab Central distribution, send an email to fab-info at cba dot mit dot edu.

 

Over the years there has been much tension, heartburn, misunderstanding, and confusion when it comes to the topics of sharing and openness in Fab Lab projects.  If you thought of something, or made something, or modified something… what are your ownership rights, what does it mean to credit, and so forth.

It’s a difficult topic in part because it’s emotional.  For an inventor an idea can be a thing with great sentimental importance.  Some inventors are also manufacturers and businessmen, but the vast majority in the world are not.  Most “inventions” are never made for consumption for others by the inventor.  In fact, many inventors never get past the part where they simply “had a good idea”.

The fab lab is often mistaken for a job shop, inventors and business people coming and wanting us to sign Non-disclosure Agreements and for “us” to make “their” product prototype and/or also manufacture and market it.  Sometimes it’s not an inventor but someone looking to have something manufactured & marketed locally as if we are those factories in China that seem to make anything and everything for anyone.  Building a company and a business can be just as emotional as coming up with a good idea.

Back to our core topic: openness and sharing.  Recently we had an email thread revolving around this.  We could all agree that the inventor in this case is neither looking for a mass-production factory (or some kind of dual-bottom-line feel-good version of a mass-production factory) nor looking for someone to develop his idea into a product.  We even liked the product and it’s functions and aims. Smari succinctly stated the litmus for whether the inventor’s interest align with the Fab Lab’s (with a minor edit from me):

The key question here is one of openness - is he willing to adhere to the Fab Lab policy of no-secrecy and duplicability (essentially a Creative Commons compliant policy, e.g. CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-SA)..

For his project to be carried out in the Fab Labs there are two questions regarding openness:

1. The device: is it open and can we share the schematics and understanding of the mechanisms at play?

2. The compound: is it open and can we share the recipe and understanding of the mechanisms at play?

Well, thanks to Smari for saying better and more clearly what my questions (hesitations) would be for anyone’s “inventions” and using the lab to disseminate. Those of us that have been around for a while have seen both 1) “evil” people who see labs as cheap labor and manufacturing they can co-opt to produce their product , 2) totally non-malicious misunderstanding that if you invent something, the fablab will produce, market, disseminate, etc. it for you (this is sort of the model where someone invents a game and expects Parker Brothers to do all the rest of the work and pay them $ per unit sold), and 3) “investors” who want (exclusive) access to the Intellectual Property from inventions that are created by users in the lab.

I’m not implying that this inventor is evil or has the wrong model, it just requires talking on both sides. Fab labs do sometimes act as “matchmakers” meaning there may be partnerships among users and outsiders because in the end a good idea requires the thinker as well as the implementer, marketer, and financial backer and so on. But always the interest of Fab Folk as a nebulous group is to protect the interest of the many.   The crux is: how will this benefit the other users of the lab?  Our aim is not only to spread dollar wealth, but knowledge wealth.

The T-shirt club in Afghanistan can be used a really simple thought model to see where you get to - imagine if people tried to keep silk masking a secret so they could make it a business.  It’d be worse if people far away were making the bulk of the profit while the club members learned and gained nothing but were used as “high tech” sweatshop labor.

We don’t have a single legal document that codifies our openness and sharing doctrine.  Maybe some day we’ll find the ways to describe and protect our values.  In the meantime we have a simple campaign of education and discussion.

The 9th grade students the MC2STEM school in East Cleveland set the bar high for learning to use the fab lab equipment - making a Rube Goldberg machine that “cut a ribbon” at the school’s opening: breaking a fluorescent light tube.  Their Goldberg machine used every fab machine and process, and it worked!

Tim invited me to submit some ideas for ways to spend the Work For Cash program this Spring and Summer.  There is a focus on getting the money into the hands of women.  Many of the traditional WFC programs are things like digging out the sewers or sweeping the streets, and those are inappropriate for burqa clad women who are likely to have small kids they must keep with them.

Tim reminds me that the program is bound by constraints that he doesn’t yet completely know so he won’t make any promises or plans yet.  If the WFC thing doesn’t work out, we’ll still do most of these things but will have to raise funds otherwise and the program will stand up more slowly (ie, we’ll have to sell the product and generate some revenue to reinvest in more raw supplies).   If you have more ideas, please comment!

In the Work for Cash program, women will be invited to the FabLab to be paid to do the following :

1) Document scanning. Digitize paper records using bed scanner or camera.  May be public records or possibly USAID/similar organization’s files (we will have to solicit customers).

2) Print, color, and cut out flash cards for school children.  (Mostly basic arithmetic).  Women learn to use the printing press or wood / rubber stamp making.

3) Make educational props. Clocks with moveable hands, giant rulers, large painted flash cards with Pashto / English alphabet.

4) Sew book bag / satchel / purses, with custom embroidery or markings or prints.

5) Sew / embroider (by hand, machines, or with computer controlled machines) “A [picture of apple]” kinds of quilts and fabric books in Pashto.  May use other machines in the lab to make the objects out of felt or other material instead of embroidering with thread.

6) Make wind lanterns from empty water bottles.  (Requires collecting and cleaning bottles).  Wind lanterns spin in a breeze causing internal lights to light up.  They can be strung up outside doorways or near wells and other hazards.

7) Make and configure FabFi antennas for long range wireless internet connections terminating in umbrella wireless hotspots.  Install on site, possibly, depending on mobility of women.

Create and perform puppet / shadow puppet theater show on topics of basic health, local fables, or just entertainment.

9)  (Work occurs outside the lab) Install conduit and network cable (includes running the cable and crimping the headers on to the ends) in places in advance of internet availability.  This may be in schools, hospitals, or other government or public buildings.  Requires at least one recipient site, to be negotiated.

In addition to immediate pay for work described, in some cases women will gain a skill that may be employable in the long term.  I propose giving away the product to the local schools or selling at a very low cost.  These products and services were requested by locals and the Fab Lab mentors can help these women establish small cottage businesses from these activities.

The Fab Lab is an existent infrastructure at the edge of Jalalabad.  In addition to raw supplies for the above projects, the Women’s Resource Room needs to be fitted out to provide a safe and comfortable place for the women to work and sanctuary when there are users of other genders visiting or using the lab.  This room is approximately 25′ x 18′ with windows on two walls and an ensuite bathroom with sink and toilet.  One set of windows opens onto a small concrete walkway which is up against an interior compound wall.  The other set of windows looks out small concrete walkway/porch leading to 1/4-1/2 acre vegetable garden.  There is a split air conditioner and heater installed in the room.  The room is currently empty but clean and freshly painted.

We need to add:  Thick wall to wall carpet, comfortable couches and floor cushions.  Some low tables. A computer controlled embroidery machine, a sewing machine, some computers, a bookshelf and whiteboard, a projector or TV for lessons. All the print and video educational material we can find.  One wall of open-front cubby holes.  A shared supply of sewing and knitting needles, scissors, rulers, and so on.  An endless supply of female sanitary products, soap, and general toiletries and comforts.

Everett the dog can tell when Sherry and I begin scheming about travel. As soon as the American Airlines website came up, he ran off to find and leaned hard against Neil’s legs. Being a properly trained human, Neil petted him and told him it was ok…

He’s right.  I’m off tomorrow to help with Cleveland’s MC2STEM school’s opening on Friday Feb 20.  Kenny and Max from MIT are coming out mid-week and LCCC is sending a bunch of folks including Scott and Rita.

I don’t know much right now, they’ve moved into a brand new building on the GE Nela campus and much of the lab is nearly installed.  We’ll find out on Monday how close it is to operational.

One of the goals of the opening is to have real students and teachers able to show some of the capabilities of the lab.  At the same time we know it’s not possible to run a real “how to make” even super super condensed.  (The shortest HTMAA I’ve ever taught was 2 days long).

To get a fun sampling of everything, we’re going to build Rube Goldberg machines!  Each step of the machine will be a mini-project ideally using a different machine or process in the lab.  I’m very optimistic that a wide array of creativity will shine through.

Read the (rough) description of the demonstration project’s purpose and goals here: mc2stem_fablab_demo_project.pdf

I’m plodding through my photos to compose the Afghanistan 6 month summary. I barely remember now that I came back to Cambridge briefly in September/October… but was here long enough to capture this night time image of our new Media Lab building next door.

1. disconnect power from modem
2. disconnect Tx cable from modem
3. connect ethernet cable from laptop to modem (LAN B)
4. connect power to modem
5. start iSite on laptop
6. log in: the uname and password are taped to the computer
7. from the menu,
   File ->
   telnet
8. in new telnet window, type the command:
   rx pointing enable
9. type the command:
   rx pointing on
10. the window will now scroll with the voltage numbers. It will likely start with depressingly low numbers,starting with a 0.something. You want to get to around 16.something. Best to have someone else reading off the numbers as feedback. Use really little changes. This is equivalent to the graphical GUI that had a tone (higher/louder = better), but it’s the other human.
11. when you get the highest number you can (I was able to link at 11.5 or 12 or something, though that’s really really crappy), close iSite
12. disconnect power from modem
13. connect Tx cable
14. connect power cable to modem
15. wait
16. all lights should go green. At this point you should be able to connect to the outside world on the laptop, ie with Firefox
17. disconnect LAN from computer and reconnect to gray cable going to basement

Many people have asked me why I chose to exchange multiple thousand dollars to volunteer three weeks time in Afghanistan with the fab-lab project. Though my initial decision to volunteer for the project was quick and easy, my ability to more completely explain my decision to friends and family was more complex. The following paragraphs are generally how I’ve been answering the “Why” question when I get asked:

Through my own observations and life experiences, I empathize a great deal with the underdog, especially in situations of enormous contrasts. For a variety of reasons, history hasn’t been overly kind to the Afghan people. As I acknowledged the often absurd abundances in my 21^st century American life, such as countertop chocolate fountains, 12-way electrically adjustable car seats, heated towel racks and shamefully overpaid executives and sports figures, the contrast became difficult to ignore. How much of my own success came from “hard work” and how much came from circumstance of being born in America?

Early in life I discovered the immense satisfaction that comes from helping others as well as the universal simplicity and brilliance of the Golden Rule. If roles were reversed, how would I like to be treated? What kind of person would decline an opportunity to help someone in need? What “brilliant” things would I do if I stayed home for three weeks instead? If I didn’t contribute to improving a given situation, how could I be surprised if nothing changed OR if the situation deteriorated? Or, as a very devout Christian friend of mine pointed out: “What would Jesus do?”

As I’ve acknowledged the need to change my career, the idea of becoming a teacher has maintained a high place on my vocational list. For many years I have been active as a tutor with school-age kids as well as the low-income elderly. Accepting an opportunity to share my experience and skills in a non-Western, non-English-speaking country would be a good test of my motivation and passion to change careers and become a teacher. At the very least, my participation wouldn’t hurt anyone (unless I literally stepped on someone’s toe and I do that in America ALL the time anyway.)

Recent travels through America had shown me how inaccurate my perceptions of my own country were, so I began to wonder about the accuracy of my perceptions of other parts of the world. Yes, I had never actively learned anything about Afghanistan and had formed my beliefs only on passive consumption of images the news-media choose to print/broadcast. What could I possibly be afraid to learn? Certainly if my own (US) government realized the value of supporting the Afghan people, how could I decline an opportunity to do the same thing?

I haven’t been back to the Wired article until just now to see the comments that were left on the site regarding Fablab Jalalabad. They are pretty interesting - in particular because there appears to be two veins:

1) they’re gonna make IEDs, etc. (to kill Americans)

2) there are Americans in America that don’t have opportunities or jobs and Fab Labs should be put in America and we should be helping Americans

There are a few outside these but mostly those are the responses. Some question the utility of Fab Lab expense vs. results.  Then there are a few responses somewhat supporting fab labs.

Folks, seriously, I need your voices and thoughts to addressing these (some valid) criticisms, and explaining things like why we were there. Why did you shell out cash to go, what did you hope to accomplish? What do you think now? If it’s true then a perfectly valid response is “I thought I could help but it’s hopeless”… whatever you think, your silence allows people to put words in our mouths.

Other then a sky-high gee-whiz factor, exactly what is that fab labs have done that’s made them worth their expense?

I’m not trying to be a smart ass and I do like the idea of having a fab lab somewhere in the vicinity but there just seems to be a “if you build it they will do cool stuff” feeling about the idea. Thing is, fab labs have been around for some years now and I don’t really know of any particular accomplishments that’ve sprung from them.

Posted by: allen | Feb 1, 2009 12:42:45 PM

I know that the folks in the USA Midwest Fab Lab Network sometimes read this site too.  What are we not doing - and need to do - for people to understand this better?

In some sense, Fab Labs are like neighborhood playgrounds. You don’t expect them to generate moon-landing rockets. Without handwaving wishy-washy-ness : what good is a fab lab?

(Hint:  use the comment field below)

Keith reports the laser cutter down due to a fire while he was cutting a reflector.

A small fire, but enough to melt the belt that moves the lens assembly on the gantry.

Keith says he “watched the job for 10 minutes of a 55 minute cut”… which was apparently 45 minutes not long enough.

Now we’re doing a video conference remote fixing session.

I ran across this article written by the author of the Kite Runner, part of series titled “How the World Views Obama Victory” in New Perspectives Quarterly.

Hosseini says that the Afghani government is overwhelmed and needs foreign assistance for “durable peace, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan”. He’s even specific about what’s needed:

What the Afghan people—and most urgently the returning refugees—need is international attention to long-neglected and serious failures in the civil sector: addressing widespread unemployment and poverty, providing access to health and educational facilities, rebuilding infrastructure, meeting food and clean-water shortages, curbing corruption, building a competent and legitimate police force that will provide security and protect its people, and investing in long-term social programs.

This author has left open a door for us, saying that it’s not a “100 meter dash but a marathon”.  Fablabs can’t provide emergency food aid, it has to do with the long haul.  We should be writing that way …  help me write a vision of the future and how the Fab Labs enabled its existence.

No handwaving. There’s been enough trips and projects by enough people (in Afghanistan and other places) to have some glimmers of supporting evidence for our claims.

(thanks Ryan!)

May/early June the Mobile Fab Lab comes back to MIT for repair/refurbish.  It will be turned around quickly  to send it to Minnesota for the summer (where Century College will use it for outreach), and then to Lorain County Community College for the Fall term.  There is a junior high school near LCCC  that wants to use the Mobile Lab for STEM curriculum support.  This will give us an opportunity to collect data for analysis and funding, and to create a student collaboration between the SSBX student program (starting this Spring)  and the LCCC program.

same design file, different materials, different machine, different size

computers are good at math…

 

This pair (plus generic wireless accesspoint) is for the Bagrami school.  The headmaster (and appropriate ministry office) have given permission to install the antenna at the school and to allow all village residents with laptops to use the school rooms and grounds when classes are not in session.  Bagrami school teachers have begun to learn to use the OLPC computers which they borrow and take home each day.  The OLPCs are charged either at their own homes (some have electricity at night) or at the FabLab.

Bagrami Online, coming soon!

It’s our last full day here and we’re alternating among frantically finishing projects, collecting stuff for the trip home, and seeing more stuff. We’re all a little sad to leave, there’s so much to do, could do. The guesthouse was bursting at the seams, even though some of the FabFolk were stuffed three to a room, that, in and of itself made it fun. It’s like camp for grown up little geeks.

The financial load was pretty hefty for a bunch of unemployed / students. I’m often asked to post our costs but I’ve been resisting for several reasons, the most of which is that I don’t want to seem like we’re complaining about our travel costs. We’d much rather see contributions going directly to FabLab users and infrastructure.

To bring the FabFi project to the state it’s at, we’ve spent a total of about $40,000 where the bulk of that is travel costs across two trips (one in November and one in January).

Materials costs for three links were well under $1000:

• $60 plywood
• $20 chicken wire / screening
• $40 staple gun, staples, gaffers tape, rope, etc.
• $350 network routers (aprox $50 each)
• $40 12V batteries and chargers
• $60 network cables, jacks, crimper tool, etc
• $50 phone sim cards and top-up cards
• $60 wireless web cam (used for signal source when pointing)
• $120 wispy (used as spectrum analyzer when pointing)

Average travel costs per person for what has been called the “Fab Surge” is about $4,000. In an ideal world, these costs would have been reimbursable.

• $180 Afghanistan visa
• $100 Travel medical insurance
• $100 Travel medicines, vaccines, etc.
• $2,000 - $2,500 Flight from USA to Dubai, return
• $680 Flight from Dubai to Kabul, return
• $100 Travel from Kabul to Jalalalabad by car
• $630 Guesthouse lodging fee (a special shared rate by cramming multiple people into rooms)
• $20-$50 Travel to/from home airport
• (there is an additional $150-250 that each person has likely spent on random things to include internet access at Heathrow/Amsterdam or postage fees of passports and so on)

In addition, all together we spent about $750 in excess baggage and/or shipping mostly for FabFi and video/photo gear, and we’ve used about $200 in DV tapes.

Additionally, Tim Lynch and Shem Klimiuk from Free Range International haven’t charged us a cent for several weeks worth of armed expat security work as well as rides to and fro. We never would have been able to cover those costs out of our pockets. Fortunately I think we’re a little bit entertaining to Tim and Shem and they kind of like us. But they have to fit us in with their day jobs which hasn’t been the most convenient for either side.

Perhaps the biggest cost that’s difficult to put a value on is the unpaid time. For some of us, our employers or universities did not want the liability of their student/staff in Afghanistan so we all had to quit and go on unpaid leave. For others, they were unemployed but could have been employed in the time they spent preparing for the trip (for example, Keith put in a solid 2 months of 100-hour weeks rather than, you know, working for pay.) That’s impossible to really put a price on.

One of the reasons we were so productive is because we’re individually experienced at what we do.  You can’t throw newbies out into the field with no mentoring and expect them to do anything that doesn’t read like Lord of the Flies… and that’s if you’re lucky and they do anything at all.  And not to pat myself on the back too much, but just as important is to put together a complementary team focused on a well defined set of goals.

Which is the biggest lesson I desperately hope someones out there learns. Never before in history has there been a significantly large population of educated, skilled, experienced, “young” talent with a semi-disposable income willing and eager to do professional work for little or no pay and even some that will spend their own funds. You have to provide a minimum infrastructure for them to come, and help offset some of the costs they just couldn’t bear. You have to rally them around an idea, spin a coherent vision and place them and their contributions squarely in focus. They won’t accept a mission that doesn’t make sense or isn’t technically or socially viable - and they’re more than competent to develop rational opinions that will need to be vetted and addressed. They will walk away from half-baked plans so you better be ready with supporting data for your claims; but once they buy into the vision they will autonomously meet mission with focus and intensity. It costs much less in dollars than you think.

Those few of us that have come to Afghanistan over the last few months represent a small part of the larger Fab Folk community. We are from many different nationalities and ancestries. Most of us have technical or professional degrees and advanced degrees. All of us have worked “in the real world”. We are generally between 25-35 years old, male and female.

The FabLabs all over the globe are magnets for us, offering technological infrastructure “nearly as good as” (and often better than) what we have available at home. We’re big-brained bugs flitting about bright pinpricks of light… we don’t need lush hotels, gourmet cooks, or shiny cars. Most of us don’t even have TVs at home. More and more of us are coming of age every day, seeking and searching for light.

The public hospital link has added significant load to our sat connection, they’ve been at 1.3Mbps continuously. Like thirsty men at a water hole in the desert

We could see their connection was down most of yesterday (we couldn’t ping their STA router, but the tower STA and APs were up) but no one called Brandon until later in the day. Brandon didn’t do anything (ie, he didn’t go out to the site to fix it) so they must have resolved it themselves.

I do wonder what is going to happen with the connection at the hospitals. In an ideal world, several people would have learned how to make more connections to link in more and more users to the water tower, and they would be collecting the resources to do so now. But it’s easy to imagine that the link will stay just as it is, with the antenna strapped down to a stool on a chair with bright red polypropylene and long ethernet cables into the window of the administration building, never spreading beyond that building. I sure hope not, it’s a little depressing to contemplate given how much work went into developing and deploying this system by so many people.

It’s in their hands now, though it’s still our collective job to help guide everyone along. Meanwhile we’re eager to hook up Bagrami to the outside world.

The Icelandic Networking Super Duo (that’s Andreas and Smari, in case you were confused) went off at an eye-watering 5am and Carl and Lucy followed in a second vehicle at 9am after a refreshing night’s sleep and plenty of time to shower.

Just Keith, Steve, and I are left behind. We still have hopes to bring up the Shopbot, though today unexpectedly turned into a big adventure with a hysterically crappy car ride (keep one foot down on throttle to prevent stalling and use other foot on brake to moderate speed; braking causes car to veer hard to the right; and plenty of other parts that might seem important but don’t work so they must not be…) and was also punctuated with a long negotiation to purchase rugs.

I already miss the pitter-patter of geek feet.

All in all we had a very successful time though ironically, in the list of goals we didn’t quite completely accomplish, “make list of goals to accomplish” was one of them. Tee hee hee, I say…

In the deafening quiet, we’re all groaning internally about dealing with the sheer quantity of media (video/pics/audio/gps) we generated. We’re going to need help… there’s lots of good stuff here and we should be able to edit into at least three stories.

Our Pashto teacher was born and raised in Bagrami village (where the Taj is located; it’s a suburb of Jalalabad). Much of his family are academics and have had higher education outside of Afghanistan and return to teach.

One day during “Conversation” we went through the various forms of “how old are you”, “how old is he”, “how old are they”, “hold old is that” and so on. When he recounted what we covered with his father, his father advised him: “son, you must remember two things you can never ask a foreigner…”

I know you’re on the edge of your seats….

1) You cannot ask a foreigner how old they are.
2) You cannot ask a foreigner what is their salary.

The foreigners blink in slightly stunned silence and ask if Pashtoons ask each other, strangers, these questions. “Why not?” he said. It is almost a little insulting you are not interested in the strangers health, if they have parents, if they have siblings, if they are married, if they have children (if they have sons, if they have daughters), how old they are, what is their work, what is their salary… and so on.

Which led us to, are there things you cannot ask a Pashtun? (To be clear, we are talking about two Pashtun strangers talking to each other, not a foreigner to a Pashtun.)

1) You should not ask a Pashtun things related to: HOW MANY wives a married man has, WHY a married man does not have more wives, WHY a married man has so few children, and so on. (To be clear, that his is married is good question to ask, and he may volunteer the number of wives and children; but you cannot ask the number or question the number.) This stems from the number of wives and children directly relating to the person’s wealth and success.

2) You should not ask a Pashtun things that are criticizing their religion. Religion is difficult to separate from culture. We’ve spent days talking about Islam and Pashtoon culture and it isn’t easy to cleanly say which is which. But generally one should avoid WHY questions unless you are either (a) a child (they can ask, “father, WHY must we pray 5 times a day” in the same vein as “father, why is the sky blue”) or (b) you are talking with someone in an environment of learning and not criticizing or questioning.

Otherwise, apparently EVERYTHING else is game, even stuff that made us - some of us long time friends - squirm slightly to ask so frankly.

The FabFi team has made two end point links in Jalalabad City, both screaming at 4.43Mbps (1.89Mbps to the internet with the bottleneck primarily being the satellite connection). There is a long haul connection, just shy of 2.5 miles, from the fablab to a water tower somewhat in the middle of Jbad. That’s made with a pair of the large 4′ antennas. From the water tower there are two more small antenna pairs, one 500m (public hospital) long link and one maybe 1/4 mile long link (an NGO). The connections were up until late in the evening - we’re not done yet as some of the antennas & electrical supply need to be better secured and all need to be weather proofed.

At the public hospital we initially had a little dubious support from the uppermost administration but once the hardware started showing up and laptops were connected, suddenly we were overwhelmed by too much support and offers of assistance — working by headlamp we were mobbed by men in suits and better-than-average clothing all yelling at each other for control of the antenna / internet. A strange outcome. Explaining that they could all use it seemed to make it worse. Fortunately, Brandon from the San Diego sister city connection was on hand (and has been for the past few days working the relationships among the three hospitals) and stepped in to take the brunt of their discontent.

Keith has made some good maps of the link locations and network architecture. Andres and Smari came up with some network routing genius that I can’t begin to pretend I can summarize. Carl and Smari have busily teaching any Afghan that comes within trapping distance how to configure and set up additional antenna pairs, and today we’re meeting with an innovation-friendly UK-educated Afghan wireless/internet provider small business man who’s not afraid of product development. We’ve come a long long way in this project in the past week and a half. Much of it is being faithfully but disorganized-ly documented on the fabfiwireless bloghttp://fabfiwireless.blogspot.com/

Pictures and video will come after we’ve had long naps. The days are very long. We have breakfast starting around 7, Pashtu lessons for two hours, then we teach computers & internet resources (on OLPCs) for a couple hours, then head out to the various fabfi locations, returning a couple hours after sunset. Some come back in the afternoon to help mentor teachers and users in the fablab. We manage to have dinner together along with other guests in the guest house who must think it a little strange that so many of us eat, talk, and type on a computer all at the same time - sometimes sending text messages to each other while sitting at the same table. After dinner, the fun continues — Andres, Smari, and Keith often go off to the basement cave to work on network routing for a few more hours, Carl spent DAYS working by headlamp in the fablab before returning triumphantly with a hello.speaker board (which fried instead of working)… and for some reason every single night I debug the network and power. You get the idea. It’s fab geek heaven.

A man with a pistol wants his computer back now…

I’m sitting at Mike’s computer in the Operation Mercy compound where a fabfi connection is providing 1.89 Mbps / 208 kbps!

The medical faculty building in Jalalabad has a pathology lab which was once considered quite good. Dr Art Mendoza has been long championing the return of pathology skills in the province. Long ago, his advisor (who taught him while in Boston) worked in the Jalalabad hospital and collected the samples himself. He was also the advisor of the current Chief of Medicine in the medical faculty school; Art likes to say that they are academic brothers.

During the Taliban times, some samples were lost because the Talibs wanted the hospital to get rid of them. After the Talibs left, the pathology lab was restored and they continue to collect samples, though you can see they are less “professional” looking, using various glass containers.

Histology is the study of tissues (as opposed to cytology, the study of cells) and is most commonly used in a hospital setting to determine if a growth is malignant (ie, cancerous). If the growth is not cancerous, then the surgeon will only remove what’s necessary to relieve whatever secondary symptoms the growth might be causing - reduced vision, breathing, etc. But if the growth is cancerous, the surgeon will be more aggressive in removing tissue so that all the cancerous cells are removed. A regular histology preparation will take at least 8-10 hours from the time the tissue is removed from the patient to when a pathologist can look at a thin piece of the tissue under a microscope.

Enter the frozen section machine (aka freezy slicy thing).

Our sample is donated by Tim. This scary looking thing on his back was already identified as a non-malignent kera-something-or-other — ugly but not a problem. But it’s pretty big and easily removed. Dr. Mendoza cuts it off with my Emerson which I’ve specially sharpened for this occasion. We keep it wet in a wet tissue for the ride to the medical faculty building.

The sample is frozen oriented vertically, held in place by a thick goopy liquid that will turn white when frozen.

Here’s what the specimen looked like on the microscope. Our patient will, in fact, not die from the ugly looking thing that is no longer on his back.

Those last photos were apparently pretty obvious to even a medical student and probably wouldn’t have required assisted consultation. But the vision is that the digital photos can be sent via email or uploaded to a server for pathologists in America or other places to diagnose. The digital photos also provide a permanent record of the sample that can be kept with the patient’s files. (Currently the physical slide from a proper permanent mounted histology is kept with the patient’s files.)

FABLAB OLPC FIELD DEPLOYMENT TRIAL
IN BAGRAMI, NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

Download the draft document here (Jan 2, 2009).

Note: This is not part of the “official OLPC deployment” in Afghanistan.  Rather we are proposing the use of the XO laptop hardware as personal laptops of fab lab users.

This document is still a draft: We are evaluating the use of XO laptops with a small group of selected users in Bagrami. This pre-trial evaluation is from January to May 2009. Results will be incorporated in a final proposal released around May 2009.  The start of the field deployment trial will be the beginning of the 2009/10 school year in Bagrami.

Comments and help welcome.

Last night I came upstairs to fetch something or other… and woke up early this morning fully dressed with one foot still on the floor and otherwise sprawled across my bed. That’s the experience for most everyone else too. And what’s crazy, of course, is we like it.

I can’t help but giggle every time one of the fab folk look at me, nearly in tears, and say something like, “ants have eaten the insulation on the cables in this computer and it shorted out when I plugged it in”, or “this socket was putting out 110 when I plugged this 110-only device into it… but now it’s fried because the socket is now putting out 220″. Or now I’m starting to hear, “Where’s the one I fixed yesterday… oh, this is it?”

But FabFolk are resilient and we’ve still managed to truck on, making do with whatever is on hand and working at that moment, and desperately hoping that someone doesn’t change the wiring or power source in the next few minutes. After all, what fun would it be if everything simply worked?

I’m pretty bad at poker but I’m sure I have a winning hand: Two Icelandics, Four Americans, One South African.  All are happily installed at the Taj.

An update on GATR satellite dish peaking and whatnot…  the net has been up consistently since coming back online on 1/5.  (I did an Rx peaking the next day).

The new modem seems to be happy.  Twice the connection has been down due to low ball pressure.  The filter to the blower clogs up, mostly with diesel soot but some of the brown dirt/clay too, and the blower can’t keep up with air loss.  I remove the filter and twack it hard for a bit - that seems to be good for about 4 days at a time.  It takes about a minute for the ball to repressurize and that’s it, the second time I did this I didn’t even have to reboot the modem (the first time I did so accidentally by kicking the plug out of the brick).  I’d consider zipping up the front and back of the ball some, but the zippers are pretty high up, I’ll maybe do this when I have some tall help and ladders.  Nonetheless this would only delay the eventual need to clean the filter.  We should probably jury-rig up a pre-filter kind of deal but well, this place is soot and dirt (and rocks).

As far as I know that has been the only ball-related outages but there are other humans here with knowledge of the ball and as I mentioned I haven’t been here during the day for the past few days.
Due to visa and flight issues with our inbound travellers, I have been making trips to Kabul and haven’t gotten a chance to call the NOC to do the Tx peaking.  I’ll do that tomorrow AM; I got $40 in phone cards today so I should be able to sustain a few minutes’ call to the NOC.

Tonight after dinner (and after the users/teachers in the fablab go home) I’ll test the new version of isite on a different laptop; if the GUI works I’ll install on the dedicated “server” laptop that lives next to the modem.

We still haven’t sunk screws through the hold down plates into the concrete/brick.  Some cables are a little loose but the overall ball is holding ground.  If the plate securing doesn’t happen within the next few days I’ll get the Fab Folk to help me move the tie points to the railings (the roof is perhaps 3 feet bigger than the ball on all sides).

multi-point video conferencing

but it might be a screenshot of a rose and not actually work when you click on it.

The teachers had been reporting that they could not use a computer because Ubuntu had a virus and did not work. Turns out that someone had set the desktop background to a screenshot of a desktop (and deleted all the real icons). Clicking on the images of the icons didn’t do anything because, well, it was only an image of the icon… same with the menu bar (the real menu bar was in a different location and set to “autohide”).

This particular failure mode is new to me.

Keith and 280+ lbs of gear safely in Jalalabad.  When unpacking the truck, discovered Art and Brandon Mendoza wedged in with all the gear.  All are cozy around the fire at the bar.

It’s nearly 22:00 and I’m sitting outside next to the big GATR ball in near freezing temperatures beaming this update to you, that might sound silly but there’s a line of desperate internet starved folks climbing down to the lower roof to blow on their fingers and jab at the keyboard too!

Woo hoo!

We are in the network, there’s lots of latency, about 900+ms ping return time to www.google.com.  Our Rx signal is 15.5V, could be better.  NOC reports the strongest signal they’ve seen, so the new ball is totally paying off.  I’ll fine tune pointing and polarization come daybreak (now doing everything in the dark by headlamp) and then call the NOC to peak our Tx too.

Very weird experience, more to come.

The lab staff held a review with me yesterday - covering September through December. (We’re doing 3 month goal setting and review cycles). All in all there are many positive things and plenty of missed opportunities due to inexperience of the staff.

A few things are pretty cool. On the list of goals for Nov & Dec was to establish and write down responsibilities, etc. for specific jobs and to specifically identify a person for those responsibilities (that would be help accountable for those things happening). They’ve done this and even made a nice staff chart and list of duties for each position. (The details are rather inspecific and incomplete, but that’s what we’ll work in January as we develop each person and their positions). And here is my first promise - when the internet comes back at the fablab we’ll have this info on the website. It’s one thing to know that there are people in the lab, but I think you’ll like seeing their pictures and bios online (them also).

Talwar, the “assistant” to the “coordinator” (yes, we have to work on the titles), has also been keeping an electronic, typed lab journal in English. Daily he records the comings and goings of teachers and students, goals, observations, problems, and so on. Promise two: the instant the net comes back up this will be a “blog” style journal kept online (with an offline backup).

Promise three: we’ll migrate the financial cash book (a super simple cash book) online as well. Then you can see exactly where money is going, to excruciatingly small detail.

As I mentioned before, the users have been quite prolific and there is hardly anywhere to stand in the main room in the lab. Promise four: as soon as the fat pipe is back I’ll start uploading pictures. You’ll love them. Colorful and creative, that’s my tease.

Everyone’s eager to get the polycom working. Of course that requires the internet, but there was also a persistent problem with the Codian MCU not allowing either of the polycoms in Jbad to join the MCU. We’re always put into “autoattendent mode”, which Neil can move us out of, but then the MCU can see us but the JBad side sees and hears nothing. Promise five: polycom ASAP… I’m really eager to get Jbad hooked up and into the daily routine to join the Norwegian Boot Camp also happening in January.

When I upload photos of the stuff made, you’ll see products, in particular t-shirts (for the moment) that maybe we could sell already. This is a fundraiser to seed the start of several “clubs” within the lab where users are financially motivated to learn new skills. A sheet of “decent” plywood is $40; a (smaller) piece of sign-worthy wood is around $50, and we’ll need to seed fund those mini-businesses. Promise six: a small corner of the webspace devoted to stuff you can buy (you make a donation and I’ll send you the item as a gift) which I’ll personally send to you via the postal system. A little piece of Afghani Fab.

Well, that’s six promises the instant the net comes back to the fablab. I’ve got lots in store, too, like little video hellos from the staff and users (and possibly a fabfolk hosted global video-hello wall).

Can’t wait for to get connected to the world again!

We’re still waiting for the replacement LNB which should arrive in a couple days via DHL.  4 business days is excruciatingly long when it spans New Years and a weekend!  Tim and I have been grafting off of other organizations’ internet connection.  I’m happy for the connectivity, but will sure be happy to have a high speed link next week.

In the meantime Mehrab and I scoped out where to install the new big ball and what to install to protect it a little more from the elements (including people tripping on the cables).  His leg has really been bothering him, to the point where he can’t really make it through 5 minutes of conversation without terrible distraction from the leg.  He’s had doctors in Peshawar look at it - even took an x-ray - but I don’t think I understand the translation of what they think is wrong.

The plan is to test out the new LNB (and modem) on the existing small ball, which is probably fine though really looking bedraggled.  Inshallah with pretty much a brand new everything (LNB, BUC, modem) we’ll find the s/c and ping the world… then take a deep breath and dismantle the feed to move it to the big ball and hope we find the s/c again.

GATR thinks the LNB might have been damaged when the entire feed fell off the ball in a big windstorm.  It’s perplexing because this thing - about the size of a piece of “sidewalk chalk” - is just a solid rectangle, no moving parts and it doesn’t have an obvious ding or scratch marks on the surface.  We’ll ship it and the smaller ball back to Alabama for a post-mortem.

Hopefully I’ll be updating the world via Intelsat soon enough!

Keith made this gorgeous photo of the FabFi reflectors and the Boston skyline waaay off in the distance.

See Keith’s blog entry for the technical details of this test.

As most know the internet at the Afghanistan Fab Lab is down. Yesterday I went to troubleshoot the system.  And I think we’ll be back in business in 2-3 days.

The GATR has a few main components: the parabolic dish, the feed element, and the modem.

The entire ball was rotated about the y axis about 30 degrees (ie, the zippered seam was at a diagonal instead of straight down the back ridge), though the inclinometer showed x-axis still around 25-degrees. Hold-down cables and plates don’t seem out of order. No idea how long or if at all it was operating with this rotation.  Regardless, inclination, general pointing, and differential pressures were all within normal ranges.

The modem is connected to the feed element (a transmit BUC and a receive LNB) with two coax cables.  The modem had a blinking orange Rx light, no Tx light, and solid green BUC and LNB power lights.  I swapped out the Rx cable with a spare but there was no change.  While in pointing mode, I verified with a multimeter that the modem is sending voltage to the LNB.   Still can’t find the “Promax Spectrum Analyzer” so can’t power the LNB separately.  The modem’s status is a solid green light.  All this leads us to think the LNB is problem and Roy at GATR is DHLing a replacement.  (Ironically, there is one of everything else here already, including a spare modem due to arrive in about 3 or 4 days).

With Mehrab’s buy-in, scoped out the roof of the unused driveway to install larger ball. There we can drive rods into the concrete to secure the ball instead of finding and lugging up a half ton of weights. This is the roof directly “in front of” where the ball sits currently. Significantly lower railing, too, though that isn’t a issue anyway. Will build a small roofed enclosure on that deck for the blower, etc. and can stretch a tarp-y thing over the whole ball from the higher railing so the ball isn’t taking the brunt of sunlight and rain.

I asked about the feed falling off incident. The triangular patches on the ball came off - group memory says all three. Mehrab superglued those patches back on, waited for the glue to dry, did a minimal repoint, and that was it. That was in October. The network was fine until about 4 days before they went out hard this time. In those 4 days, an escalating degradation pattern of several hours on / tens of minutes off led to hours on / hours off until finally it never came back on. This behavior was only noticed during the day because no grad students were present to use the internet in the wee hours of the night.

The GATR looks somewhat pitiful after a long summer baking in the sun, frequent sandstorms, and is generally dirty as heck, but it has been up and screaming continuously after the big move in late August, with only the “feed falling off” incident needing repointing.  Compare that to July/August  when it seemed like I was repointing every couple of days.   That emphasizes the need to tie down the ball during set up, and probably retightening after leaving it in place for a while to accomodate stretching and relaxation and whatnot.

I have verified that there are no bullet holes in the LNB.

Hello from Jbad everyone! I had a fabulous Christmas in Jbad (though I was a little sleepy through it, having arrived the same day). We had filet mignon wrapped in bacon, egg salad, caesar salad, mashed potatoes with garlic and bacon, breads, some super burgers, and more (it’s kind of a hazy memory). It was a big night at the Taj. Plenty of folks stayed overnight and we had a “proper Boxing Day breakfast” the next morning complete with Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica.

The fab lab users have been so prolific there is barely any room to stand in the main room of the lab. We should be all set for the t-shirt & products club as well as the network project. I’ve talked
with a few folks on Christmas about our plans and they’re excited too - and supportive. Ah, fun fun fun fun… can’t wait, folks!

Before you get to thinking this place is just heaven and you want to stay forever, the big drama is the net is down. This is why I haven’t gotten but a brief chance to get email out to everyone so far, and no posts or pictures uploaded. This afternoon I’ll go through all the various parts. In troubleshooting, folks here have basically completely disassembled the system and there are parts and pieces strewn about. Fortunately I came upon the original set up instructions last night. I’ll go ahead and replace the aging “small” ball with the new “big ball” and start the process all over again.
The replacement modem is coming via USPS and might be a week+ away — but hopefully the problem isn’t the modem. Obviously, if I manage to get the net back up you’ll be hearing lots from me soon.

I’m really looking forward to having the Fab Folk gang arrive in early January and see how cool this place is.

A great article in San Diego CityBeat about the Fab Lab in City Heights San Diego: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/from_idea_to_invention/7497/

“I think the Fab Lab is great,” he says. “It’s given me the opportunity that normally I wouldn’t have. The problem is, I’ve always had great ideas, but I’ve never had the tools to do it. The Fab Lab gives me a workshop where I can experiment to make my dreams come true; without that, I couldn’t bridge the gap from idea to actual product, and that’s a huge barrier for any entrepreneur—getting your idea into a product you can show people.”

I wish I’d recorded the sounds in the lab. In addition to the droning buzzzzzz of the mill’s motor, the din of voices collaborating and arguing, and the occasional scraping of plastic chairs on the rough concrete floor. Every now and again a door opens and closes – never gently – often accompanied by frantic shooing of some animal which wandered into the lab while the door was open. Suddenly the motor stops and there is a millisecond of deafening silence. You can almost hear the whoosh as everyone rushes over to the mill to see the result. Laughter, cheering, giggly excitedness regardless of age, a thousand hands reach in to touch and grab. Somehow despite the many hands, the rubber stamp manages to be carried over to the ink pad and paper for its first impression.

Rubber erasers are available in every country I’ve been to and there are several great benefits to using them in projects to getting familiar with using the mill. Users are very familiar with the small rectangle of soft rubber and know that there’s nothing magical about it, they know it’s a resource easy and cheap to obtain and they don’t get freaked out about messing up and wasting a block. In Jalalabad we bought a box of 2 dozen for a couple of dollars. From a technical and logistical point of view, the soft rubber absorbs nearly any mistake with speed and feed settings on the mill and the eraser can be fixtured with simple double-sided tape.

Designing a stamp is as simple as drawing a black and white picture where the black represents the parts of the eraser cut away and which won’t get inked. Each feature colored in white (spin) will be left behind on the rubber, standing like a mesa or mountain (ghar). Jalalabad, Afghanistan, sits in a wide, fertile drainage delta at the base of the Spinghar Range. Spinghar – White Mountain. The students don’t care that it’s a programming convention, the color code makes sense as if it was constructed just for them. And because all the software is open source, they will be able to extend it in ways that make sense locally.

You get better results with higher quality rubbers but even the rough stuff is exciting. At first people make simple shapes, circles, squares, stars, and hearts. Then some of the younger kids invariably start pushing the shapes together to make trucks and people or abstract images like the moon and flower. Creativity spawns more creativity and the short design-to-print time with the stamps and the soft rubber allows lots and lots of ideas to be cast magically into reality.

While this seems like kids play – and it is learning while playing – in Soshanguve, South Africa some enterprising youth have make signature and seal stamp making part of their business. And the exact processes these users are mastering in stamp making are exactly the same as when using any computer controlled milling machine.

For many users it is the first practical use they’ve encountered for the concepts they’ve been slogging through in school. Number lines, coordinate systems and positions, measuring, fractions and decimals, Booleans, planning, and following a sequence of instructions. The stamp making works like a charm if the user has been careful and thoughtful in all the steps. But rote learning – memorizing and using the exact same settings and commands as a previous design – generally doesn’t work successfully. I let users mistakenly enter something they memorized and puzzle over the erroneous outcome. It’s very rewarding when a big broad smile flashes on their face and they hurriedly repeat their steps but with changes… and the intended stamp is successfully cut.

A lot is going on in the Jbad lab and it’s pretty exciting. We’re having some angst over long term support and funding but for the moment at least activity in the lab is exceeding expectations.
Each day approximately 45 users come to the lab and patiently deal with power and network and other issues and have been cranking out simple projects in staggering quantities. They have self-organized into a system where some of the more advanced students hold classes and workshops for newer or less advanced users. There is a mix of genders, ages, background, ethnicities, and economic status.

In January I and 5 other internationals will be in Jbad to kick off two self sustainability projects. The simpler of the two is for the fablab to organize a “club” where members make and sell customized things like t-shirts, trinkets (ie, challenge coins), vinyl stickers, signs, etc. all of which are run in way to pay users to learn to use machines very well and carefully. Additionally they will learn about simple accounting and business concepts. The club has something like a forced graduation when the user becomes very good at a particular skill, but first the person serves as a mentor for another incoming novice “apprentice” in any given skill. Generally speaking the users have been cranking out astonishing quantity but the quality is poor and there are few users who see the point to going back and making everything perfect since it’s all just play anyway. So I hope that needing to meet quality specs in order to get paid will make them sufficiently motivated. Some users are very talented but have no reward path for their talents.

The second project, much more ambitious and complex, is to stand up something like an IT services “company” out of the fablab specifically to do with point-to-point long range connections with equipment fabbed in the lab (and later meshed networking also fabbed in the lab) as well as intranet support. Here we’re (currently informally) working with Cisco and the members of this club could become Cisco network certified. We aim to provide local Afghans the knowledge, skills, and access to the machines to make equipment to push the edges of the network as well as have actual real-world systems to learn and apply their “just in time” learning. Just as importantly, they’ll be paid as they learn and not paid if they don’t perform. It’s this project that we’ll mostly be focused on in our January trip. We’ll be making, installing, and configuring several point to point connections with at least a 1 to 1 Afghan to international ratio where our goal is for the Afghans to be doing all the work by the last pair – and for them to continue on as owner-employees of this “company” after we leave. Follow along at the temporary site: http://fabfiwireless.blogspot.com/ (this URL will change within the next two days as we bring our server and services online so don’t bookmark it).

Some of the earnings from both the above will come back to the fablab to help offset operations costs such as management, cleaning supplies, and to maintain teachers for “open lab” time. While I’m not expecting a deluge of cash, the mindset should bear fruit over time. In particular this lab may manage to stand up as “Afghan owned” without a heavily involved international owner. This is consistent with the other labs in the world but somewhat unusual for technical organizations in Nangarhar.

As to interim funding for the lab, many of my cohorts are helping to pull together a web and online community funding drive to seed the lab startup. We’ve even “accidentally” made $90 before going live with the site! (See http://fablab.af/ — do not put a “www” in the front). I plan to visit again with the local PRT and find out about their funding and procurements processes because that kind of help would be much more stable. I envision funding not to pay the expenses outright but as “customers” of projects. Surely the PRT would like some wooden signs that say “Chow Hall - 500 m straight ahead” for like $500, right? I can think of a number of things that I would like to have the users make for a “customer” and maybe the PRT can think of some that they would really like to have too.

I’m told that pretty much all internationals that visit Nangarhar are taken to the fablab when their schedules and transpo permit. Construction, security, doctors/subject matter experts, business people, journalists, and other grad students alike. They always report that they are surprised to find that indeed no matter what day they arrive – unannounced – there are indeed swarms of users wholly engaged in learning something and doing something that they don’t expect “those people” to be working with. I’ve been having a lot of difficulty with the polycom system at Jbad (something to do with the MCU and/or the network connection) so we haven’t been able to get maximal people to see into the lab.

That’s probably the area that needs the most help – as with everywhere in country, comms and power are at the top of my worries. The comms connection is great when it’s up, but it’s not always up especially as the experimental balloon continues to degrade and Dr. Dave works his butt off every several months to keep the support of the magical comms provider for just a little while longer. We have a great generator for power but can’t run it 24/7. We’re out of capital money to get either a battery system or second generator, and we can’t really afford the diesel anyway. Most of all, the wiring to and within the fablab is a nightmare and I’ve already lost (expensive) equipment due to dirty power. Each day in the lab requires several hours of troubleshooting which generally turns out to be a problem with underpowering or similar. It would cost on the order of $6k to rewire the lab, money we don’t have, so for the moment we make do.

Secondary things that would be nice to get some help on are the practical matters of food, water, transpo, for the younger users that come to our lab. Some don’t get clean water or real meals anywhere. I would like to get to a point where we can provide something like fortified biscuits and the like for the sessions with younger children. They are usually the population that are very very quick to learn things and it’s the best time for them to be learning more stuff. But perpetual and crippling hunger, malnutrition, and dehydration work against paying attention to anything much less brain development. I can see big problems with hand-eye coordination and muscle control with the village kids. I’m a technical person and definitely not in a position to know anything about this kind of help so I wonder if there are organizations that do and would be willing to collaborate. Additionally, the local public schools aren’t teaching English, computers, etc. The fablab could be a place to facilitate and foster this but I and my cohorts are basically limited to technical topics. Both of these vectors are quite long term and in the vein of long term idealistic vision.

We’re about a month away now from getting on the ground and kicking off the two big projects described above. I welcome any and all comments, thoughts, and help.

The fab lab afghanistan web site is live!  Still rough on the inside but the tools are installed and running with some early content.

Special thanks to Smari and Keith for several overnight heroics to bring it on line.

Check out the products with Tomas’ fablab afghanistan art, for sale here at our store. T-shirts, bags, mugs, and more!  A mix of images including the Tomas’ art and the fab lab logo.

All earnings go towards lab funds!

Copyright 2008 by  rec comunidad audiovisual.  Permission granted for non-profit and personal use.

Hiram from Pabal, India sent these photos of a weather data logger project from earlier in the summer.

From Khutso in Soshanguve,

Dear Amy

Special greetings, Fablab is doing very well specially on the electronics projects, many students from the University of Tshwane in Soshanguve they are coming in big numbers at the Lab, these Students were given a project assignment to design and manufature a high -tech electronics security system, design projects 111 is a diploma level subject, done in S4 level, students are expected to research, design as well as manufacturing/fabricating their design.

I will also sent you information on the housing projects.

We made an (unsuccessful) 14 mile test with the antennas.  It was meant to be a 14 km test - (who would have thought that USGS topo maps were in miles?!).   After a very late start, we didn’t get to the experiment until after dark.

We don’t really know if the antennas might have worked but we made a set-up error…  we used a camera flash at one end as a signaling flare and basically guessed at the other end.  We failed to pack an extension cable for the wi-spy antenna so it couldn’t be held at the focus of the far end parabolic and we didn’t get the signal generator set up at the other end, so the test was only using “pings” from one side.  A full post-mortem is at the wiki, or will be soon.

I think they’re not quite sure what to do with the boxes and boxes and boxes of crafts materials I brought with me last time.  The creativity is great, though, and something to work with.  Now we got to combine these figures with the picocricket sets or other things that are enabled by the lab’s resources.

Jon and the SSBX fab lab in New York’s South Bronx have been busy!  Awesome pics of happy folk at Jon’s blog.

Brandon reports that all the “only for teachers” labels have been removed and the tables, computers, and resources appear to have been rezoned for shared use.  Brandon, an American from San Diego, is in Jbad for several months teaching English at a nearby orphanage and caught the fab lab bug, occasionally popping in when he hasn’t had enough kids swarming around him in his day job.

Remember, to get here we had long conversations in various groupings.  I never brought up the specific examples of the labels or the “only for teachers” room, but fostered discussions about resource management balanced with sharing.  The discussions were necessarily broad -

“if someone comes to the lab and says, ‘I want to use the lab’, can he use it?  What if all the computers are being used, or the lab is full, or there is a meeting…”

“What should happen is someone comes to the lab and says, do not teach these  villager, send them home.  Teach me.  I am older and my father is an important man in the city.”

“If someone very important comes to the lab and says ‘I want to use the computer’ but there is no computer free, all the computers are being used, what should the teachers do?”

“If someone in the lab says that he is more important, or is doing something more important, how should it be decided that what he is doing is actually more necessary?”

“Who should be able to say if a person can no longer come to the lab?  Who should be able to say if someone is allow to return?  Why is that person special?  Who can say if those teachers should no longer come to the lab?”

“If you are doing something important and you did not finish but the time is late and you must go, should there be a rule that no one must use the computer until you return?”

The questions are broad but the discussions necessarily specific and narrow.  “Jalal can say”, or “Mehrab cannot say”, and so forth, which leads to more discussion and more specific questions, which I occasionally pipe in to broaden… repeat.  Actually the conversations consist of about 30 seconds of English that include me, then about 15-20 minutes of Dari/Pashto depending on the participants, then about 5 minutes of translating the previous 15-20 minutes to English for me which involves some disagreement, then 30 seconds of English from me… repeat.

In the end it was their decision, collectively, and neither I nor any non-Afghan dismantled the offending setups.  It was difficult for me to quelch the impulse to simply say “No, change this” but the process to get here was so important and worth the wait.  Hopefully this will positively affect future decisions.

I was despondent the day I discovered the labels and the teacher’s only office.  (Fortunately that was the day Tim brought home Scout the puppy, who lifted my spirits).  I’m super happy to see how it’s turned out now.

For your shopping convenience, here’s various gear printed with the Fab Logo:  T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, bags, clocks, and much more! Visit the FabFolk Store.

Woah, I just (re)stumbled on Todd Huffman’s photos from Afghanistan, and they are awesome! He really got out and around, have a look!

Gave a high-level fab lab presentation to the Cambridge Rotary on Thursday, it went extremely well.  There wasn’t much time, of course, and even speaking at my “Jersey speed” I didn’t quite get to touch on everything, because there’s so much to mention!  The members seemed very receptive, engaged, and interested in more information and invited us back for more.

Dear Friends,

Please join us on Saurday, November 22nd from 9 am ’til 1 pm –

We will be holding an Open House event to engage the community in innovation and creation using the Fab Lab tools, which will be set up at the market and available for use.

Try a piece of fresh-baked laser-etched bread, pet an electric talking giraffe…

We will be joined by local artists creating a live mini mural using laser-cut stencils.  Enjoy and participate in making.

Bring your kids, your family, your crafty friends!

We will be one block from the Lab’s usual location at the fantastic City Heights Farmers Market.

Local MAKERS, INVENTORS, ARTISTS and DESIGNERS will be demonstrating and sharing things they’ve made.

If you are intersted in displaying something you have made, there is still time to get involved.

Come out, participate, and SHARE YOUR CREATIONS.  We will have free space to display your works.

Your ideas can help get the community involved!
Inspire kids and makers-to-be!

Please let us know if you are interested in displaying and participating :: Contact Fabiola@headsonfire.org

The Carroll L. Wilson Award is a grant for up to $7,000 awarded to graduate students, in any MIT department, who wish to pursue exciting and challenging opportunities abroad.

http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/wilson_award.php

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hotel room has a princess-style bathtub and lavender bath salts => amy is now quite clean and i fear a previously white wash cloth has become permanently gray

Keeping in mind the statement that goes something like “an afghan has very little but has their honor and pride”, I wanted to preserve the hierarchy we have (which is M and W having authority and no westerner or outsider can just step in and make wholesale opinion changes). I also wanted to develop the decision making process in the persons that are here every day, not having them believe that they have to keep calling higher-ups in lieu of making good decisions themselves. Just like with all learning, you can’t expect people to just know the right answer.

So we did the usual thing which is to talk about the thing (restricted resources & benefits for some people) over endless tea and fruit until they came to the correct conclusion themselves. Not a big all-together-at-once-meeting but in overlapping circles as socially directed by W and M. Takes forever but I think better than just saying “no, don’t do that”. So the other teachers and students basically think that W brought it back in line but with discussion and clarity about group / lab goals.
I believe if W had been present at the lab it wouldn’t have gotten as far as the physical creation of the office. She has been showing remarkable “good sense” when it comes to the lab and appears completely respected within it, except possibly for relations with M which are M dictatorial over W without any democratic discussion. I believe that’s where a tighter loop among W, M, and I keep discussion and decisions in line with vision.

We’ve started to write down “formal” expectations for the positions, processes, and goals of the lab. Again, I basically have the answer I want them to get to but they need to feel like they got there on their own. This is done via long cycles of suggestion/correction. See the lab management section on www.fablab.af

Was surprised to discover that Wahida’s stand-in has taken over an entire room, several computers, the printer, and many resources and restricted their use for “teachers only”. (Complete with fancy labels from the label maker). They’ve got a private bathroom, moved in the refrigerator, taken one of the nicest wooden desks, all of the office supplies, and cloister themselves and these goodies behind a large sign on the door that says “ONLY FOR TEACHERS. DO NOT USE.” I was distraught in disappointment.

We’ve seen this in a few other labs, self-appointed super-users that want to “lock the doors” to keep out others, and it is always a struggle to reinforce the idea that the resources are shared and all must work together and compromise. In this case it is more perplexing in that Wahida’s stand in knows even less about the machines in the lab than the students and has no responsibilities that would necessitate unrestricted use of a special machine(s), which is to say he’s not a super-user. So basically we’re seeing someone nesting, taking ownership and building a comfortable empire for himself and his circle.

I’m grudgingly coming to the realization that we must take a more involved and direct stance in the lab and its operations. At least for the near term, to make sure the lab grows in a good vector. Wahida was doing a really good job of taking many disparate needs and wants into consideration and making more or less good decisions by herself. But we can’t expect good judgment and leadership without explicit goals and vision and near-daily mentoring.

Gabe from DAI visited this afternoon to talk about possible overlaps with his efforts with small and medium business development. While Dr. Dave’s projects are education and health (education) focused, Gabe’s interests are businesses. I’m not sure we’ll be able to help each other directly in the near future but there’s a good chance that an “experimental installation & development” kind of project for things like solar-thermal-steam or pico-hydro could emerge. His funding cycles are pretty far out, though, so for now it’s all just interesting talk.