[Discuss] Encouraging Children to Explore Open Source

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Chris O'Connell wrote:
> I have a couple of the Genesi smart boxes hanging around...

So that's a small ARM-based computer? One of these?
http://www.genesi-tech.com/products


> I'm afraid he may be overwhelmed however.

Perhaps. I'm not familiar with the Genesi product line and what
community it has around it. With some hardware devices there is a big
enough community that most of the hard stuff has been taken core of. You
just pick an OS, download it to an SD card, and boot up. How complicated
things get then depend on the OS (or distribution) you chose.

A Raspberry Pi might be a better choice, due to the community factor:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/

(Looks like this board now has its own dedicated magazine,
http://www.themagpi.com/. That'll give you an idea of the size of the
community around it.)


> ...why would someone so young like to play with a somewhat primitive
> Gnome interface when they have an Android Tablet and a Windows laptop
> at their disposal?

I would guess much the same reasons as any other inquisitive hacker-type
would: greater control and capability. The ability to tinker is more
important than heaving a ready-to-use solution.

For a kid accomplished enough to be modifying hardware without much
adult assistance, I'd say they have the persistence to learn what they
need to about Linux or whatever in order to accomplish what they want.

Never underestimate what a kid can do if they are willing to spend the
time on it. The author of this blog posting:
http://eviltrout.com/2012/12/30/programming-since-i-was-seven.html

started programming when he was 7, and impressed the adults around him,
but in retrospect he see what he did as pretty straight forward and
mostly a byproduct of being fortunate enough to have the equipment and
the luxury to spend vast quantities of time playing around with it.


> Can anyone recommend any ways/programs/resources to encourage interest in
> Open Source to a kid of this age?

How about a subscription to Make Magazine? (http://makezine.com/)

They also have a catalog of kits you can browse by difficulty (this link
shows the easiest): http://kits.makezine.com/complexity/1/

where you'll find stuff like littleBits:
http://kits.makezine.com/2011/11/14/littlebits-starter-kit/

a modular electronics construction kit, though it sounds like he might
be beyond that.

I hear Lego has some new robotics kits that use open source:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/lego-mindstorms-ev3-the-better-faster-stronger-generation-of-robotic-programming/

  The system runs on Linux-based firmware and sports USB and SD ports.
  Of course, as Lego gets more and more comfortable in the software
  space, integration with iOS and Android is to be expected straight out
  of the box, along with a 3D virtual instructional guide available on
  the iPad.

But they're expensive. $200+.

These are all fairly hardware-centric suggestions, based on the
background you described, but obviously there are an infinite choice of
activities to get into open source software development that are purely
software.

How about learning how to create games for Android?
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/theTechTrek/entry/creating_a_simple_android_game_using_andengine1?lang=en

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/