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A Suggested Promotion

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horrido

A Suggested Promotion

I have a suggestion for future Smalltalk advocates...

The advent of Pi Zero last month is an interesting opportunity. This is a very, very cheap Raspberry Pi. Anyone can afford it. I'm thinking of kids, in particular.

What if we could get kids to delve into Squeak or Pharo (Squeak is better optimized for Raspberry Pi) via the Pi Zero? A competition could be set up in various countries, such as Canada, Britain, Australia, Japan, etc., where the best student submission for a Smalltalk-based Pi Zero application would win a small scholarship prize (say, $500). A panel of judges in each country would decide the winner.

The contest would be much less ambitious than my now-defunct Canadian Smalltalk Competition (CSC). Less control (no real need to prevent cheating). Easier to raise the prize money. The nice thing is that it would be a multi-national promotion (it's tough getting a national school competition like CSC going in other countries).

Of course, because it's less ambitious, we can expect to reach fewer kids. Instead of thousands, probably more like hundreds. I could be totally wrong on this; I could be totally surprised!

I might even come out of retirement to offer some creative services (eg, promotional graphics, websites, etc.). 😁

Anyway, it was just an interesting thought I had. Don't know if it stands up to scrutiny.

Cheers,

Richard

Jecel Assumpcao Jr

Re: A Suggested Promotion

Richard Eng wrote on Tue, 22 Dec 2015 06:11:12 -0500
> I have a suggestion for future Smalltalk advocates...
> [Squeak and Raspberry Pi contest idea]

One problem is that the standard Linux distributions (including those
optimized for the Pi) don't include a complete Squeak (or Pharo). An
option would be to create a new distribution just for such a contest. In
fact, it could be an extremely stripped down Linux focused exclusively
on running Squeak (like Dan Ingalls did for his weather station). One
advantage of that is that the boot time would be much smaller than what
people are used to. The only thing better than that would be SqueakNOS,
which would be a lot more work.

-- Jecel

timrowledge

Re: A Suggested Promotion

In reply to this post by horrido

> On 22-12-2015, at 4:10 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Richard Eng wrote on Tue, 22 Dec 2015 06:11:12 -0500
>> I have a suggestion for future Smalltalk advocates...
>> [Squeak and Raspberry Pi contest idea]
>
> One problem is that the standard Linux distributions (including those
> optimized for the Pi) don't include a complete Squeak (or Pharo).

True, though the Pi Raspbian does include the full VM setup (currently a Cog Spur 34xx level vm), which means that a fairly small package of image/change/sources/tutorials/examples/support files is al lthat would be needed. Oh, wait, we don’t have a well thought out tutorial world.

By far the biggest problem would be raising money I fear. The foundation can’t offer any because it basically doesn’t have any. It’s just as well the SFC provide free hosting because we’d not be able to pay for commercial support.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Time to start the War on Errorism before stupidity finally gets us.

Jon Hylands

Re: A Suggested Promotion

In reply to this post by horrido

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 7:10 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <[hidden email]> wrote:

One problem is that the standard Linux distributions (including those
optimized for the Pi) don't include a complete Squeak (or Pharo). An
option would be to create a new distribution just for such a contest. In
fact, it could be an extremely stripped down Linux focused exclusively
on running Squeak (like Dan Ingalls did for his weather station). One
advantage of that is that the boot time would be much smaller than what
people are used to.

My brother and I have been experimenting with Tiny Core Linux, which is available on the Pi as piCore.

It boots in 12 seconds, from power on to login prompt, on a Pi 2. That gives you wifi plus an openssh server. It would probably add a few seconds to get a graphical shell running, which it also includes.

- Jon

horrido

Re: A Suggested Promotion

In reply to this post by timrowledge

Raising the prize money should be a lot easier than for the CSC. Use Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Make a spiffy advertising video (I'm a terrible videographer). Do a nice write-up for the crowdfunding campaign (I can edit your draft). Set a modest funding goal of, say, $2500 (for 5 contest countries).

Offer a gift of a Pi Zero with Squeak preinstalled for the first 100 contributors of $30 or more.

I think this could work.

(Cautionary note: I see that there are quite a few campaigns at Kickstarter that offer Raspberry Pi products. We may be a little late to the game.

)

tim Rowledge wrote

> On 22-12-2015, at 4:10 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Richard Eng wrote on Tue, 22 Dec 2015 06:11:12 -0500
>> I have a suggestion for future Smalltalk advocates...
>> [Squeak and Raspberry Pi contest idea]
>
> One problem is that the standard Linux distributions (including those
> optimized for the Pi) don't include a complete Squeak (or Pharo).

True, though the Pi Raspbian does include the full VM setup (currently a Cog Spur 34xx level vm), which means that a fairly small package of image/change/sources/tutorials/examples/support files is al lthat would be needed. Oh, wait, we don’t have a well thought out tutorial world.

By far the biggest problem would be raising money I fear. The foundation can’t offer any because it basically doesn’t have any. It’s just as well the SFC provide free hosting because we’d not be able to pay for commercial support.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Time to start the War on Errorism before stupidity finally gets us.