BWORKS

Pseudo-Weekly Update, June 28th, 2008

2008-07-03T19:38:00.014-05:00

(Added an expanded update from BicycleWORKS!)

Theresa is razzing me, and she has every right to. =) This past month has been a bit of a blur. So without further ado, news from BWORKS.

A good part of the past month at ByteWORKS was devoted to reorganizing the shop and the storefront. Matthew spearheaded the effort to get all of our computer hardware coherently organized. And new shelves have joined the old to help hold all of our incoming and outgoing donations, recycling, and grad-ready computers.

And this past weekend was the end of our break, and the beginning of a new session of the Earn-A-Computer Class:

We started a new Earn-A-Computer class this week. We have 12 eager, attentive students in this class which looks to be one of our most successful classes. This week's class was Introduction to Computers, which covers the basics of how computers work and shows the students the main parts of the personal computer. Students get to see and handle motherboards, CPUs, RAM and hard drives, which provides a first-hand education about how computers work. Next week, we'll be breaking in a new instructor who will teach the Internet class. This is always exciting for the new instructor, and existing ones as well, because we'll have more assistants available to help students who are having trouble during the class. The extra flexibility of having more instructors doesn't hurt, either :-)

- Nate

And this past weekend was also a graduation; we have another new class of BicycleWORKS alumni. It was a beautiful day outside for the last session, where the kids got their bicycles and had an orientation ride around the neighborhood.

Earn-A-Bike Class:
The June Earn-A-Bike group graduated Saturday June 28th. Seven kiddos were able to ride his/her bike (along with new helmet) on some drills in a parking lot, then through Tower Grove Park led by Tom, Richard, and Kelly. It turned out to be a short ride through the park, which was a very good idea. We got back to the shop around 11:40AM, and spend the next 45 minutes getting their lights installed and locks coded.
All in all, this was a great group of kids, they were so, so happy with their bikes.
Classes will resume on July 12 with a new group of kids.
Bicycle Shop:
It was a busy month at the bike shop. We had just short of 100 volunteers stop by to help out for a total of about 350 hours of time. We helped over 70 kids repair their bikes on our sidewalks and fixed up the 8 bikes needed for the kids class. We donated about a dozen bikes to Bicycle Redemption in North Saint Louis and collected another 65 bikes for our Bikes to Developing Nations Project. We have been unusually busy from 7-8 pm Tue and Thursday and have not been able to keep up with demand.This last week in June we made a big effort to clean up the shop to get it ready for the next class and a new month of bicycle building.
-Eduardo

And another graduation is soon to come...

The pilot program for the Mentorship Program has ended, and we'll be giving a presentation to the Board of Directors, as well as a demo presentation to the kids in the Earn-A-Computer program, to attract more students. This is very exciting for our pilot student, who will take part in the presentation by telling everyone about his experience. Topics will include what was learned, what the easiest and hardest parts were, and what could be improved about the Mentorship Program. The presentation and the notes from the pilot program will be available for Byteworks volunteers, and possibly the public. Stay tuned for an update next week.

-Nate

And I'll close out this week's (month's?) update with a bit of a history lesson, thanks to a kind donation. It's useful for kids to know how these things used to done back in the day.

-Bill

Weekly Update, May 31st, 2008

2008-06-06T20:17:00.004-05:00

Following on last week's regular graduation at ByteWORKS, we had our make up week, where students fill in classes they missed in the regular session. Two students arrived to make up the Scratch programming class, and one for the final Email class. Teaching a student or two at a time gives you a real chance to focus that can be harder to do in the larger class. At the end of the morning three more students collected their certificates and picked up their computers. And we have another potential student for the Mentorship program.

And it was graduation week at BicycleWORKS. On top of that the volunteers have been working tirelessly as always on keeping on top of the continuous stream of bikes coming through the shop. (And yes, I did notice the pun, and left it in anyways.) They have been doing a remarkable job, and we'll be hearing more from them in the coming weeks.

The volunteer meeting brought us up to speed with what's going on with the Bworks board, and allowed us to get into some plans for the future. In the ByteWORKS Workshop, we'll be taking advantage of the time off between class sessions to reorganize the classroom and the workshop, from shelving to networking.

------

As Theresa mentioned back in the April 12th entry, this year marks the 20th anniversary of Bworks. The Saint Louis Bicycle Works, Inc. started rolling back in 1988, and ByteWORKS joined them in 1998. There's a historical summary of our organization on our wiki. On your read through, you'll see that Bworks has had plenty of ups and downs over the years. But throughout, it's been a positive force in the Shaw community.

I've personally been volunteering with ByteWORKS for about half a year now, and have been absorbing a bit of the history along the way. I find myself remarkably impressed with the fact that just a couple of years ago, the whole of ByteWORKS on the ground (classroom, workshop and storefront) rested on the shoulders of just three dedicated volunteers. Today we have about a dozen volunteers on the Byte side any given week, from a rotation of many more. I've considered it a privilege to work alongside such a group of dedicated, hard-working, talented, and just fun-to-be-around people.

Something my father has mentioned often to me is that whatever talent or sophistication you have, there are some jobs where you can bring all of it to bear. Teaching easily falls into that category. Kids are seriously perceptive; they can easily tell when you're approaching them with respect, and they tend to respect you in turn. (As an aside, it's interesting to note how often the students in our classes are surprised to learn their teachers aren't being paid for the time they devote.)

I have tremendous respect for the hard work and dedication that I've seen at Bworks. Keeping respect in mind, for the kids as well as ourselves, will be a good foundation for the future of ByteWORKS and BicycleWORKS. I'm looking forward to where we go from this anniversary.

Also, starting this coming Saturday, Theresa is taking a seriously well earned vacation. We'll miss her around the shop, and I hope to do as good a job blogging the Bworks story for her to read in her off time as she did for Doc during his.

Bill

Weekly Update May 24, 2008

2008-05-27T14:42:00.003-05:00

All Volunteers

There will be another All-Volunteer meeting on Saturday, May 31. Agenda and details will be posted to the staff and shop groups.

- Theresa

EAC Class

Graduation class was this week! The 12 graduates received diplomas, an e-mail address, and more importantly, a computer and six weeks of computer classes. Byteworks congratulates these students, and we encourage them to use their computers to further their education as well as create their own presentations, reports, and computer programs for the world to see.

The instructors would like to send a special thank you to the workshop crew: Matthew, Josh, Bill and especially Theresa, who is in charge of the workshop but has been handling many other responsibilities that are equally as important.

Again, congratulations to the students and volunteers for a successful Earn-A-Computer session.

- Nate

Mentorship Program

This week, the pilot student was taught the concept of “pseudocode” http://www.unf.edu/~broggio/cop2221/2221pseu.htm

Pseudocode is the concept of writing human-readable code on paper or a whiteboard instead of jumping immediately on the computer and hacking away.

Using pseudo-code, we showed the pilot student a possible solution for one of the requirements of his project. The advantages of Pseudo code really stood out. We could show high-level logic more easily on the whiteboard than we could on the computer screen. We didn’t have to worry about techhy details, and we didn’t have to worry about damaging the student’s existing project with code that we later had to omit or change.

These lessons (such as pseudo-code, and hardware, and typing) provide a refreshing break from working on one project. They also help the student along with his project by showing alternative and better ways to accomplish the project.

We look forward to hearing what lessons the student thought were valuable, and will definitely incorporate these lessons into future mentorship programs.

- Nate

Workshop

This was Graduation Week. Thanks to Matthew, Josh, and Bill, for heroically coming to the rescue, hauling up monitors from the basement, preparing the peripherals bags to go with the EAC machines, and not least, for toting computers and monitors out to cars, helping the parents and children.

We helped out another local non-profit with an iMac (they had been donated one but it wouldn’t boot up), worked on reinstalling XP on a donated box and Ubuntu on another, both for resale, sorted out the triage pile and loaded up Doc’s truck again.

There are 12-14 identical computers, small profile ones, in boxes right now, in the triage area. Right now, it’s unsure what they will be used for. The original idea was to use them for EAC machines, or for the childrens advanced program where they will build their own computer. However, the specs are: P-III 450 MHz, 64MB PC100 SD-RAM (note, using 133 doesn’t work), no CD and no mounting brackets (also, requires slimline CD). We do not have sufficient RAM inventory to upgrade these machines to meet our minimum specifications for the EAC program, and we don’t have slimline CDs and missing mounting brackets, either. Also, there is very little room in the case, making it far less than ideal for first-time computer builders. So any suggestions for how to use them are welcome.

I managed to test all the printers in the triage pile; workable ones are in the retail room and priced by Dr. Walter, ready to sell, while those that didn’t work went into his truck, along with all the other computer recylables he hauled to W.I.T.S. Now the triage area is cleaned out, and there is space for next Saturday’s lunch to go with the meeting.

- Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update May 17, 2008

2008-05-20T21:12:00.004-05:00

All Volunteers

Notice to all volunteers: Jennie is our Volunteer Coordinator. If you have not completed and returned the surveys she sent out, please do so.

We are going to schedule another all-volunteer meeting (hopefully not quite as long as the first one, though!) – suggested date is Saturday May 31, time is 1:00pm (after makeup classes). Doc suggested we cater sandwiches from Thurman Grill, which sounds good. However, I am also planning on bringing in a big batch of mini key lime pies. So if anybody else wants to bring in goodies to snack on, sounds great.

Topics will include:

more about the Board of Directors
volunteer orientation and training. There is grant money earmarked for this purpose. Jennie is working very hard at gathering information.
June tech project: reorganizing the physical shop (inventory, cleaning, etc.)
June tech project: migrating data to new retail computer
June tech project: reorganizing the network
June tech project: updating the classroom computers (update Debian, fix ssh keys, restore /home/student/ directory on all but the Instructors machine, update Ubuntu, update Windows, including antivirus, Firefox, Open Office, others?)
June general facilities project: clean, organize, upgrade
others?

Attendance will be limited to volunteers. Since the adult Earn a Computer program is currently on hold, and the current childrens session will graduate before the end of the month, then June is a perfect time for us to do some work on our infrastructure. If you are a techie, great, we can use you, for work on the network, or the classroom, or the triage pile. If you are not technical, great, we can use you, for cleaning, organizing, building storage shelves, moving monitors, or for working on revamping the adult program, or the kids program, or helping Jennie with the volunteer handbook, or any one of a billion other things. This would be a good time to have some training/orientation for all volunteers.

- Theresa

EAC Class

The EAC Class for this week was “Computer Programming using Scratch” http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/scratch_programming_class

This class is a bit difficult to teach, because there are so many features of Scratch that are interesting to the kids. The kids tend to just try doing things, such as making Scratch move and draw shapes, or even create their own characters. This is fine, except that some students are behind the instructor, some kids are way ahead of the instructor, and other kids are so far off track that it wastes a considerable amount of time just to get them back on track.

Nonetheless, a quiz was given at the end of the class, involving questions such as “How many degrees are there in a circle?” and “How many degrees are between the sides of a square?”, and the questions were answered quickly. So, I’d have to rate this particular class as a success.

- Nate

Mentorship Program

This week was sort of a lazy week. The rigors of teaching the Scratch class and the beautiful weather outside was a good excuse to get a soda across the street and just to talk about basic computer and Byteworks stuff, such as what kind of computers we have available in the shop, etc. Nevertheless, the pilot student became very attentive in the last 45 minutes (when everyone else was gone, not surprisingly), and we got back on track with his helicopter game. The student learned the difference between absolute and relative assignments (pretty deep stuff!), and how to create properties for Sprites, so that we could keep track of which sprite has a baseball. If that’s too deep for you, then consider enrolling in the Mentorship program!

- Nate

Workshop

Doc was in a good part of the morning, and looks to be feeling better. He was able to address a lot of things, including:

XP licenses (we are in good shape; however, note that these licenses can only be used for student machines, not for resale)
upcoming project – shelving in basement
upcoming project – get the last of monitors out of temporary storage (and then store in basement on convenient new shelves)
met with Clarence to begin discussions about how adult class program will change

Next week is Graduation Week. The “grad ready” computers are good to go. However, we still need:

gmail accounts for students (Nate said he was working on this)
“grad ready” computers for all graduates (done)
printed Graduation Certificates (will do next Saturday morning)
prepare bags with two power cables, mouse, keyboard, speakers (count depends on grad count)
bring up monitors from the basement (count depends on grad count)

Jess’s student picked up her computer – Bill was kind (or brave) enough to search the basement, and located the machine based on serial number.

Karen (new BOD secretary) received some training on uploading notes to the staff Yahoo group site (last week received training on using Open Office, and exporting as a .pdf file).

There is a big pile of triage to sort through:

cables, etc. to sort out
monitors to test
need to do a “printer fest” – whole bunch of donated printers, supposedly all good, need testing, then mark for sale

Gross-out notice: bugs in the computers. Not software miscalculations, but scurrying insects. Big. Old. YUK. Suggest we choose a week and bug-bomb the place.

This was the first week of our new policy: you play, you help out first. Bunch of kids ran the vacuum cleaner, wiped down desks and keyboards, before class this morning. Good policy. We’ll keep it.

- Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update Saturday May 10, 2008

2008-05-13T20:24:00.003-05:00

EAC Class

The EAC class went well on Saturday. Dave taught the OpenOffice Impress course, in which all of the kids created a personal presentation about themselves. Some great presentations all around, and a lot of good focus. A good bit of summer energy as well, which a couple of new volunteers did a great job of helping contain. - Bill

Mentorship Program

The Mentorship program took a parallel track this week. Our student brought in his computer for a few upgrades to bring it up to speed with the newest student software image and version of Scratch, the language we’re using for his project. We ended up spending most of the session doing some hardware upgrades to his computer, with him doing most of the upgrades himself. (He has a great aptitude for it.) We got some good hardware lessons in this week, and are looking forward to getting back to his software project next week. - Bill

Workshop

Good news was Dr. Walter was in on Saturday. The bad news is, he’s probably going to be out for a while. He returned a truckload of computer equipment he was working on at home. Then, he had us load up his truck for a W.I.T.S. run, where he was also going to meet with Angela resolving some confusion regarding our next batch of XP licenses for the adult student machines. For the next week, Dan will check phone messages during the week, and I’ll do callbacks on Saturday. We need more volunteer cross-training in general, and now’s probably the time to start.

Some more new volunteers are joining us. Two are wanting to help with the classroom, a guy named Phil, who has experience teaching computer classes, and the fiancee of Brian, another volunteer. Unfortunately I’m terrible with names, and don’t remember hers (Danielle?). Jen, there are filled-out survey forms waiting for you in the shop.

Bryan also donated a nice digital camera, to be used for the advanced workshop that’s in planning stages. It will be useful for the shop, for Dan to take pictures of items to be sold on eBay, and for the graduation photos.

Lots of donations came in; boxes of cables and peripherals, a load of machines and monitors, etc. The guys pitched in and promptly tested all the monitors, tagging the good ones and moving them downstairs, and putting any bad or undersized ones in the W.I.T.S. pile. A donated machine had a valid Windows XP license tag on it, so that’s being reinstalled and the machine readied for sale.

One thing that came up in discussion today is this: we are a very popular destination for the local kids from 10:00 - 11:00, because they are allowed to come in and play on the computers before class. The suggestion is that this is a privilege which can be earned, by spending 10 minutes helping to clean the classroom, vacuum the floor, wipe down the desks, and the like. I like it, for two reasons. First, we have no one doing any of that work now. Second, it helps to instill the value of earning things as opposed to being handed them. Comments and suggestions? - Theresa

Bicycle Shop

- coming soon

Weekly Update, May 3rd, 2008

2008-05-06T22:18:00.004-05:00

Byteworks Weekly Update, May 3, 2008

EAC Class

The Word Processing class was featured this week. This class is one of the more difficult classes to teach, due to the disparity in typing skills between the students. Some students finish typing early, then begin to experiment with the hundreds of other features of word processors, such as large fonts, bolding, colors, etc. This is fine, but it distracts other students who haven’t completed their typing excercises yet. Several Byteworks volunteers have created this page http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/word_processing_class_issues where we intend to discuss this issue to improve the class for everyone.

Nonetheless, the class was a success, and the students were eager to answer questions about the points they learned. The main points of the class are:

Save your work often
Use proper grammar and spell-checking
Use easy-to-read formatting
Use copy/paste instead of retyping long sentences or paragraphs

Mentorship Program

The Mentorship Program was a big success this week. This week’s goal was to animate a helicopter by taking an existing image of a helicopter and rotating the blades using KolourPaint. Bill and Nate had prepared this solution prior to the class, and the class went smoothly, and the student was attentive and learned how to use different applications to solve a problem. Next week’s assignment should also go smoothly, because Bill has outlined a solution.

Workshop

Seems like it was a Windows kind of day ... finished readying a computer for Voices For Children, a Windows 2000 machine that needed the antivirus program registered, and a modem installed. That was picked up Saturday morning. Next it was finishing up a Windows XP machine, which was being purchased by a member of the SNIA. That one needed lots of updates (27 updates! Reboot! 16 more updates! Reboot! Wait, no, there’s more! Reboot!) to the operating system, and also various program updates and installs, including Adobe Acrobat Reader, Firefox (with the AdBlock Plus plugin), and Open Office. A third Windows XP machine, for our treasurer, needed accounting software installed, and data migrated from an old Windows 98 machine.

Back in the shop, Matthew got a very nice machine ready for sale, with a fast processor and SATA hard drive. Matt worked some more on the machine we are hoping to use as a RAM testing station, but it seems there are “issues” ... either mainboard or processors or something else. So, we may keep trying, or we may just give up the ghost, and use a different machine.

There was a big box sitting on the doorstep, an overnight “drop-and-run” donation. The Pentium II machine we have no use for, but some of the other bits are good – keyboards, mice, wireless networking setups, cables, and the like.

All the EAC graduate machines are built and ready to go. We still need to assemble the bags with peripherals and cables, and bring up monitors from the basement. We have several weks before graduation, so are in good shape there.

See you next Saturday!

Nate

Theresa

Weekly Update, April 26, 2008

2008-04-29T16:24:00.002-05:00

Mentorship Program

Our pilot student continued to make progress with his project. Bill and Nate worked with the student to create a timeline for completing the project. A major goal of the Mentorship Program is to show students how to set goals for themselves and manage their time to achieve those goals. We expect to demonstrate the pilot student’s project to Board Members and family in early June. Best of luck to our pilot student and the Mentorship program!

EAC Class

The subject of the Earn-A-Computer class this week was the Internet. This is a popular class with the students, and they’re very eager to follow along with the instructor. Students learn that the Internet is made up of millions of different computers, and that it’s not owned by any one company. The students always enjoy the part of the class when the instructor tells them to point their browsers to http://64.236.29.72 :)

Byteworks puts heavy emphasis on teaching safety on the Internet, and more than half of the class time is dedicated to this subject. Byteworks stresses to students that it’s o.k. to inform their parents/guardians about anything that makes them feel unsafe on the Internet. We use the questions found at http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm to teach the students what to do in specific situations. The students are eager to read the questions out loud and complete a quiz after they’ve read the points.

The students also got a big laugh out of Point #10 of the kids rules, which points out that students should help their parents use the Internet. How true.

Thanks to Brad and the other volunteers, a further five computers were made ready for the current batch of students. The “Grad Ready” count now stands at 15, which should be enough to cover the whole class plus a few spares. Nice job, guys!

Matthew has built a new “Retail Computer” for the front office, with the new 8.04 “Hardy Heron” Ubuntu, and running Windows XP via vmware. Nice is that rebooting is no longer necessary – to switch between operating systems, all that’s required is a combination of keystrokes. CLICK – and you are running Windows – CLICK – now you are running Ubuntu. All that’s left is determining which software application are required, installing them, and then migrating the data over.

A large number of identical machines were brought up from the basement and put in the “triage” pile. Some of these machines will be used for the upcoming “Learn To Build A Computer” advanced workshop. The rest will be used for the childrens EAC machines.

Ubuntu 8.04 Install CDs Robert emailed some of the local LUGs to let them know that we have install CDs available. ByteWorks is charging $2 to cover materials costs, or people are welcome to bring in their own blank CDs instead. Currently available versions are for Desktop, Server, and Alternate, for i386 and AMD64. Bill was making ISO images of the xubuntu and kubuntu CDs of 8.04; once those are on the server as well, another message can be posted.

The LUG people are supposed to send an email to BWorks “info” account first, so we know how many copies of which images are requested. Last Saturday someone showed up with no advance warning; however, he generously gave us a $100 donation!!! So we didn’t really mind making him a special CD.

Weekly Update Saturday April 19, 2008

2008-04-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

The first week of a new session, it seems the class is very full -- the first day was chaotic as always. I burned a hard drive with Robert's new cloned student image, and Keith took it for a test drive. There were no problems we could find, so there is now a full box of new cloned Debian hard drives, ready to use for building graduate machines. We'll need at least another five for this session; should be able to build those next Saturday. Also ran the "size-and-wipe" script on a box of hard drives taken from donated machines. Matthew is working on a new replacement machine for the "Retail Computer" in the front office, hopefully that will be ready soon. Matt did some work on the RAM testing station machine. Dave and Jen taught the class, and Bill took care of the advanced workshop after the regular class session was over. I noticed that Dave revised the signup sheet and child photo release form, they are now combined on a single page -- nice! See you all next Saturday, Theresa

Weekly Update Saturday April 12, 2008

2008-04-14T11:39:00.002-05:00

Hello all; a week ago the weather was fine and the gardening bug hit something fierce. As a result, I never wrote an update for last week -- blame my childlike glee at playing in the dirt! This week, in typical St. Louis fashion, we were threatened with snow showers and overnight frosts. The shop was opened for a few hours, during which Doc worked on a repair job ("the computer worked fine, until my kids downloaded some stuff ..."), and Matt, Matthew and Keith worked on triaging a few machines, and finishing a few more computers for sale. The guys loaded up Doc's truck to the brim for a W.I.T.S. run, completely clearing out the huge pile to be recycled. Josh cleaned the classroom area, while I cleaned the workshop area, and the tables that normally hold incoming donations (we got that pile cleared out completely last week), so we had a place to set out the food. At 1:00, the shop was closed, and our all-volunteer meeting began. Attendance was phenomenal; it was really good to see so many volunteers turn out, from both sides of the organization. A couple of the volunteers agreed to keep notes, so once things are written up, they should be posted. We covered a lot of ground, from the Board of Directors, to volunteers agreeing to form committees to take action on various items. I was reminded of the parable about the blind men and the elephant. I think that perhaps, we are beginning to get an idea of what BWORKS is, a sense of shared identity. It's a lot more than the individual pieces -- more than just building computers in the shop, or teaching classes to children or adults, or the Cranksgiving event. Many thanks to all who participated, especially to those who put together presentations. Hopefully we all have a better understanding now of who we are, where we came from, what are the challenges we face as we move toward the future. Here's to another 20 years!! (for those who missed, this year is the 20th anniversary of BWORKS) Theresa

Weekly Update Saturday March 29, 2008

2008-03-30T15:15:00.001-05:00

Graduation Week, and the "makeup week" next Saturday will definitely be needed. This class had a lot of absences. Thanks to Nate for covering the class, the makeup class, and the advanced workshop. And thanks to Jess, for smiling at the camera while we took photos of the children being awarded their certificates. Spring is in the air, so maybe that's why volunteers weren't in the shop in large numbers. But, we still got a fair bit done, more organizing/sorting, going through incoming donations, and work on machines for sale. There is one Ubuntu box in the shop window for sale, and two more in various stages of completion. There are also a few Windows machines under construction. Another W.I.T.S. run needs doing soon, the "to be e-cycled" pile keeps on growing. Steve DeLorey has taken the time to write up something on the history of BWORKS. Susan Turk has added some detail, and Dan is working on a wiki version, summary and detailed. Thanks to all of you -- and the first question that comes to my mind is: Founded in 1988 ... how do we want to celebrate 20 years? Dr. Walter, it's still rainy around here ... maybe you can bring back some sunshine with you? See you all (Doc too, I hear?) next Saturday, Theresa

The History of BWORKS

2008-03-29T03:45:00.002-05:00

The History of BWORKS by Steve DeLorey

Nobody has documented the first 20 years of operation of "St. Louis Bicycle Works Inc.," which is the official name of the organization as registered with the Federal and State government, so this is an attempt to fill that void.

The initial program was bicycle oriented and started in 1988. It was started by a resident of the Shaw Neighborhood in St. Louis. He saw the need for a program that would encourage the children of the neighborhood to learn a few useful skills and he recognized the potential of the bicycle as a motivating force. For about 3 or 4 years, the founder and several volunteers whom he recruited ran the program out of the store fronts at 4100 and 4102 Shenandoah.

In those early years, the program was supported financially by the United Way and a few other organizations. The program was long on energy and enthusiasm and short on management and control, particularly financial control.

About 1992, there were some questions raised as to the allocation of funds and the operation was re-organized and incorporated with a new Board of Directors, by-laws, 501 C3 registration etc. Cindy Brown then became the prime mover of BicycleWORKS and another local resident began a program titled "Brains Barn".

In 1998, Tech Corps Missouri was interested in starting a program that would use refurbished computers to close the "digital divide". Gavin Perry was already talking to BicycleWORKS about such a program, modeled after their "Earn-A-Bike" program. ByteWORKS was the result. Tech Corps provided the initial group of volunteers, Gavin provided the know-how in regard to hardware refurbish and BicycleWORKS provided the space and the program template.

It took most of '98 and '99 to get the old bicycles out of 4100, get some lab machines set up, get a curriculum prepared, recruit some students and some more volunteers and get started. The first cycle of classes started in September of 1999 and graduated in January of 2000. Steve DeLorey "managed" the classes and Gavin Perry "managed" the shop.

The initial classes included Hardware, Operating System (DOS), Graphical User interfaces (Windows 95), and Microsoft Applications such as Paint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Internet Explorer. The initial hardware was pre-pentium with dot matrix printer and a 13" monitor.

About that time Ken Walter became a volunteer and over time, he assumed responsibility for the shop portion of the operation. Ken also started classes for 2nd and 3rd graders.

Some time during 2000 we selected New Deal as the Graphic User Interface to replace Windows 95. New Deal was a software product that ran on top of DOS, had the look and feel of Windows and cost us from $5.00 to $15.00 a license. (It was being used by the public schools in Canada.) It included an office suite and a rudimentary presentation tool and browser. We installed it on the student machines and used it for about three years until the company went out of business. We then got a grant from Microsoft which included 100 or so licenses for Windows so we switched back to Windows. In either case, the class room presentations concentrated on the concepts behind the OS, the GUI, and the specific applications. We concentrated on function not on form and the kids seemed completely comfortable switching back and forth between New Deal at home and Windows at school.

We tried for a year or so to interest older graduates in working in the shop sort of on an apprentice basis. It probably would have worked if we had been able to pay them a nominal wage but the incentive of free computer parts was not enough. During that same time, Cindy Brown started an after school program which utilized the computer lab during the week. It worked for a year or so but Cindy burned out for a variety of reasons and the program sort of died.

During this 6 year period, we were operating on a wing and a prayer. There was little money in the treasury, Gavin procured a grant, Ken procured a grant, Tech Corps Missouri made a grant, then the Board hired a grant writer.

In 2002 the board hired a paid Executive Director. His salary used up most of what was in the Treasury and his "management style" alienated some of the key volunteers.

By June of 2005, the BicycleWORKS operations were essentially dormant and the ByteWORKS operations were struggling. The Board was ready to close up shop. However, a group of key volunteers decided to make it work.

Several of them became Board members and Officers, new volunteers were recruited for the staff. A key decision to become self funding through the sale of refurbished bikes and computers was made at that time. Since then, the operations have become self sustaining and the operating fund, and the development fund have been built up with grant monies. We are currently working on building a Capital Fund.

The staff levels have also increased and some internal training is taking place. We have been trying, with only minimal success, to expand the Board of Directors and bring the associated standing committees to the point where they can be considered operational. Meanwhile, the BicycleWORKS operation has been revived under the direction of Patrick Vandertuin and the ByteWORKS operation has been rehabilitated with a new classroom facility, new curriculum built around the Linux Operating system, and a re- organization of the ByteWORKS shop operation.

Update Saturday March 22, 2008

2008-03-22T22:03:00.002-05:00

It was another good day in the shop. Next Saturday is graduation, so it was time to get everything ready. Thanks to Brad for brawn (monitor moving) and monitor testing, to Bryan for assembling the peripherals bags with keyboard, mouse, speakers, and power cords, and to Jen, for printing up the certificates. Lots of absences this time around, I think only one of the students has perfect attendance. The advanced class seemed to go well; Nate can give more details on that. Matthew's amazing energy in getting us more organized is great; the shop's inventory is becoming more accessible and relevant. Several of the volunteers worked on "zombie" boxes, "grad ready" boxes, and going through the "to be triaged" pile of incoming donations. By next week we should have two Ubuntu computers ready for sale. I know we just did a W.I.T.S. run, but it won't be long until it's time for at least a truckload, although very few monitors, and nothing really too bad. Like dirty dishes, the stuff just seems to pile up so fast! Oh, fashion update: blue is the new green. Also, yellow is the new orange. Meaning, we ran out of green [good] and orange [W.I.T.S.] tags in the shop, so we're frugally using up the other colored stickers. Jen has taken on the difficult task of being our volunteer coordinator. So, when you see her, wave and introduce yourself. Finally, a reminder about the potluck dinner and all-volunteer meeting -- the date is April 12. The agenda is here -- please read it (and revise it as necessary), and if your name is on it, please get ready to present your topic: http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/2008-04-12-agenda The potluck needs a little bit more luck ... but the current menu is here: http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/2008-04-12-menu Doc, it's the earliest Easter in some 90+ years, but it's not snowing, and hopefully the floodwaters will recede soon. The shop is fine; we all miss you, and hope you are back soon. See you all next Saturday, Theresa

Saturday update March 15 2008

2008-03-16T10:51:00.001-05:00

Another good day at the shop. Nate took care of the childrens class (Open Office Impress) with assistance from Josh. On a related note, most of the phone messages were expressing an interest in registering children for the Earn-A-Computer classes (Nate took those home with him, and will do call-backs during the week). Dan shipped off the items sold on eBay. The shop sold a few small items, a printer and a PDA. Matthew did more work on the servers in the basement -- replacing bad batteries and hard drives, determining which ones can be used and which ones need to be scrapped. Craig worked on sorting through more of the triage pile. I brought back the box of hard drives which a donor had requested we wipe -- thanks to hubby, who spent about 16 hours this past week running the Linux "shred" command. There were a few drives that either weren't recognized, or had the CLICK-THUNK-THUNK-WHIRR sounds, and two teensy tiny SCSI (1.2GB) drives. Dan took care of those, by applying a more primitive form of "shred", involving a hammer and a pry bar. For all the other hard drives in the shop, we ran the "size/wipe" script on them, then stored them in the "sized" bins, ordered accordingly. Brad spent some time testing RAM (we found a great machine to use as a RAM testing station; the mainboard has slots for both SDR-RAM and DDR-RAM). Things got quite exciting at one point, when he put in one stick of RAM, powered up the machine, and foul-smelling smoke erupted! Quick power-down, open up all the doors to air out the nasty electrical-fire smell, a review to make sure all volunteers knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was (just in case!), and all was well. The mainboard wasn't damaged, luckily. Bill was doing some work on a fairly nice machine (P-III, 800MHz, 512 RAM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM) we are in the process of putting some form of Ubuntu on -- this is the machine that Craig S. was working on late last year -- it's been sitting around, waiting for us to have time to finish it. Bill had put XUbuntu on it, which seems fairly nice if a bit odd in spots. It was having difficulty with graphics (a user would open a terminal and get kicked out of the GUI back to the login screen), which were resolved by reconfiguring the xserver, and specifying dedicated memory for the onboard Intel chipset. I also brought in the Ubuntu install I was working on this week, and Matthew worked on post-install tweaks (flash, etc). After some conversation, Bill decided he's going to reinstall, using Ubuntu instead. That way, we are only supporting a single version of Ubuntu for machines we sell, which will be a lot simpler. We're also going to either order free CDs or burn copies, so that the machines we sell with Ubuntu will come with an install disk. Doc, no snow this week, and in fact we've had a few nice warm, sunny days. The volunteer gardeners were working on the public space across the street from the shop, cleaning up the winter debris so the spring flowers can come up. We miss you! See you all next Saturday, Theresa

Why we use Linux

2008-03-10T15:03:00.001-05:00

Someone recently asked one of our volunteers why we use Linux to teach our students about computers. It's a good question, especially considering that according to some sources, latest numbers show Linux only has 3.8% of the desktop market (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp).

Although that's a 1.6 point gain since March 2003, compared to Windows, which has almost 87% of the desktop market, it's nothing. Linux still has a long way to go before it's nearly as prevalent as its competitors. So why do we use Linux?

Well, there are a number of reasons. It's Free (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) and Open-Source Software (FOSS) and we believe and support FOSS. Many of our volunteers are active in the FOSS movement, they help others with FOSS software, write documentation, attend conferences and deliver presentations, and some even contribute code. Others enjoy Linux for more technical reasons believing, whether true or not, that it's a more superior operating system or that it allows for greater technical learning. Basically though, ByteWORKS is a volunteer operated organization, so it's what we believe in and wish to promote. Needless to say, the price point works in our favor too.

There are also more practical reasons. Microsoft Windows is everywhere: in schools, libraries, companies, homes, mobile devices, cars, etc. A person will be hard-pressed to avoid it entirely. Despite this, Linux is growing. Historically, it's had a huge percentage of the server market share. Every time a person does a search on Google, they're using Linux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_platform#Current_hardware). Thus, if a person wants to get in the tech business, become a software engineer or a network administrator, having Linux under her belt will be a definite advantage. It will help her access additional opportunities. Our students will get Microsoft Windows experience no matter what. We offer them a competitive advantage by teaching them Linux.

In the following weeks, several of our volunteers will post entries to this blog about their experiences and stories with Linux and our students. So come back and read more.

Sean Burns

Saturday Update March 8 2008

2008-03-10T13:38:00.001-05:00

Another good and busy Saturday in the shop ... The childrens class seemed to go very well. Many thanks, Jen!! -- for getting us a pickup truck. We ended up taking two pickup loads and on minivan load to W.I.T.S., so there is some room in the workshop again. Matthew J. was working on getting the servers in the basement taken apart and put back together, and getting them into working order. Nestor and Dan D. came by, with the machine they have been building for our firewall. Nestor told me he wants to choose a time for installing and testing things when class is *not* in session, and the shop isn't in action. That way, if there are some glitches that need to be worked out, it won't impact the rest of the operations. Dan A. sold some items on eBay; it's a good trial, and hopefully we can continue to sell some of the nicer donated equipment we don't have a use for, in this way. We sold two computers to walk-in customers, and are working on building some computers with Ubuntu installed on them, to sell as $99 machines. I got us two 2GB USB flash drives for free, one for the classroom and one for the shop. They are *very* handy little gadgets to have around! More work was done in sorting through the triage pile; and the cleanup/organization of the shop continues. Thanks to Dave, Nate, Bill, and everyone else who was there to help. Doc, you managed to miss the snow again!! -- although the 11+ inches we got at home on Tuesday was a bit more than what the shop received, and most of that was melted by Saturday (except for the shady parts). See you all next Saturday! Theresa

Saturday Update March 1 2008

2008-03-03T12:10:00.001-06:00

A good Saturday at the shop -- Dave and Nate were there for the class (with an enthusiastic bunch of students this time around), with Josh helping out. Thanks to all the shop volunteers, we now have our graduate machines for the current class ready to go, including a few spares for "just in case". Dan A. was able to spend his time on getting some of our more valuable "sale-able" donations ready to be sold online. Matthew, a new volunteer, also took on the chore of sorting out and organizing the shelf storing CD-ROM, CD-RW, and DVD drives. (Nice!) A friend, Matt P., also came into the shop to help with triaging donated equipment, leading to a bit of humor about Matt/AT&T -- seems that Matt works for AT&T; Matthew works for AT&T, and he heard about ByteWORKS from a guy named Matt who works with AT&T, but not the other Matt. Bill and Keith also pitched in. On the agenda for next week: a W.I.T.S. run!! The stack of hardware with orange tags is threatening to take over the shop area soon (not to mention the monitors in the basement that got caught in the sewage pipe spill a few months ago). Jennie has a truck; if she can't make it next Saturday, Dan A. can also get us a truck, provided he gets some advanced notice. Other fun stuff for next week: keep triaging donated equipment; make a few low-end Ubuntu computers to put in the shop window for sale as $99 computers; more work on sorting/organizing the shop; there are two huge bins of hard drives that need to have Robert's "size/wipe" script run on them; and probably many other things I'm not thinking of right now. Doc, our weather is being "St. Louis-style" -- meaning, 70s today, but sleet and snow tomorrow!! We still miss you, and will be very glad when you are back!

Volunteer Meeting Coming Soon

2008-02-24T13:51:00.004-06:00

Preliminary: Volunteer meeting on Saturday, April 12, 1PM. Suggested Agenda Topics: * What does the Board do? (presented by one or more Board members) * What do the shop staff do? (presented by one or more - Dr Walter, tmk) * What do the classroom staff do? (presented by one or more - Nate, Dave, Jen) * How do/should BOD and volunteer staff interact? * Changes to the structure of the classes (these are some suggestions that have come up in talking in the shop): - parents attend week 1 along with kids. First topics covered are, how to surf the Internet SAFELY (thus, mom/dad/guardian, listen carefully here, and start talking with your child about this NOW), and using gmail, with kids getting their gmail accounts first week, and sending an email to bworks, and if mom/dad have an email account, since they are sitting with the kids, one can be sent to them, too. - survey for interest in a DSL session after graduation, to cover setting up and configuring DSL with a Linux computer. * eBay Shop -- we have a lot of donated items we can't directly use that have some resale value. Some suggestions include: - set aside shelving area as "eBay space" - when items are put on "eBay space" shelves, also log into inventory - someone (Dan A?) needs to manage the eBay presence, monitor auctions, etc. - someone needs to package/ship items (also updating inventory) * Time For A Tune-Up: - contact former students - schedule a time, or set aside one Saturday per [month?] as Tune-Up Day - maybe have an "Etch" class for Debian Sarge users, to bring them up to speed on changes to the OS, then offer to upgrade their system (or give them a new cloned drive, transferring over any data from the /home/student/ directory) * Advanced Workshops: - programming/web development - digital photography - how to build a computer * Poster with donations specifications, put up one in retail area, another in shop

Another successful graduation tomorrow

2008-02-08T22:51:00.000-06:00

Another successful graduation tomorrow! Another batch of children more computer literate and with Linux boxes of their own now. Some of our students are coming back for more education too. This is very exciting. A few of our volunteers are beginning to teach basic programming skills and web site design to these returning students. We hope to add a photography class soon. A few parents have asked about parental controls for their computers. In this kind of situation, technology is not quite there yet. Education is the best solution. We're going to start asking parents to come in for a primer on Internet safety. Parents make the best parental controls. :)

Earn-A-Computer Graduation Tomorrow

2007-12-07T13:27:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow, Saturday, December 8, 2007, the latest class of students will be graduating and receiving their computers! For those new to this Blog, ByteWORKS, a division of BWORKS, is a St. Louis, MO non-profit dedicated to teaching young children the ins and outs of computer usage. Students attend six classes over the course of six Saturdays. At the end of the session, each student, or sometimes household, receives a refurbished computer running GNU/Linux. For more info, visit our main Web site at: http://byteworks.bworks.org/. Also, we're in the process of implementing additional classes and projects to provide continual education to our students. More info on that later.

Cranksgiving Success!

2007-11-19T13:25:00.000-06:00

BicycleWORKS' Cranksgiving was a smashing sucess. Here's an article from Stltoday.com: http://tinyurl.com/yuopab And pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/77602109@N00/

CranksGiving Food Drive | Sunday, November 18, 12:00

2007-11-10T23:26:00.000-06:00

On Sunday, November 18, join others for a different kind of food drive. Pump up your bike tires and pick the long (three hours) or short (one hour) route to bicycle with others to area grocery stores and purchase non-perishable goods that will be donated to local food pantries. Cranksgiving will start at 12:00 p.m. from BicycleWORKS, located at 4102 Shenandoah Ave., St. Louis, 63110. Each participant is asked to spend about $20 on items and needs to be able to carry the goods they purchase with them. For more information contact Bicycle Works at (314) 664-0828 or email: bicycleworksinfo@gmail.com. The long route of Cranksgiving will be approximately 20-25 miles with four to five grocery store stops. The shorter route will be approximately six miles with two stops. An attendant will be at each participating grocery store to watch the bikes while you shop. Cranksgiving will not take place if there is ice on the roads – temperature is not a deterrent. Check out the photos from last years ride... See you all... - Patrick

ByteWORKS Unable to Offer Free Dialup

2007-11-09T09:31:00.000-06:00

For the past 10 years, ByteWORKS was able to offer one year of free dialup Internet access to those children and adult students who successfully completed our Earn-A-Computer courses. This was accomplished through The City of St. Louis Community Information Network (CIN). Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and CIN is no longer able to offer this service. Visit CIN for more information. ByteWORKS volunteers are actively researching alternate avenues for our students to access the Internet at zero or limited cost. If we discover something, we will post the information on this website and/or contact you if we are able. In the meantime, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us at the email addresses or phone number listed on our ByteWORKS Web site. You are, of course, always welcome to stop by the shop during hours of operation. All of us at ByteWORKS wish to thank The City of St. Louis Community Information Network (CIN) for all their years of support. With their help, hundreds of families were able to connect to the Internet.

AT&T $10 DSL

2007-11-09T09:23:00.000-06:00

UPDATE: URL changed. AT&T discontinued offering DSL for $10 per month at the URL below. The new URL is http://attsignup.com/att_order_10_dol.htm AT&T offers DSL high-speed Internet for $10 per month. For more info, ~~https://swot.sbc.com/swot/promoLanding.do : SIGN UP~~ for this service. Additionally, we have begun a tutorial on how to set up DSL for Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Please visit our Wiki and enter dsl in the search bar or visit the following URL: http://wiki.bworks.org/doku.php/dsl.

Recycling Computer Hardware

2007-11-09T09:07:00.000-06:00

From the website: http://www.creve-coeur.org/electronics-recycling.htm "Wondering what to do with your old computer, cell phone, or appliance? Recycle them safely at the third annual America Recycles Day electronics recycling drive. Expected to be the largest celebration in the nation, the city teamed up with Congregation B'nai Amoona and Web Innovations Technology Services (WITS)." And don't forget WITS.

New Student Scholarship Fund

2007-10-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

In 2006, we established a Student Scholarship Program to support the educational program. It is designed to partially support the costs of running the program and is based on 10 children per class and 6 classes per year. Student Scholarship Fund Donors will be recognized on our Web Site in our Sponsorships page.

Individuals, Organizations, Corporations interested in donating to the Student Scholarship Fund may be interested in the following levels:

Level 1: $200 Children's Tuition
Level 2: $2,000 Children's Class
Level 3: $12,000 Children's Yearly Classes

For more information, visit our Sponsorships page.