The official blog of the "Fibonacci Four" a First Lego League Team based in Hanover, NH.
Our sponsors: The AVA Gallery and Art Center, Granite Value Capital
Here is a blog entry about the Fibonacci Four heroic service project:
"In May, I received a pallet of XO-1's from OLPC's Dallas warehouse. Most of these are G1G1 XOs that people re-donated for projects in Haiti, in response to the letter that Nicholas N sent out, shortly after the earthquake. Many of that cache had already been distributed to Haiti projects, during the past 2 years. But there were still a bunch in storage. Each re-donated G1G1 XO needs to be cleaned up, checked out and reflashed to the latest software build. Then, as the Conributors Program approves applications, these XOs will be ready for children in Haiti! I don't know why these were still in storage, but I had space enough to work with them and offered to get them into shape for distribution from the new "OLPC NH volunteer satellite office...."
The Fibonacci Four robotics team will be offering a five week class at the AVA Gallery in Lebanon after school in October. This course will be a basic introduction to Lego Robotics for younger kids with one on one instruction from seasoned First Lego League eight graders.
Youth Robotics
Ages 5-8
September 18 - October 16; Tuesdays, 3:30-5:30pm; Five 2-hour classes
We had to disassemble the computers, unbrick them, reassemble them and reflash the hard drives.
We fixed 55 XO computers for kids in Haiti!
The XO computers are designed to be rugged, inexpensive and durable.
Twelve screws to get inside the laptops for repair. We only lost a couple.
A fixed XO laptop ready to be shipped to third world schools. Without our help these computers would just have sat on a shelf unused.
We recently traveled to Nancie Sever's house, she helped us to help others in third world Country's to have computers. She also fed us a wonderful lunch!
------------------------------------------------------------ Background: Do you have a XO computer in your closet not being used? The story behind these computers that we fixed is that years ago many people took part in the one for one promotion. If you bought a XOcomputer, one would be donated. Well, a lot of people played around with their XO and then put them in the closet. Two years ago when the earthquake struck Haiti, a plea went out for computer donations. People sent then to a collection area in Texas but the problem was the computer either had dead batteries or had been "timed out" or "bricked" because they were old and hadn't been updated. For two years these computers sat, never making it to Haiti. Until Nancie Sever and the Fib Four fixed them!
Something that might seem like a toy to people used to the latest, greatest computer gadgets, don't always understand the impact this technology these computers can have in impoverished countries. Some of the applications on the computers are things like games that teach kids to avoid land mines, learning to read, write, math and communication apps.
Consider this Rwanda student's project on an XO - "I am doing a documentary project on how to avoid AIDS by collecting all the necessary information on the disease so that I can use it to teach my friends its dangers," explained Shyaka.
Computers are a powerful communication and educational tool that are not available to most impoverished areas. - Coach Ed
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Recently our team worked towards allowing people in other country's to have computers. We did this by fixing XO computers (to read more about them go to http://laptop.org/en/laptop/). These laptops are part of the one laptop per child project. We took apart the laptops in order to allow them to be reprogrammed to fix any bugs. Our project is hardly over however because we were only able to take apart and reprogram 12 out of many. We hope to finish the job soon!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Here is a wonderful photo from our last meeting!
Did you know: 4 is not a Fibonacci number-here is the first few digits in the Fibonacci sequence
1,1,2,3,5,8,13...
