New Technology @ OSDC

I have been attending the Australian Open Source Developers Conference run by the Australian Open Source Developers Club over the last couple of days. Very interesting conference which never fails to stimulate the mind and open up new possibilities with emerging and existing technology.

I had my TUG and OSVR cap firmly on my head for this conference and have come across some technology that lends itself to the cause and possibly may even allow TUG and OSVR to get to our goals quicker.

The first main stand out technology I have been introduced to so far is the Microsoft Cloud Computing platform called Azure (www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/). Azure is a windows based virtual hosting platform which allows us to run windows software (in our case hopefully the opensim server) on a platform that easily scalable! Potential for this is quite massive and Microsoft have really moved into the cloud computing market with this product. I have been told I will get some free tokens to use the Azure platform from the Mircosoft representative here at OSDC :) We will see where this takes OSVR!

The second bit of cool technology is based around a Business Rules engine written in Java called Drools. The presenter demonstrated creating a simple HTML interactive Questionnaire UI using AJAX calls to a web service which in turn employed the Drools rules engine to organise the presentation of data (in this case questions and answers). This small example could prove to be a good place to start investigating how we could adapt a rules engine model to control the business rules for the TUG engine (well in TUG's case to control the flow of a training course or Question and Answers sessions). We would need to find an equivalent for our programming language (Java is not really our style :P) or perhaps do a port to our preferred language.

Anyway I am off to hear about more interesting things that may or may not be useful for OSVR or TUG.

Geoff T

Meeting - Sunday 30th August

Today I(Dale) had a quick meeting with Will, our lead programmer, and the scripting is almost done!
Next weekend....fingers crossed. Legs crossed. Everything crossed.

Videos - animoto promo and one about testing video for TUG

Team meeting - Agile

This blog hasn't been updated because our work has been so disjointed and sparse lately - which is part of what this meeting helped address.
The meeting was attended by Will and Geoff and myself.
One of the main things to come out of it was how such a disjointed group can communicate and work together effectively. This has been on of the issues with staying productive and keeping everybody in the loop with what is happening elsewhere.
Geoff, our server admin - for lack of better words - is bloody brilliant. He explained how we can use Agile which is what larger and better organised software companies use for projects.
In my own (probably oversimplified) terms - this gives us all clearly defined roles, allows us to tell a 'story' about what is supposed to be happening, then to define a product backlog to start working through, one task at a time. This will allow for better planning, estimates, and troubleshooting. That is about where my understanding of it ends at the moment, but it seems like a winner so far. This system can then also be used for OSVR.
Our current target date for having the system up and running is Sunday August 10th. I am more confident about that after the meeting than I was before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
http://www.agile-software-development.com/2007/09/how-to-implement-scrum-in-10-easy-steps.html

TRAC

Geoff has installed TRAC to assist with productivity.

Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission is to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team's established development process and policies.

It provides an interface to Subversion (or other version control systems), an integrated Wiki and convenient reporting facilities.

Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commit messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all current and past project events in order, making the acquisition of an overview of the project and tracking progress very easy. The roadmap shows the road ahead, listing the upcoming milestones.

Outcomes of today's meeting with Jann and Jennifer, Hairdressing/Personal Services

• Hairdressing program is flexible and self-paced, with students starting every two weeks in some areas and with the goal of completing around 80 days of study.
• Two groups of hairdressing classes being delivered in high schools
• Students have varying levels of motivation and responsibility. Some are rough diamond Western suburbs kids
  
• Some admin issues with teachers having to sign off multiple times per completed task per student. This is more of an admin/mgt issue and implies a separate project (perhaps web-based signoff as per ATOM system). Suggested discussing with CI Design Studio, who would talk to Matt Ward to build a system.
• Possibility of using Ning or similar social networking environment in conjunction with SL.
• Jann suggested might be good for Dale to go to Hair Expo in Sydney - June long weekend - for further inspiration and glamour factor!
• Looking at starting Second Life delivery in Second Semester (beginning July 13) with Cert II Pre Apprentices in Hairdressing
  
• Work with Jennifer Walsh, other teachers and students to develop program collaboratively
• Three units of competency targeted: Work Effectively in Retail Environments, Follow and Use Health & Safety Routines at Work, Apply Safe Work Practices
• In these, focus on: designing salon, how to dress appropriately for salon, OH &S, basin and reception skills
• Discussion of embedding printable Certificate into TUG Engine
• Will need to run SL sessions at CI, Flinders Street due to King St computers and web not making the grade. Probably will need to be during holidays pre-July 13 - that's when labs won't be fully booked. Details tbc
• We're going in this coming Monday to develop program further and meet students
  

Aerial view of the progress so far

When I took an aerial shot of our build in Second Life earlier tonight, I was struck by how similar it was to something I knew well in my childhood, and by the realisation that we are just building a more complex version for bigger kids.

Some snapshots of the TUG Personal Services build

We have been making good progress on the TUG Personal Services build.
The basic idea behind this is a large mall with two halves.
The first half the students must answer questions to 'buy' a range of products, including all they will need to make their own salon.
The second half is where the students can build their own salons.



Sitting around waiting for it all to happen.


An overview of the back half, where the students build their own salons.



Inside one of the sample stores, the Art store.


A couple of the sample stores, selling rugs and mirrors.


A view of the front half(those horrible tiles will change!)


The view from out the front, lots of shop items in the car park ready to be loaded in.

TUG Personal Services Preview

Server plans and open life/open sim

We have been playing around a bit the last couple of weeks with both Open Life and Open Sim as an alternative to Second Life.
The advantages (typed on a train on a Monday morning) for us in using this are;
- Firstly and most importantly we have an aspergers/autism project coming up(which is not the same as this but will be related in many ways) - and there is no possible way we can be taking autistic 15 and 20 year olds into either Teen Second Life or the main Second Life without breaking their terms of service. For this reason a private grid is essential.
- Considering our previous attempt at this with Second Life (which cost a lot, was very frustrating and got us nowhere until we joined Skoolaborate) open source is very very attractive.
- Power to do what we want when we want, and not stress so much! Also the power to give each school it's own island to manage as they wish, without having to stress about what a conservative school overseas thinks. Private locked off environments have so many benefits.
- Cost - we are looking at the same cost for several open source islands as one second life island.
One issue educators face is the fact that they might want a space, but only for a couple of hours per week. Second Life charges on the basis that the space is yours and can be full of people all the time, but this is not what we need. Our setup will allow half a dozen or more island to be set up, with a limit of around 40 people. What this will mean is that many classes will be able to have ongoing spaces and activities within the world, but only a limited amount of people will be able to use it(our hope is around 40-50 or two classes).
- Research - and this is the real killer. If we are running our own world, then there is little we cannot monitor, at the moment in SL we are quite restricted. The TUG Engine will be making a start on many of these tools.
I am sure there are more, I will come back and post more about this after I have worked on a new proposal.
This project also needs a name!

For the server, at the moment we are looking at ozservers.com and most likely the Core 2 Duo E8400 (2x3.0Ghz) 6.0 Ghz option.

Team update

We have a new member on board to help with the server side of things, Geoff (Fof) from Brisbane. He will also be looking into a php stats engine for us.
This now means we have a great team on board, including the uni staff it looks something like this;
Stefan - Project Manager
Dr John Martino - Researcher
Dale - Developer/Designer
Will - Head Programmer
Peter - Virtual consultant/builder/scripter
Geoff - Network/Server admin
Our one remaining need is someone to help Will out with the in world scripting, he is a very busy boy!

Construction update

It has been a while since the last blog post but things are progressing at top speed.


Meeting in world with Gumby/Peter, our virtual consultant.



Prototype for the control panel, it needs more bells and whistles. The actual build is 90% complete, it's mainly the scripting and tug engine that now needs to be installed.


Gumby/Peter making a hammer


A selection of the goods we have gathered/created to add a bit of decor to bare corners.



My avatar standing at the reception desk.

Rolling along very nicely, an update with snapshots....

During the past week we have made a lot of progress.
Firstly we have chosen a name for the engine which will drive it all, TUG, and established a website at http://www.tugengine.org. This is quite an exciting development as we realise many of the wider applications this work can have. We are currently hosting this on my own server but will need to find a seperate space as it has the potential to be quite server intensive.

Below are some pictures with descriptions, they tell a better story than words are able to.

First up is a pic of Will's work, these are the various states for the control panel, which he has communicating with the website.


This is the scoreboard, which is recording each avatars time as well as the questions they answered correctly or not, all feeding from the website.




Each door will have a panel next to it as you can see below, that the student can click for a question. The first door will have one question, the second two, the third three etc....all fed from the website database (meaning teachers can update them). We are also working on a web based control panel for the virtual environment.





The yard.




Some logos which will form part of a game. Students will be asked a question and have to click the correct image to win a prize/access.



Inside the maze/factory.






Safety ladder.



Facade of the factory.


Looking from the left hand side, yard to the left, factory behind it.



TUG Safety Gear, including a hardhat, vest and boots. These must be put on before entering the site.

Long range snapshot

A quick update after a few days work

A quick progress report after a few days work.
The project is going very well, we have had very few setbacks so far. The building you see below is the 'maze' area, a large factory which students will gain access to by answering correctly. The scripting for the game is also going well with Will already well into building the engine.
Construction wise we are now down to the creation of interactive features, the foundation is set. Next up is several different door types and the question and answer interface, as well as several other game like features (eg shoot the correct symbol) which I will create in conjunction with Will.

The 'maze' or factory building.

Inside the maze, upstairs.

Elevator.

Inside the maze, upstairs.

Students will have to answer questions correctly to open the doors and continue. Te interface for this is one of the next tasks.


Forklifts will be available for students to ride after they have completed the main maze, to explore the rest of the build(which will include the outdoors construction area with house examples etc).


Downstairs.

Some of the vehicles in the lot outside. This will be fenced off, with a construction site next door.

Will (Programmer) - Progress made so far (3 hours of work and chats):

Database:

• Database structure has been created.
• The database will hold all information such as questions, answers, difficulty levels, sets (subjects), users, and user sessions

PHP Back-end Script

• The interface between the Second Life script and the Database.
• The Second Life script calls to this script and its various functions to:
• Get questions and answers,
• Get difficulty levels,
• Create User sessions.
• There are the functions that have been completed so far, although there are more to come.
  

Second Life Interface

• This script is the interface with the PHP script.
• This is at its early stages, but it can already interface with the PHP and catch errors if they occur.
• The proof of concept for this script has been created, with a difficulty selector.

All of the scripts are 'transformable', meaning that they are able to be used in different situations.