Totally Off-The-Wall ICT Ideas Wanted!

[Joedetic]

I like the freedomtoaster idea.

 

How about starting some kind of afterschool gaming club and buying a few dedicated machines to run it with or a game server and some licenses if your current workstations can handle it?

[tech_guy]

We used to have a computer gaming club and we used to have Enemy Territory matches. We'd organise the kids into teams and work out strategies, roles, etc, but it was 'banned' by the LG as being unsuitable. There's a strong religious ethos in the school and the powers that be deemed the game as too violent....don't think they'd allow any gaming at all as it's not 'educational'........

 

:-(

[steveg]

Slightly unusual project we are doing at the moment is a system to monitor the school pond - Underwater cameras, night vision cameras, temperature probes and data loggers etc. Ties in nicely with a few curriculum areas and the setup is quite interesting.

[webman]

What about a remote controlled helicopter for delivering messages and small packages around the school; or attach a wireless camera and record an aerial video of the school?

 

Curriculum areas affected include geography, multimedia, technology, and at a stretch - maths/science (eg. if it crashes into the headteacher's car from a height of 50 metres, what size dent will it make?)

[Joedetic]

I quite like webman's idea.

 

The problem is, once it's been used once the novelty would wear off. That and it'd be expensive to replace if some kid crashed it.

[localzuk]

I quite like webman's idea.

 

The problem is, once it's been used once the novelty would wear off. That and it'd be expensive to replace if some kid crashed it.

 

You can pick up cheap electric ones fo £20 now... A cheap wireless video camera and receiver would be a further £40. So for £60 you could have a short range spy helicopter!

[webman]

So, so tempting! :twisted:

[crc-ict]

I quite like webman's idea.

 

The problem is, once it's been used once the novelty would wear off. That and it'd be expensive to replace if some kid crashed it.

 

You can pick up cheap electric ones for £20 now...

 

Only snag being that they are crap...

 

Well, maybe not crap (actually very fun), just impossible to control in any meaningful manner!

[Joedetic]

Something i've seen before is a digital camera with a big memory card strapped to a kite and sent up.

 

The camera had been modded with a 555 timer circuit instead of a capture button and it took photos every 30 seconds or so.

 

Interesting results.

[webman]

Only snag being that they are crap...

 

Well, maybe not crap (actually very fun), just impossible to control in any meaningful manner!

 

There are some good videos on Youtube of the sort thing I mentioned

[CyberNerd]

remote control fishing !

build miniature RC submarines with working harpoons and video cameras, then go fish

[mrcrazy04]

I read somewhere about a guy who took a remote control car, strapped a wireless router with OpenWRT on it, and modified it to receive commands sent through a shell on the router. It used quite a bit of battery power (he modified the router to use batteries as well) - but it would be pretty cool, especially if you did a web front end for it!

[daveyboy]

 

I've always liked the idea of spending some money on Netware 6.5 (don't laugh) licensing just to run netware, not netware/suse enterprise. I thing most people would think you nuts for going *back* to netware but it would work - and you'd have better joy with setting up printers

 

I think you mean 'upgrading' to Netware...................

 

 

8)

[tech_guy]

I read somewhere about a guy who took a remote control car, strapped a wireless router with OpenWRT on it, and modified it to receive commands sent through a shell on the router. It used quite a bit of battery power (he modified the router to use batteries as well) - but it would be pretty cool, especially if you did a web front end for it!

 

I quite like this idea - I think MIT did it with a robot that you could operate via the web. Again the main problem would be theft/vandalism, not to mention the h&S issues of having something roving around the place.

[tech_guy]

Have you ever tried flying one of those £25 helicopters outside? A real laugh if it's windy!

[localzuk]

Have you ever tried flying one of those £25 helicopters outside? A real laugh if it's windy!

 

They're not really designed for outdoors as they are too light. They are more suited to being used in a hall of some sort.

[webman]

They're not really designed for outdoors as they are too light. They are more suited to being used in a hall of some sort.

 

Like a school hall! :twisted:

[tom_newton]

There is a guy exhibits at BETT who does RC toys with PC interfaces. I always make a point of going up and having a word.. he started out with some fancy image processing s/w, when I met him at reaching teaching(?) in bolton whilst completely hung-over %-) Grid-something.... not "grid club" - we see them all over the place too mind anyone got a URL? Could be just the thing you're looking for.

 

Edit: gottim: http://www.gridmagic.com/Q4Technologies/Q4smartSite.dll/Home

[Domino]

forget the Helicopter....what you want is an RC DragonFly!

 

[ICT_GUY]

You could do what we have done.

 

Buy a big TFT screen 32" - 50" and have a computer constantly running a looping powerpoint of whats going on in the school. Photo stories and video all work well in power point. All you need is an old 700mhz pc or above to run the thing.

 

To aid ease of use, I have it networked, with real VNC running to allow me to stop and start it remotely, and a share where I can dump the packaged powerpoints.

 

Cost s £600 for a 32" version. 2K would buy a really nice 50" and pay for the network point and power point.

 

Kids love it.

[richard.thomas]

We've got a similar setup here. We're running a flash presentation off a laptop onto a screen in the main reception... Hoping to get a bigger screen soon

[TechMonkey]

How about something like this

or leading on from that article any of these ideas.

 

Recovering robotic dogs and upgrading them sounds fun!

[Elky]

I've had a couple of schools in the past buy the components needed to build say 10 or 20 PCs then have an after school project where the kids build the PCs themselves. They then get the option to buy the PC at the end of it or it just gets stripped down and used for the next lot of kids to build.

[t_guest]

Why not make more of educational learning and learn them how to setup stuff like a domain GPO and more on them lines.

then when they have built a working domain or network then see if they can maintain the domain/network.

I think that would be fun for the kids to see what the job description

(Network Manager/technician ) really entails

[steve]

How about setting up your own youtube or bubbleshare type site.

 

Somewhere the pupils can safely share their creativity?