Collaborative development for the XO laptop: CODEX 2

Abstract

At the University of Lincoln, undergraduate students are given the opportunity to take part in an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme (UROS), which allows students to not only contribute to a particular field of research but also to enrich their knowledge and understanding of the chosen research topic. The Centre of Research for Open Source Software (CROSS) within the School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln offered UROS students the opportunity to research into the Collaborative Development for the XO Laptop (CODEX). The aim of this project is to provide an easily accessible Open Source platform within which students are able to develop activities for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO-1 laptop, as well as create Open Source applications and contribute to the OS Community. Under the supervision of Professor Cornelia Boldyreff, two students (Andrew Garbett and Karl Lieser) were tasked with continuing the initial research and development undertaken by James Munro on the original CODEX project in the previous year. The resulting CODEX 2 project has managed to produce sufficient tutorial materials for new students to begin development for the XO laptop and more specifically for its Sugar interface utilising a development environment that met the requirements of the project and thus resulting in a successful research outcome. © 2010 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.