# CarpenPi - Third Community Meeting

[](https://hackmd.io/jyPUz4kzR3KaXue_gwbn1g)

## [Code of Conduct](https://docs.carpentries.org/topic_folders/policies/code-of-conduct.html)

* Use welcoming and inclusive language
* Be respectful of different viewpoints and experiences
* Gracefully accept constructive criticism
* Focus on what is best for the community
* Show courtesy and respect towards other community members

## Links

## Participants
Please sign in:
- Ethan White
- Colin Sauze
- Anelda van der Walt
- Angelique Trusler
- Jannetta Steyn

## Apologies
- Heather Turner
- Alison Clarke
- Ziv Shkedy
-

## Agenda
1. Welcome and Code of Conduct
- Any new people?
2. HouseKeeping
- Notekeeper?
- Did this link help with getting the time right for this meeting: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html
- Unless anyone objects we won't bother with recording anymore. We have these meeting notes if anyone needs to refer back or catch up
- It would be good to back these meeting notes up to our GitHub organisation. Should we anonymise them? How?
3. Feedback for previous meeting's TO DOs:
- Ethan
- Content working group met on Zoom
- Defined our scope:
- Deliver the content needed for workshops to a user specificied location on disk allowing updating
- Servers group then responsible for delivering that content via urls over the wireless network
- Python package with CLI for doing this
- Moved Virnaliz & my's work on this into the carpenpi org
- R installers, R packages as local CRAN mirror, RStudio installers
- Python installers, Python packaging as a local pypi or conda mirror, installers for IDE
- Course materials
- Help websites
- Version control lesson adapted for Gitea
- Colin
- Looked into GCRF (Global Challenges Research Fund) funding from UKRI, but this fund has completely stopped taking new applications.
- Costed my time to see if we could use funding from RSE Association. £1000 would buy about 5 days at Full Economic Cost.
- Wanted to try and test installing CarpenPi image but i've not had the time.
- Jannetta
- Heather (pre-meeting)
- Invited Carpentries instructors Annajiat Alim Rasel (Bangladesh) and Mesfin Diro (Ethiopia) and they have joined the slack.
- Asked Carpentries for data to determine which workshops are most popular; expecting them to report back this week or so. Meanwhile, asked about preferred Carpentries lessons on our Slack, responses:
- Software carpentries
- Janetta (UK). [Question to answer in meeting: Any particular ones or all core lessons?]
- Anicet (Ivory Coast): Programming with R, R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis
- Data carpentry
- Angelique (South Africa): all R
- Anelda (South Africa): ecology or social sciences
- Anicet (Ivory Coast): Data Analysis and Visualization in R for Ecologists
- Have not looked more into grants yet, but Saranjeet applied to http://datasciencebydesign.org/grants for a small grant to write a CarpenPi zine, see proposal shared on Slack: https://carpenpi.slack.com/archives/C01TJV1CZ5G/p1623864408030000

5. AOB

## Notes (Ethan primary notetaker)

* Introductions
* Angelique - regional consultant for Southern Africa for the Carpentries
* Colin - RSE w/background in robotics & Raspberry Pi, HPC carpentry of Raspberry Pi cluster
* Ethan - Faculty at University of Florida
* Anelda - Anelda, consultancy in South Africa working with academic institutions & researchers to adopt technology in research, open everything, lot of excitement about project in South Africa once in-person is possible again
* Janetta - RSE at Newcastle University. SSI had a hackday where the idea for this project started

* Housekeeping
* No recording from now on
* Should we backup meeting notes onto GitHub and if so do we anonymize

* Content working group update
* Content working group met on Zoom
* Deliver the content needed for workshops to a user specificied location on disk allowing updating
* Servers group then responsible for delivering that content via urls over the wireless network
* Python package with CLI for doing this
* Moved Virnaliz & my's work on this into the carpenpi org
* R installers, R packages as local CRAN mirror, RStudio installers
* Python installers, Python packaging as a local pypi or conda mirror, installers for IDE
* Course materials
* Help websites
* Version control lesson adapted for Gitea

* Funding
* GCRF no longer exist
* RSE funding up to $1000, which would cover 1 week of Collin's time
* Look at https://www.spencer.org/grant_types/small-research-grant
* Janetta looking for funding for to purchase a case of Pi's for testing
* RSE money could be good for purchasing this initial test case of Pi's
* Janetta applied to RSE to develop Carpentry workshop admin system
* Told there are other similar projects and want clarification about what is different
* Wanted to apply for this before applying for CarpenPi funding
* Will now apply for the kit
* Possible sources
* Human frontiers science project
* Welcome Trust (but might be just research)
* Newton Fund
* Local communities would need to apply for funding to take ownership of a kit of Pis and their maintenance
* We can get funding for teaching use fo the kit
* Lot of government investment in technology in Africa, so providing pre-developed language for applying for small local grants can help local communities get funding for equipment

* Hackathon
* The Port contacted Janetta
* Provide a challenge to serve as the basis for a possible hackathon
* Submitted Carpenpi to possible be this

* Servers
* Updated instructions for setting up Apache 2 server on the Pi
* Currently serving example lessons, minicran, and gitea
* But goal is to have content group do this automatically not manually
* Plan to develop CI scripts for creating SD card images
* Printed a 3D case
* Should we mimic the real internet addresses when serving off the Pi or use something differnt
* Mimicing real addresses would allow simultaneously use of intermitent internet
* Should we have an encrypted connection given creation of user names & passwords for gitea?
* Might be GDPR/POPI issues related to this
* This could make mimicing the web addresses more complicated
* Need a certificate (which would require updating annually)
* But will need to update regularly
* Do we need server Pis or box of Pis that include learner machine?
* Downloading R packages is a big issue
* Most students have access to laptops or computer lab
* A bit of both
* LAN for downloading is the number one need
* Server Pi would immediately be used
* Box of Pi's
* Requires screens, keyboards, etc., which they won't have, more likely to have laptop
* Limited power so requires lots of extensions cords, etc.
* For rural trainings created full kits - put even after providing them they can be difficult to find or missing pieces.
* Administration of kits is really challenging - would need to grow a community around managing a kit
* Managing a server much easier
* Emphasis on users with laptops - focuses on training people who were ready to use the tools, which required having a computer
* Whoever you target it will leave folks out, just explicitly acknowledge this and the target audience
* Updating - can we count on internet
* Internet can be counted on for updating
* Define the period of time/volume needed for updating
* Have a way for the end users to update themselves
* 50% will be able to update themselves
* Can also have ability to regularly send updated images for areas where internet is really limited
* Could Pi Zero be a really cheap approach to a server
* Might not have the bandwidth to support a class

* Our CarpenPi WiFi Network should not allow peer to peer communication to prevent viruses spreading
* 32 bit computers might be present, we should distribute 32 bit versions of software packages
*