Ok putting it out there...
In order to encourage community members to participate in the Arducopter, Ardupilot, AP Planner project code base ,I think it would be a great idea for a series of live recorded online presentations to be conducted by those actively involved in the code base. I envisage this to be similar to online corporate seminars where the audience can ask questions etc. The idea here is to provide a quick start and less daunting way to enable and engage community members that would like to be involved in code development to further the Arducopter project. The recorded presentations can then be viewed at a later date.
This will be an opportunity for the wider community to see how the 'big boys/girls' cut and roll code, learn the gottchas and peculiarities of the Arduino environment and promote the widening of the number of people engaged in the code base.
Some presentation ideas that come to mind are:
1. Overview of code architecture. What parts do what e.g. global constants, classes, variables, methods/functions timers etc.
2. Devleopment environment requirements. Live demonstration of tool chains and code development, e.g. bug diagnostic and general code development workflows.
3. Use of HIL simulator for development.
What are your thoughts?
Replies
The first online development webinar is now scheduled for Monday July 16th at 5pm PST.
Please see front page blog in a few minutes for details.
I like this idea as a communications tool to help the general understanding of APM owners etc.
And, to act as a two channel between designers and end users for design change considerations, improvements,
and to possible create ad hoc work teams to accomplish tasks that the design team may not have time for.
I.E. creating a comprehensive tuning guide for various frame types etc.
I think this could help move the project and project design ahead effectively.
If the primary goal is to truly move the design ahead as fast and effectively as possible while envolving the owner base, I don't believe it should envolve learning how to do programming. A seperate channel could be setup for that if desired.
Leave the coding(except for your own tinkering) to the folks who know how to do it effectively and open up structured channels of communications between users and designers and coders for design change and improvement.
Just my thoughts from many years of software engineering in team environments.
Cheers,
Tye
I think this is a great idea too, especially for the likes of me, who regularly dips into the code blindly trying to understand whats going on and not getting very far. It would be great to see how the ops operate! I'd love to contribute more, and learning how to program is the way forward for me. Monroe, I'm signing up to the how to program group immediately, and I've just completed the survey.
One of the reasons I chose to get on the APM bandwagon was because it runs on windows. I run linux in virtualbox and with a dual boot setup. It is great for programming, but that's all I use it for, and then only when it's significantly more hassle than the windows route.
When you chose to get a Mac you knew you were choosing a minority platform, so now you really don't have any ground to stand on when the same opportunities aren't available to you. Apparently wide support and a large user/support base weren't important to your decision making process.
I'm not trying to take anything away from the minorities in this group, just hoping things will be fairly distributed. I'll be more than happy if 85% of the time is devoted to windows, 6% to Mac, and 2.5% to Linux.
Suggesting anything else just plain isn't fair unless our participants don't follow the normal OS market share distribution. If that's the case it'll be easy enough to settle by the survey or a show of hands at the event.
Hi everyone
Since I've volunteered to do the first of these webinars, I would like to ask for your help in organizing it. The first step is to figure out how many people, where, what timezones, OSs, etc etc. That way I can gather the right tools and materials.
So, I'm doing a SURVEY! (*collective groan*)...
But but, it's only 4 questions!
Please visit this link http://bit.ly/NGktCU
* I made a small change to the survey (you can re-edit if you already filed) - I'm now asking for 3 times that you could possibly make a webinar. That after the first survey response was for 7am ET, which is 4am my time :-(. I guess I need at least a couple of alternatives or a strong espresso !
Excellent idea! I'm in!
Could you please assign some homework so I'm up to speed and have my dev environment ready to play along in the webinar? (dead serious)
Great idea!
You have one of the best graphics explaining miscellaneous connections (btw, what program was used to make them? would love to see more such wiring diagrams of multiple configurations and addons. I find them most helpful at the beginning of the RC journey) although it would be great to show even more. Show the possibilities of APM, how to get started with development is one of the possible directions of having more users involved in the development of the whole ecosystem.
Great idea, there are probably some really imaginative and well wired up brains out there, if they understood the code to a high standard, then this project would certainly benefit...
The more brainpower put into something the easier things become and everyone develops their knowledge
It's a great idea!
I'm interested too
Im interested too
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