[OLPC India] OLPC Health

[Tom Boonsiri]

Hi OLPC India,

Is anyone interested in working on hardware peripherals for the platform?
We have a mature prototype but are looking to turn it into a more finished
breadboard prototype (PCB design). Any expertise in that arena is
appreciated.

Also, we would appreciate help in the area of translation. We have a drafted
lesson plan but could use help in the translation to various dialects that
OLPC India serves.

Please contact me if you have any interest or other questions about our
effort.
Look forward to working with many of you.

Best,
Tom

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Arjun Sarwal <arjun at laptop.org> wrote:

> I would like to introduce you all to Tom and Jake and their fantastic work.
> Below is an excerpt from my recent communication with Tom. Please get
> in touch with Tom regarding his projects if you might be interested-
> some great learning-by-doing projects here.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tom Boonsiri <tom.boonsiri at gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 1:44 AM
>
>
>
> Arjun,
>
> Thank you for the flattering introduction! =)
>
>
> My grassroots group based here in California truly believes in the
> educational mission of the OLPC project; however, we wanted to focus
> on the development of an activity that would benefit not only the
> students in the classroom but be able to touch all people within the
> community. One of the ways we felt could that could be accomplished
> was through health wellness. Also, we felt that the sensor interface
> was a brilliant feature that would truly allow us to give kids a
> hands-on opportunity to explore various phenomena of the human body.
> Thanks to the great foundation that Arjun laid, we were able to
> develop two low-cost biomedical peripherals to visually depict the
> human heart rate.
>
> Though the strength of our activity lies in the structure and message
> of our lesson plan. The lesson plan includes about 4 learning modules
> beginning with the question of "What makes me alive?" leading to an
> explanation of the human body and heart, various manual exercises to
> record the students' heart rates (reading the pulse through a wrist or
> stethoscope) and to explore various ways to influence it (ie. jumping
> in place, valsava maneuver, etc.), and automated heart rate detection
> through the peripherals. The result is an understanding of the
> influence everyone (students and family members) has on their body (to
> lead a healthy lifestyle), further encouragement to explore the sensor
> interface, and interest in both engineering and medical aspirations.
>
> Through a local pilot here in the Bay Area we were able to refine our
> lesson plan which was very well received by the students. The students
> were constantly engaged and very excited to see the effects of their
> heart rate in real-time. We further refined our lesson plan to tailor
> the material to different age groups and include background materials
> for instructors who might not feel comfortable with the science
> material. We are enthusiastic to work the various pilots of OLPC India
> and feel our activity has reached a maturity ready for immediate
> deployment; however, we would require OLPC India's assistance in the
> translation of the content.
>
> Our blog and video demos of our peripherals are located below:
> http://olpcgoldenstate.blogspot.com
> http://www.youtube.com/user/olpcgoldenstate
>
> Looking forward to your response.
>
> Warm Regards,
> Tom Boonsiri
>
> --
> Arjun Sarwal
> http://dev.laptop.org/~arjs <http://dev.laptop.org/%7Earjs>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=SwcSEcfR464
>
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