[gcompris-devel] Camera theme for Google Summer Of Code 2012 for GCompris

[Bruno Coudoin]

Hi,

Thanks for considering GCompris for your project. See my responses
bellow:


Le dimanche 04 mars 2012 à 12:49 +0530, Vivek Anand a écrit :
> Hello folks ,
> 
> I am Vivek Anand currently pursuing engineering in Computer Science from
> India .
> I am very passionate about Interaction designing and worked on a multi
> touch table
> with college mates [1] <http://vimeo.com/2953423>. My blog details
> [2]<http://insidevivek.wordpress.com/>[3]<http://anandvivek.in/>
> 
>  <http://vimeo.com/2953423>Besides , I am a open source enthusiast and
> active member of linux user group at
> my college. I am using linux since past 3 years from now. Along with my
> college
> friends we visited nearby rural area and trained kids to use OLPC laptops.
> At that
> time making them familiar with GCompris fascinated me and drew my attention
> [4]<http://lug-iitd.posterous.com/training-of-kids-in-olpc-classroom-at-kikarwa>

This is definitely a good background for participating in a GSoC. 

> I am looking forward to participate in Google Summer Of Code 2012 and
> stumbling
> upon gnome's project page , GCompris appeals me the most . It will be my
> pleasure
> to contribute to GCompris .
> 
> In this regard , I browsed through the idea page of GCompris and
> implementing a
> camera simulator for Kids attracted me the most. So , I am planing to
> choose
> *Camera theme* and develop a bunch of activities for GCompris to let kids
> explain
> the concepts used in photography.
> 
> I am listing the activities which I am planing to implement as follows :-
> 
> 1)  *Know your camera *- In this activity we will explain kids about
> different parts of
> camera for instance lens , screen , on/off button etc and how each works /
> functionality.
> After teaching them we may keep a level to ask kids to assemble the various
> parts of a
> camera like a puzzle or ask them to label each one of them.

I like this. Maybe you should include there a way for the children to
interact with a virtual lens in different condition. A simpler way would
be to have several drawings of the different condition and showing how
the light ray propagates through the lens. There are probably some
tutorial to explain optics. Also maybe some images showing optic
illusions may help the children understand the eye + brain is
subjective.

> 2)  *Take a shoot* - In this activity we'll place a tripod stand with a
> camera on its top and
> a background image. We'll ask kids to change the orientation of the camera
> and
> capture some specified objects in the given picture. The difficulty of the
> level will vary
> according to the number of objects in the picture .

Ok, interesting, you are forcing them to analyse the scene and select
the correct target area, I like this.

> 3) *Camera Simulator* - While researching on the similar topic I came
> across an
> interesting link [5] <http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/> . So in the
> initial levels of this activity we may try to explain
> each one of them lightning , aperture , focal length , aperture ISO , etc
> individually
> and at the end of the level we may show them altogether and ask kids to
> modify
> image using all the functionality and add a save image feature too.

This link is very interesting, they made a very good job. I played with
it and while I appreciated to be able to play with all the function, its
way too much for our children. I appreciate that you introduce each
concept one by one.

> 4) *Collage - *In this activity we may provide different blank structures
> in form of a tree, ring
> or constellation. Then for instance for tree structure we'll ask kids to
> import the pictures
> of their family members and place them on the tree according to correct
> hierarchy.
> Having placed all of them , they'll be asked to take a snapshot and save
> the image on
> their desktop . Similarly this may be applied for friends, pets etc.

I am not yet sure about this one. I appreciate that in the set of
activity you provide, this one is creative. It would complement nicely
our word processor and animation tool. In fact, I like the 'montage'
nature of the activity but I don't see much the value of taking a
picture at the end, beside forcing it artificially to put it in the
photography set of activity. 

Now, if you present it as a 'collage' or 'montage' activity I tend to
like it but then it overlaps with our animation tool which can be used
for that.

Let's imagine other options, we miss a bitmap drawing tool 'a la
Tuxpaint', perhaps this is a good opportunity but well Tuxpaint is
excellent and it can even be launched from GCompris.

Last option I see and this one would fit in the photo set of activity.
We can propose some filters 'a la gimp' to let children play with a
photo like changing the brightness, color saturation, blur... Maybe we
could even make a game like bring back tux colors correct and the
children play around to remove some extra blue, adjust the brightness...

I wrote this as I think and I have not a definitive position, the
discussion is open.

> Also , I am doing a bit more research on teaching photography to a kids in
> the age group
> 2 - 10 and came across an interesting link [6]
> <http://www.pixiq.com/article/teaching-photography-to-children>, so I'll
> take into consideration this blogpost
> for my fifth activity .

That's interesting. We could add some textual explanations during the
activities at relevant time to let the children experiment with his own
yes. I also like the introduction on the optic effect close / far vs
big / small.

> I am looking forward for your views on this .Also i would like to know how
> many activities do
> you expect for gsoc time span ? I'll be glad to hear from you soon and your
> reviews on the
> same .

I don't expect a specific number of activities. As you can see, some are
much more complex than others. What if important is that you propose
something you believe you can achieve within the GSoC time frame. It is
always a difficult exercise to evaluate the duration of a software
development. It gives me a good idea of the candidate if his / her
estimation matches mine.

Bruno.