{"id":3550,"date":"2016-05-09T14:30:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T19:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/?p=3550"},"modified":"2016-05-14T12:34:34","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T17:34:34","slug":"thank-you-vmuch-virtualization-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasemccarty.com\/blog\/thank-you-vmuch-virtualization-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank You vMuch, Virtualization Community!"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, I was having a conversation with a former college classmate, Mr. Jason Hurd, about his technology class outside of Atlanta, GA. Jason is a technology teacher that is looking to getting his students engaged in programming\/coding skills, with some focus on robotics, as well as coding in general.<\/p>\n

\"Delta-Tau-Delta-crest\"The Catalyst<\/strong>
\nI ran into Mr. Hurd\u00a0at the Delta Tau Delta, Zeta Chi Chapter<\/a><\/strong>‘s 30th Anniversary celebration. We are both Alumni members\u00a0of Delta Tau Delta Fraternity<\/a><\/strong>, Zeta Chi Chapter (University of Southern Mississippi).<\/p>\n

I know a lot of people equate being in a fraternity to parties, being crazy college kids, and so on. I’d say that we did a bit more than that. In the 30 years of the Zeta Chi Chapter, we’ve raised over $600,000 for various charities<\/em><\/strong>, with most going to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation<\/a><\/strong>, of which I’m very proud of.<\/p>\n

Now back to the story. Mr. Hurd\u00a0and I were talking about technology. He asked if I had ever heard of a Raspberry Pi<\/a><\/strong>. I indicated that I had, and that I had 3 of them (various models). He mentioned that he was putting together a program to get his students engaged in writing code for controlling robots and\/or robotic control systems.<\/p>\n

\"rpi\"He mentioned that he had a Raspberry Pi, and was thinking of going that direction. I thought, what a good platform! If I recall correctly, that’s that the Raspberry Pi was originally intended for! \u00a0He mentioned that he didn’t have enough funding to get everything started, and asked if would be willing to contribute my Raspberry Pi’s I had. Sure! Anything to help a brother!<\/p>\n

I’ve had several Raspberry Pi’s over the years. I bought my first, was given one as part of a SimpliVity<\/a><\/strong> vExpert Giveaway, and my old boss even gave me one. They were sitting in my desk drawer, along with various other pieces of tech I had collected over the years. I was happy to contribute them. They weren’t doing me any good. Why not help some kids out?<\/p>\n

Jason said that he was looking for 15 Raspberry Pi’s<\/strong>. It felt good getting him 1\/5 the way there. \u00a0That number of 15 was for 30 kids, with two kids sharing a each\u00a0Raspberry Pi.<\/p>\n

The Virtualization Community comes to the rescue.<\/strong>
\nAs other virtualization folks\u00a0had gotten Raspberry Pi’s over the years, and likely weren’t doing anything with theirs either, I mentioned what Mr. Hurd\u00a0was trying to accomplish on the vExpert Slack<\/a><\/strong>. I\u00a0immediately\u00a0got responses from people including\u00a0Jason Shiplett, Marcus Puckett, and\u00a0Jason Benedicic. It was easy to send\u00a0a U.S. address to Jason (Shiplett) & Marcus, but Jason (Benedicic) would likely have a more difficult time shipping his Raspberry Pi from outside the U.S. to a U.S. address. \u00a0I had never setup an Amazon publicly facing list before. Once I got that setup, Jason (Benedicic) was able to buy one, which was shipped to me, which I re-shipped to Mr. Hurd. \u00a0I later realized that I could put Mr. Hurd’s address in the list as a destination, and remove myself as a middleman.<\/p>\n

More and more folks wanted to contribute. AJ Kuftic\u00a0mentioned “there was a kit in your Amazon wish list, but it isn’t there now.” – I realized then, when a item in the list is bought, it is removed. I then added it back, and modified the counts. I took into account the number of kits that had been bought\/contributed, which was about 7 at the time, and put the maximum at 30.<\/p>\n

I figured that Mr. Hurd could do well with 30, given 30 students, to have a few spares, or possibly have a\u00a0few for possible dedicated longer projects.<\/p>\n

I then shared the Amazon list on the vExpert Slack, and Christian Mohn\u00a0published this article asking for more: Let’s get the kids some RPi’s<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Since then more and more folks have contributed.
\nI’m sure I’m missing some folks, but I want to thank all those that have donated Raspberry Pi’s for Mr. Hurd’s class in no particular order\u00a0(updated 14 MAY):<\/p>\n