[DAO:9955ec8] CO-OP: EDUCATIONAL ELECTRONICS SANDBOX

by 0xc24789c6f165329290ddd3fbeac3b6842a294003 (TheCryptoTrader)

Should the following $12,100 grant in the Documentation category be approved?

Abstract

I am submitting this grant proposal to fund a student co-op work term, with the aim of creating an open-source electronics sandbox scene. By collaborating with students and academic institutions through their co-op programs, we can produce educational content at a lower cost while also introducing and training more creators for our platform. Additionally, this project will provide valuable insights into the entry-point developer experience, which will help us improve our platform and attract more users in the long run.

Grant size

12,100 USD in DAI

Project duration

4 months

Beneficiary address

0xC24789C6f165329290Ddd3fBEac3b6842a294003

Email address

thecryptotrader69@gmail.com

Description

The proposed project is a 3-month co-op position for a CompSci student to develop a Decentraland scene that educates users on electronic components. Proposals like this could prove invaluable by utilising inexpensive hires, training future creators, and adding to the amount of educational content available on Decentraland. If we can manage to utilise co-ops successfully we could quickly populate Decentraland with a myriad of educational experiences and open-source development examples.

I have already conducted research on the requirements for submitting a job posting, my business is registered on the required educator websites, and the job posting is ready to be submitted. Here’s a quick breakdown of the fundamental requirements for a co-op position:

  • The position must offer at least 420 hours worth of work.
  • The work done by the student must reflect at least 40% of their targeted field. This means that the work must be relevant, such as software development or systems design for a computer science student.
  • Most work terms also provide compensation between $18 to $25 an hour in order to attract students to their posting.
  • Job postings are nearly always submitted by a business (not an individual).

In addition to the above requirements, students are expected to document their progress and experience through journaling, attend regular meetings with their work supervisor and campus faculty, and provide a summary of their experience and what they learned during the work term.

With these requirements in mind, I’ve designed this grant to facilitate the management of a project geared towards a single computer science student. The project will take place over a 3-month period from June to August, with the student receiving compensation of $20/h. The student will be developing a Decentraland scene meant to educate users on electronic components, adding to the amount of educational content available on the platform.
The scene would be composed of two parts:

  • A sandbox simulation where users can play with a breadboard and add or remove electronic components such as LEDs, capacitors, switches, and logic gates.
  • A guided educational experience that walks through each component and how it works with an example orientation of how to make use of that component.

I was also considering the possibility of a puzzle generator that produces layouts that need to be solved with the components provided. For example, users could be challenged to turn on the green LED while keeping the red LED off. However, this feature may be relegated to a stretch goal to be targeted if the student shows a good aptitude for development.

Overall, this project has the potential to be a valuable learning experience for the student and could help them stand out in the competitive job market. Additionally, it could contribute to the development of educational content on the Decentraland platform and help bring new users into the world of blockchain technology.

Roadmap and milestones

Stage 0 - Viability:

To ensure the success of our co-op project, I have reached out to nearby universities and colleges to gather information about their co-op programs and how to design a mutually beneficial project for both the student and the employer.

Stage 1 - Job Posting & Recruitment (May to June):

I plan to post the job advertisement in May to recruit a suitable co-op student for the project. Based on the co-op program requirements, the position offers a minimum of 420 hours of work and competitive compensation at $20 (CAD) per hour. As many students struggle to secure co-op positions through job postings (there are usually far more students than postings), I expect to receive a good number of responses to the job posting.

Stage 2 - Project Execution (June to August):

During this time the hired student will be trained and set to course developing the electronics sandbox. To ensure the quality of the code created, there will be regular code-reviews. Interviews/check-ins are also conducted with the institution.

STAGE 3 - Wrap-Up and Exit Interview (August)

Upon the completion of the work term an exit interview will be conducted to discuss their experiences while developing the Decentraland scene and a 3 to 5-minute video will be produced outlining how to use the sandbox. These deliverables will help us evaluate the success of the project and gather insights into the student’s experience when developing for Decentraland.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

As a former educator I love the idea of using Decentraland as a teaching tool. I’m familiar with physical breadboard applications like with Raspberry Pi and Arduino, is what you are thinking is they will code a digital version? If so, can you show us any example of what you think this would look like? With the widespread adoption of building out worlds on Decentraland names, I’m thinking it would be easy and a good idea to see a proof-of-concept before funding a project like this.

I feel like using a breadboard-style learning system might be educational, but how will that lead towards long-term growth for Decentraland? If we’re going to pay a student to build here, I would want it to be something that is going to be highly engaging and something that will push the platform forward. Can you help us understand this project better?

1 Like

Hello, thanks for the reply! The end goal of development is to produce something approaching a 3D implementation of Circuit Labs or Circuit.io, but limited to a breadboard. So, users would be placing wires and components on the board, toggling power, reading voltage at points, etc. With the environment being 3D, this would also provide a distinct advantage over the previously mentioned websites.

I can put a rough prototype/proof of concept together for this project by the end of the week (breadboard with wire connections) if that is something people want to see, but keep in mind that in this proposal’s orientation I won’t personally be developing this project. The student will be programming the majority of the project and I will simply be training them/reviewing the code (so the end result will significantly differ from the end result).

As for how this proposal will effect the long-term growth of Decentraland: opening up the possibility of hiring co-op students for educational development could greatly reduce the cost of labour when developing content. It would also help by adding more developers to the community’s talent pool. Right now the deliverables from the grant aren’t really trying to push any boundaries, just build up open-source educational content.

Now, there are also downsides to hiring students too: they need training/guidance and they are usually only available for 3 months of FT work (but can continue PT afterwards during school). This means they’ll work best when set to work on smaller projects or integrated into an already operational team. I’ve developed the grant with that in mind: gearing the project to be accessible to a wide student audience (any student between CompEng to CompSci would fit the bill) and be simple enough to complete successfully within the given work term.

Hopefully we can get more people in on the conversation too! To anyone reading: whether you agree or disagree with the idea/content, come leave your opinions: having a conversation around it and gaining some constructive feedback/seeing where the community stands would be a major a win!

@TheCryptoTrader69 while it unfortunately looks like this isn’t going to pass, I share you sentiment that working with students is a great way for metaverse projects to generate content at an affordable rate. i know you’ve been successful with some other projects in the past like your tower defense kit, maybe an angle here could be setting up a game jam with a university that would generate content from multiple students instead of just one? I know this a bit of a different under taking, but often colleges will do sponsored projects in or outside of class time. Perhaps we could take your tower defense kit and develop a small curriculum around it that it can be used to generate multiple scenes from students? Happy to discuss more with you about this prior to you resubmitting this grant or whatever your next steps are.

1 Like

Hey, thanks for the reply. It does look like the proposal isn’t going to get through. I’m only disappointed that there is not more discourse/feedback on it. It’s hard to know which components the community is against without that feedback (not even a single person has used the community sentiment feature/I’ve only had 3 people discuss the idea with me) and it practically makes it a waste of time to redraft this proposal (since I do not know what to change). It’s fine though, I really just wanted a conversation about the idea but I guess it isn’t really an idea the community is interested in.

Building a step-by-step course for on-boarding/students followed by a game jam could be interesting, but I’ll likely just stick to building-up/reinforcing developer resources so others can more easily use the platform. I know more than a few of the things from the awesome repository need to be updated/reworked for the new SDK (some very important things for landowners too, like the NFT-based access process). Game jams in the past have been a great boon b.c they result in a large number of open-source projects, so I’ll keep that in mind going forward!

Hey @TheCryptoTrader69 thanks for putting together this proposal. I voted to abstain because I’m not 100% sure I understand the model. While I think it’s a great idea to activate young people who are actively building education in this industry, I’m not sure I understand the “electronic components.” Can you provide more examples of how these can be used in Decentraland? I guess I’m just unfamiliar with how LEDs, capacitors, switches, and such :sweat_smile: Unless those are just arbitrary examples haha. I’m trying to wrap my head around it. Will these job boards be created by you or open to the community to vote on etc?

My second worry is that because it’s a college student they may not stick with it post-grant. For various reasons but I think the biggest risk is college students are still figuring out exactly what they want to do. The average student changes their major a few times throughout their college career so I fear that although this isn’t a lot of money, it could be something a student is looking to do just to make some money and pad their resume. Sorry if my perception of college students sounds bleak :rofl: , I just know how I was in college haha.

I do like the idea of getting involved with universities. I think the community is mostly against this because it’s something the vast majority of us are not educated on ourselves. So it sounds like it’s us that need educating before educating others :joy:. I do agree with you that it doesn’t mean we should automatically shut it down because of that but rather engage in conversations so we can all understand. Appreciate you looking for ways to attract more builders to the platform! We need them! :pray:

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Hello @NikkiFuego! While it is unlikely that the student themselves would stick with development within DCL (most co-ops occur between terms, capstones are usually exit-projects) we as a community would still have more educational content that can draw users to DCL. Actively hiring students and successfully conducting projects via co-op programs would help create cheaper content for Decentraland and create ties to these institutions. It would also help us identify and improve the platform’s on-boarding process. Later we could look at producing large capstone projects for students that could result in fully functional open-source games.

Currently there are very few 3D interact environments to learn about and actively experiment with complex concepts (like electronics). Decentraland’s 3D landscape is one of its best selling points and I feel if we generated more learning experiences we could pull in a large audience of people searching for education online. The electronics sandbox is just one example of the types of content that could be generated to populate DCL’s educational experiences (even basic things like games that teach typing skills are extremely popular with kids with very little gamification). Developing these experiences would also help with general discoverability of the platform, leading to more active users.

Even if the idea of interacting with educational institutions is daunting, it does feel like we should be trying to take every opportunity to get more developers, content, and perspective on the platform; this style of grant feels like a cheap’n’easy fit for that.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion :slight_smile:

1 Like

CO-OP: EDUCATIONAL ELECTRONICS SANDBOX

This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 1% 4,691 VP (13 votes)
  • No 89% 4,182,824 VP (87 votes)
  • Abstain 10% 502,583 VP (14 votes)