How I envisage myself with the CoderDojoMobile
I travel a fair bit around Ireland now, CoderDojos are springing up around the country (~20 in Ireland and more worldwide), I goto new Dojos opening, recently opened CoderDojos, meet and talk to people who want to start a Dojo or visit various Dojos every week, plus I often goto meetings or events relating to CoderDojo. Trains are expensive (Cork – Dublin return €79 [Student card expired  ]) and buses suck (crazy long and uncomfortable), plus that can be only half the battle for more remote places (It was an array of transport when we set up on Arranmore). I also get given swag to give to Dojos and I’m looking into create kits of resources to give to Dojos for special sessions. Driving in many cases would make me get places faster, get to more places, be cheaper (with car pooling), be easier to transport stuff and generally make life easier.
So TL;DR travelling a lot in Ireland, a car would rock! |
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I want to make the CoderDojoMobile (think BatMobile, but awesomer). I have a couple of ideas for it to make it awesome, obviously the core of it is the actual car itself. Everything else is extra, but why ‘sup up a car’? Make the it look cool and be awesome, make it recognisable, have some memorable hacks and features.
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So thats what is in my crazy head.
So where am I with it? Well currently I’m on my provisional, I’m getting one of them fancy letters saying I need it for work to the motor office to get a test in a couple of weeks, I believe I’m getting my older sister’s baby blue Peugeot 206 and my mother said she’d put it in her name and insure me on it. So thats in action and if all goes to plan, setup wise, I’m thinking/fantasising about the follow.
Car styling
Tech – Hardware
Tech – Software
- Ubuntu for onboard computer (control sound, see info, get notifications, push realtime info to site, etc)
- GitHub repo – keep car info, progress, set up and hacks here; Flag issues in, well, issues
- Use Avego for ride sharing
- Website with usage data, ride share info, contributes page, check ins and more
Additional info
- Post upcoming trips and ride share opportunities through twitter
- twitter/github sign in for people who ride share
- Get someone who knows car electronics and such to triple check everything
- Mobile hotspot (CoderDojo Galtee mountains?!?)
- Do cool projects like visual wifi networks on routes I drive (based on idea by @MarcosEQ)
So these are just a few ideas I have. I realise the cost and work that is required, to pull this off, its gonna cost around €10,000, I’ll hustle and try get that down and try get help for fittings, spraying etc. Also that some of the things in here are nice and may be deemed extravagant for their nature of not being a core requirement, plus that and my income is currently not enough to make this a tangible idea and I don’t look like a idiot for going out, spending money and making up a nice car, but these are my thoughts and ramblings and this is something I’m going to look into further. I am open and considering any person/company wanting to help making this a reality, having their info up on the site and having a decal of their logo on the car side, if their brand is associated with connecting people and reaching, given the distance and places I’ll be racking up, it’d be a perfect match. Anyway this was what was in my head tonight and hey look, I made a blog post!
Update: Thinking of nailing down all the metrics (cost, build time, etc), doing some sweet ass visualisations, a video and throwing it up on Kickstarter, with pledges:
- €10+ getting their name on the site
- €100+ getting their name or logo written on the interior of the car (door panel?) + no.1
- €500+ getting their logo on the rear bumper + no.1 & no.2 (10 of these spots?)
- €1000+ getting their logo on the side of the car (foot sized) + above (5 of these spots)
- €2500+ getting their logo on side of car (large) + above (3 of these spots)
Another logo place is ontop of the car (make your brand famous in case I get in a televised high-speed chase with cops) as suggested by
@rioter.Obviously names or logos who have to PC, still toying with the idea! I’d probably pitch it first to a few of the bigger companies like Google, GitHub, Facebook, Microsoft or such first for the no.4 & no.5 options. Again, I may be crazy. Excess funds would go into petrol money or something, I could foresee some hiccup or something unseen arising that needs money (some wiring or something needed to be done by a pro).
