Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Engineering service learning can take part in any community, but some of the most ex-
citing programs happen overseas. Programs such as the Kefalonia Program in Sustainable
Community Development (Zaferatos, 2007) should be viewed as the ideal because not
only do they offer students rich learning opportunities, but they also directly partner with
developing communities and take students overseas to implement service learning pro-
jects. Although they are successful and useful, these programs lack the potential of univer-
sal replication. It is simply cost prohibitive to have students constantly traveling in large
numbers for a single course in developing appropriate technologies for those most in need
of those technologies in the developing world. This is where open source hardware teach-
ing pedagogy becomes extremely powerful. It provides a form of
virtual service learning
because it enables students to work on service learning projects at their home institutions
and then scale their solutions to the technical problems over the entire world.
By using service learning in place of more conventional classroom based projects, stu-
dents are more motivated, work harder, learn more, and are left with lasting benefits from
their experience
(Cohen and Kinsey, 1994; Giles and Eyler, 1994; Pearce 2001, 2009;
Pearce and Russill, 2003, 2005). In particular, I have observed that when students are fo-
cused on open source appropriate technology projects for sustainable development, they
are highly engaged and motivated (Pearce, 2007a; 2007b; 2009). Similar to the open
source hardware research just described,
Appropedia.org
can be used as a platform for
service learning with open source hardware.
Virtual Service Learning Developing OSHW
Itshouldbecleartoanyacademic withteachingexperience inengineeringthatopensource
hardware design can be brought into the curriculum for their classes. For example, electric-
al engineering professors can assign projects based on the open source Arduino microcon-
troller and have their students post new designs online. Similarly, mechanical engineering
anddesign professors could, forexample, have their students posttheir CAD/CAM designs
in 3D design repositories with open licenses. All of the normally closed projects, whether
back of the topic or industry sponsored, can be ported into the open source realm. Doing
so actually provides more flexibility, so that students can benefit from the increased mo-
tivation associated with service learning and professors are better able to tailor the class
projects to the curriculum.
This combination works great for engineering professors, but what if the professor is
teaching less applied work, such as in the sciences? This use of OSHW in the classroom
can also be accomplished with relatively minor adjustments to the class.
As a professor teaching physics, I had great success using open source hardware pro-
jects in the classroom, which would be classified as
open source appropriate technology
