Three international students will spend the summer coding for our open source projects. Through Google Summer of Code (GSoC), they’ll earn stipends from Google, plus get a coveted GSoC t-shirt and certificate.

Expansion of SPARKS HTML5 circuit simulator

Our HTML5 breadboard simulator allows students to experiment with basic DC and AC circuits using linear components (resistors, capacitors, inductors) and to perform measurements with a function generator, a digital multimeter and an oscilloscope.

Sabareesh Nikhil C, from Hyderabad, India, will extend our existing circuit-solving code to handle non-linear components such as diodes, op amps and transistors. Instead of treating each circuit as a lumped impedance and computing its response to a single frequency, the new code will perform a more realistic time-based computation, which will enable it to model the behavior of more complex circuits. Sabareesh also plans to implement a communication protocol that will enable circuits on different computers to communicate with each other.

Sabareesh will work with Concord Consortium mentors Paul Horwitz, Sam Fentress and Richard Klancer.

Probe your browser!

Science classrooms use probes and sensors to enable real-time data collection by students. Currently we use Java applets to support communication between sensors and web-based applications in the browser. Increasingly limited support for Java is making it difficult to integrate probes and sensors that use Java software for use in the classroom.

Lingliang Zhang from New York, NY, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will design a native application for desktops, which will make the data from probes and sensor hardware available to our browser-based JavaScript applications. The native application will use an embedded webserver to connect to our existing sensor library. This approach will enable browsers on desktops and laptops to use our currently supported Pasco and Vernier sensor devices without a Java applet.

He will work under the mentorship of our Senior Software Engineer Scott Cytacki.

Port HTML5 interactives to phones and tablets

Our HTML5 interactives are rendered using a semantic layout system. With a modified UI, they could work on phones, allowing students to interact with them on multiple devices. Additionally, with an iOS and Android application created using Cordova, users could install the interactives and use them offline. This app could also allow parts of the engine behind the interactives to run natively in order to get better performance on these devices.

Apoorv Narang from New Delhi, India, will measure performance on various devices to determine which of our HTML5 interactives can be run on these devices. He will improve our lab framework, which is the system that displays and runs interactives, with the goal of making our interactives look—and run!—better on phones.

Director of Technology Stephen Bannasch will mentor Apoorv.

***

During summer 2012, we were fortunate to have two fabulous GSoC students, including Piotr Janik, who continues coding for us as a consultant. Watch Piotr describe his experience with Google Summer of Code.

We can’t wait to see the code that our three new GSoC students will develop this summer!