First, I would like to extend my and my teams extreme gratitude to World Possible. The project I will layout below was not even on the radar, but I believe God had other plans for our groups mission. I am into amateur radio and started with the Raspberry PI for working digital modes. Once I saw the potential of the RPI, I started searching for EDU modules and after a week or two I came upon World Possible. My radio has been silent for a couple of months now. I have a Haitian college student here in the states for a couple of years and when he saw this system he shrugged it off , but once he really saw what it had to offer he was thrilled with a huge smile. Our communication with the Haitian team indicates that it will be well received.
The group I am working with will be installing the Rachel PI server using a 120Gb SSD along with another Raspberry PI file server with a 120Gb SSD for student files and miscellaneous documents on a Linksys router. The school does not have any power, so we will be installing a 400watt solar system with solar AGM batteries. We will have the ability to upgrade to 800 watts fairly easy for future growth. I will be sending 1 spare Raspberry 3B and a couple of Raspberry 3B+ spares along with several spare micro sd’s and a 1 to 2 USB duplicator that will write USB, SD, Micro and SSD’s. A couple of guys on the Haitian team are somewhat computer savvy so that’s helps with the maintenance and teaching process. We have read that the Rachel PI does have issues with micro sd failures and corruption, so we are using the Western Digital dual boot and booting from the 120Gb SSD. With folks on the ground and spare parts, we don’t anticipate much down time. Even if there is some downtime, it’s better than what they have now, which is very little. The US group plans to train and assist the Haitian members to build upon this concept and start some sort of small business for themselves. The Raspberry PI is the option of choice due to cost, low power requirements, free software and less prone to viruses and when adding the Rachel content it’s a big added bonus.
Thank you for this wonderful site and information !
I have returned from Haiti. We had a good trip. The school setup is mostly complete, with desk adjustments to be made after my next shipment of supplies is sent.
The SHOMI team met with the church and school board to provide an overview of what the plan is. Once the Raspberry PI’s and RACHEL were setup we brought 25ish 7-9th graders for training as well as most of the teachers. They are all pretty excited to have a class with so much information. The principal is very grateful that out of all the Haitian schools, we choose his to start with. The SHOMI team in Haiti were able to look more in depth at the RPI and at first they thought I was maybe joking that these little things were going to do what we said they were. After the training and letting them take the keyboard and mouse I started to see they were taking it more seriously. I know we will have some snags along the way, but hopefully with spare Microsd and SSD’s we can minimize the issues. The folks involved are very grateful to all that have poured into the RACHEL system. There is one 5th grade teacher that seems super excited to see more opportunities become available for both the students and teachers. So, at this time we have 12 RPI 3B+ for the students, 2 RPI 3B+ for the teachers, 1 RACHEL and (1 server to hold documents and to save work to later on when things settle down) connected to a Linksys router. All running off of solar panels and deep cycle batteries. The inline kill-a-watt meter registered 265 ish watts at 3.3amps AC.
Again, we thank all those involved for making these projects possible.
During my last trip to Haiti in August 2019, I was able to change the classroom setup to provide more space per computer. This also allowed space for 6 additional desktops. Each desk has a 6 port C4 Labs Bramble box in the center. I realized a couple days in, that my chairs were not at the school but had been stolen off the shipping container before it was to be released from the dock. Luckily, I found replacements that are much better that the originals.
Unfortunately, school is not in session yet and may not be until January due to the political unrest. The unrest opposition is stating that schools in session are in support of the government, so out of fear and safety, they remain closed. There are groups that can go in and use the class but not as a school function.
I am hoping to go back at the end of December, but the political unrest may prevent travel. I was hoping to spend time with a couple of the teachers that are really anxious to get into the class and learn more. I believe one of them is wanting to transition into running the class on the days the normal instructor is not onsite.
I am planning to visit Haiti for 3 days as of this coming Monday 21June2021. Do you have any schools I should contact? I will have 2 or 3 pi’s with me that I’m willing to leave there.
I don’t know of any specifically. We stay in Tabbarre and go to Croix de Bouquet.
There’s no shortage of schools there and that need help.
Please, be careful since there is a level 4 travel advisory.
