Building a Server Box

Today I had arranged with James to meet a carpenter and work with him to build our server box. I have a good general knowledge of carpentry and had designed what I wanted to make but I have no tools here, don’t know where a lumber mill is, and don’t know where a hardware store is for the necessary hinges. When I arrived at the carpenters (8am I might add) we walked two blocks to a lumber yard tucked away in an alley. Two (roughly) 12’ pieces of hardwood one foot wide each ran about $10 but it looked like the wood had been tortured before being stacked for sale. I saw three of what would be the only power tools here but the planer did not seem to smoothly plane the surface and the tablesaw cut crooked edges on the already warping boards.



We walked the boards back to his shop and I realized this was about to get real. All of the tools and workbench were before me and the tools that I would use to get the job done in the USA were nowhere to be found. The carpenter started marking boards and making cuts according to my specifications and quickly grabbed the wood plane to begin reshaping the boards into flat, smooth surfaces with 90 degree corners. I watched and tried to learn as much as I could.



The first challenge which I had never undertaken was to join two panels of wood to make panels wide enough for the sides. The carpenter was methodical and precise with everything he did and before long there were two panels which are at first glance, one board.



After walking to the market to purchase hinges, latches, locks and screws we continued work. The backing on the box was misunderstood and therefore the shelves were too long so we needed to fix their lengths to fit the box. I thought I had seen a fair amount of how to use the plane and set to work.



Now, I’m from the technology age and I’ve really only used power tools for my projects. I started by cutting the board with a handsaw (which was dull and further complicated the matter) and it did not end straight when the carpenter had showed countless perfect cuts. I grabbed the plane and set about squaring the corners and shaping a straight edge. The planer took more skill and practice than any tool I have ever tried to work with; however, I got the edges straight enough for my purposes with this box (the carpenter brought them up to his standards).





After nine total hours of work we finished the box for just under $35 and we paid nearly double what he quoted for the project because of the outstanding workmanship. This box is incredibly sturdy and I realized how few tools that I actually need but want to get a small chisel set with my next project. I have learned a lot today and can’t wait to apply it to another project at home.

TiA

Today we were scheduled to visit several schools throughout Rwanda and teach teachers how to use Scratch (an animation/math/programming application). The day did not go as planned; This is Africa (TiA) as we have learned to call it.

At 4:45am we awoke from our night at the Casino and headed down to the bus which was expected to arrive at 5:35 for our breakfast at the Hilltop Hotel. Our busses were expected to leave for our school sites at 6:30. 5:35 came and went… 5:45… 6:00… 6:15… 6:30… 6:40 the bus comes to take us to Hilltop and we are almost expecting our busses to have left by now. We sat down and ate while we waited for the busses to get ready to leave, they still weren’t ready to go to the sites. Our sheet said we would leave for the site at 6:30 and arrive at 8. We left at 6:50 and arrived at 7. WHAT???

Children begin bringing in desks to prepare our room and about 8am teachers start arriving. The morning was incredibly slow as the teachers had not touched an XO before (or even a computer) and Scratch is a very advanced program. We spent three full hours grinding away before we started to make any progress and broke for lunch at noon. We had two hours for lunch as everyone goes home and we walked to our contact’s house nearby to wait for the food which was late and was expected to arrive at noon. 12:15… 12:30… 12:45… 1:00… 1:15… 1:30… This entire time the company is telling us 5 more minutes every five minutes we call. Our OLPC contacts finally give up and go out and buy us lunch which arrives at 1:45. We eat and head back to school to see our food arriving at 2; TiA.

All of the teachers are arriving at this point and the food at the same time just creates confusion. The delivery company won’t leave until we drink all the sodas because they need to return the glass bottles so we give what’s left away to the teachers. At about 2:40 we can finally start on the second half of the day and the teachers ask to review other applications. We introduced Record (the camera program), Write, Paint and a few others and this part went really well. Teachers were trying new things and teaching each other as they learned.

Throughout the day as we saw kids I was snapping pictures of them and they LOVE to see their pictures. Justin, a kid from the University of Minnesota deploying in Senegal, took a picture of about 30 kids and knelt down to show them and he got swarmed. I have a picture of him in the center of a million heads. On Monday we will be working with 5th grade kids handing out laptops and it should make for a lot more good pictures.

TiA
-XO Mike