Ubuntu project for youngsters during the summer

[Rich1954]

Hi

Hope this is a appropriate forum.


I am a volunteer at a charity for young people in the UK.
I am thinking of holding a workshop type events day for some youngsters during the summer. What I intend to do is get some old desk top computers donated to us, and wipe the hard drive. I will then get the kids to load a version of Ubuntu and then do something useful with it. This could be intro to Python, or editing a photo in Gimp.


My questions are:
Has anyone any experience of a similar project; What did you do?
What distro do people think would be the best, or should I use a variety?
Anyone got ideas of a fun project for Python?


I hope this is the correct forum for this type of question. My experience is I can set up Ubuntu, and use it fairly fluently, but not an expert. I would expect about 4 or 5 self referred youngsters.


Regards


Rich

[mJayk]

You could do something along the lines of get them to choose what they want the pc to be for and have a set number of options like:
Photo editing
Media machine
Gaming machine
Office etc etc

Then get the to configure the ubuntu install how they like for their given choice.

I.e. like configure the desktop choose the best desktop for an office machine might be KDE with the folder window view on the home screen setting up scripts to create links and conky stuff

Just an idea.

[ibjsb4]

As a grand dad I find that the kids like to be free to collaborate among themselves and choose there own course.

If your donations are able to run 12o4 there is Edubuntu. The requirements say 512M of ram, but 1G is much better/faster.

http://www.edubuntu.org/about

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements

Good luck :)

[MainframeGuy]

Perhaps make the Edubuntu boxen dual boot with whichever OS these machines already come with rather than just wiping the drive. I have found plenty of cases where my daughter required access to M$ wares in order to complete homework assignments

[Rich1954]

Thanks to all who replied.

Edubuntu seems a good idea, I'll try it out first.
Not so sure about making the boxes dual boot, as one of the assurances I will give the donors of the computers is that the disk will be wiped.
Hadn't thought of making a gaming machine. Anyone any ideas?
I'm not sure whether internet access will be available. That's why I stuck with Python and Gimp based projects. Could go into spreadsheets and databases as well ... hmmmm!

This project is planned as a one off at the moment. Have to see if anything come of it as a permanent facility.

Again many thanks

Regards

Rich