Eastern Bloc Hardware Marathon - Winter 2024
The Vanier-EasternBloc Hardware Marathon happened on February 24th 2024, on a sunny winter Saturday.
Eastern Bloc (EB) is an art-technology gallery and maker space based in the Chabanel neighborhood. In collaboration with Vanier FST & members of the FLOSS Club, EB invited Vanier students for a day of activities.
The day started with a little tour of the EB labs, with plenty of machines and tools to amaze any maker eyes: CNC, vinyl cutter, laser cutter, 3D printers, 3D scanner, heatpress, etc. Then we had a workshop on hardware inventory, getting ready to tackle the task of making an inventory of a pile of donated laptops, tablets and phones.
In exchange for the help, EB has offered a 3-month access to their labs and machines to volunteers, from March to May 2024. It was also a great opportunity for students to be exposed to a variety of hardware and learn about how to recognize and inventory those, as well as to collect STAR hours for those interested.
Registration
An online form was setup and we announced that we had a limited number of spots available. We were aiming to have max 15 people, including organizers, and we ended up with 14, amazing!!!
Total of 13 students had registered, with 3 cancellations prior to the event. On the day, among participants and organizers, we were 10 people working as technicians, plus 3 kids and 1 Eastern Bloc staff.
Participants
- 3 Computer Science and Technology (CST) students
- 2 CST graduates
- 2 Computer Science and Mathematics students
- 1 Accounting (Continuing Education) students
- 1 Pure and Applied Sciences student
- 1 Computer Science teacher
Workshop
The workshop and inventory were facilitated by Giuliana Bouzon and Anthony Nadeau, both Vanier alumni and members of the FLOSS club. The two of them have worked in computer retail companies, and have plenty of experience on recognizing tech goodies.
Hardware inventory
The very first step was to label machines with a sequential ID, and distribute piles of 5 machines per seat, so each participant had an initial target.
An online spreadsheet had been prepared to collect the following info: ID, Serial Number, Power Cable Included, Video Output, Number of USB Ports, Operating System, Processor (CPU), GPU name or Integrated, Memory (RAM), Storage Size, WiFi or Ethernet, Battery Functional (%), Technician, Comments.
Participants were instructed to follow a series of steps and/or commands, based on the operating system at hands. If no operating system could be booted, we had plenty of USBs with Debian live systems to boot from and retrieve the needed information. The spreadsheet was collaboratively filled, and at the end of the day we had an inventory with 64 machines.
Lunch
Lunch was provided by Vanier FST. Once more we had pizza, easy to handle dietary restrictions. A good addition this time is that we have ordered some desert to keep sugar a desired happy level 😉
Laptop Donation
As a thank you to our efforts in this marathon, EB donated 15 laptops to the FLOSS Club. After discussing what to do with these laptops, we came to the following ideas:
- 5 for donation (non-profit in India, possibly bring to DebConf if DDs from India accept to bring home)
- 3 for raffle (next rounds of Debian Usability Tests)
- 5 for Release Testing, Usability Testing, events & FLOSS club in general
- 2 for club members who contribute to FLOSS projects
These are just some ideas for the moment, and nothing is final.
Below are the assortment of laptops that we received, with models and labels (identification number we used for each one during the inventory marathon).
- L430 Laptop (ThinkPad) - Type 2465: 1, 10, 25, 26, 41, 45, 56, 62, 63
- T420 Laptop (ThinkPad) - Type 4180: 5, 28, 29, 31
- T420 Laptop (ThinkPad) - Type 4236: 35
- Dell Latitude E5440: 36
More information about these laptops can be found here: Laptop Inventory
Testimonials
What did you learn? Did you have fun? How was the logistics (e.g. food)?
ADD YOUR COMMENT HERE
Group photo
Lessons for future events
(add here what you think could go better the next time...)
Orga Team: Vanier FLOSS Club
- Anthony Nadeau
- Giuliana Bouzon
- Tassia Araujo
- Justin Bax
Acknowledgement
This event would not be possible without the support and participation of many, so many thanks to...
- Eastern Bloc for hosting us
- Faculty of Science and Technology for providing lunch
- All participants for coming on a sunny Saturday
- FLOSS Day orga team for the day 😉