I would like to share a project I am currently working on (contract based), and discuss few possibilities how we can bridge what's already going to be deployed with possible expansion as a marketing platform for Boinc and GridCoins as well, with many other benefits in both directions.
In short, the project goal is to cover some public places such as buss stations and parks with free internet access, especially these with limited connectivity.
After tons of testing, various solutions, way too many cigarettes and empty Coca-Cola bottles, I decided to go with RaspberryPi and thrown away idea of Mikrotik due to limited kernel level access.
Why?
RP Model 3B seems to be powerful enough to support this project with only 2 out of 4 cores available. That means, each repeater / AP could easy host some very minimal Boinc work, but as well as full node. Of-course, nice will take care of giving the priority to repeater and AP daemon, but it leaves more then enough, of otherwise spare computing resources to support our initiative.
This helps current project as well
Executed at the level of single city, if proven well, could be easy deployed based on case study in every major city. What's more important, the initial project has a great benefit, not only with free internet access, but supporting science and sustainable environment and green energy.
How you can get involved?
- Do you have an Idea about a sticker design, we can put on each of these devices. (they will be in round metal boxes). I will need a GridCoin / Boinc Logo with a short "catchy" line. Something like "Green Certificate" with "learn more when you sign in".
- Would you like to propose the same at the level of your city, school, institution or even a street? Let's get in touch, I will help you build repeaters and AP's as well as host nodes. It's plug and play.
- Anything else that can make this better, go ahead.
The welcome page when someone logins would be: "This free internet access is sponsored by the city and GridCoin Community" If you would like to learn more and get involved, click here.
At the moment, as I am getting ready to put the first devices into production, it would be very helpful if someone of designers here could make a nice sticker that I could physically print on each device in order to maximize marketing potential.
The project is currently performed at the city of Belgrade, but I look forward to support with our case-study and know-how anyone who want's to implement the same on the level of city, school or even a pub.
My main assistant decided to get some sleep, so I count on you guys :)
Now going to have some sleep too, looking forward for your opinions. And just for an update of previous project, I plan to put GRC online / android wallet from test-net into full production by the end of the next week.
Thanks,
S
Hey @crt - happy to knock up a sticker design for you. If you have any dimensions, sketches, colour ideas or otherwise please feel free to share them and I'll come up with something appropriate.
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Hey @joshoeah that would be very helpful. When it comes to design, I think I 'missed few classes', so it's best that I don't design anything visually :) Here are the dimensions along with surface areas we can use. The one without screws is going to be visible. I was thinking of blue GreedCoin Logo sticker, with something catchy like " Support science" but you'll probably come up with something better.
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Put this together quickly this evening while I had some free time -what do you think? Very easy to change the associated text if required :) let me know your thoughts!
Free Wifi node sticker design
The final sticker, with rounded corners, would measure 87mm x 62mm - this puts it 2.5mm smaller than the top side of the case on each side to avoid the bevelled corners.
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O Yeah!!! That's perfectly it! Could not ask for better, what a job!
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No worries :) let me know when you've found a sticker supplier and I'll drop the print-ready files over to you! If you need any amendments to size, shape or style do let me know - I'm always available in the Team Gridcoin Slack as well, if you're on there?
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Hey @joshoeah, I would not change a thing on the current version, this one looks highly professional and appealing to eye. The local print supplier would need it in CMYK mode. If you can drop me print-ready or sources (i'll convert or send them originals) that would be great. I'm also on Slack, same handle as here. Really great work!
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Great! I'll come up with something for you :) shall post it here later on this evening
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Careful with nice priority. If you are running systemd it will most likely be ignored, because cgroups have higher say then nice. Use CPUShares or similar, see systemd.resource-control
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Thanks @tomasbrod will have that in mind. At the moment, this would be probably solved by allocating single core, which is enough to run single boinc task, and never consume more then 25% of total CPU (4 cores in total).
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If you are going to deploy this in mass, have a look at mesh networking programs. They can take care of your logical network topology and, as a bonus, become part of something great and open.
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Thanks @tomasbrod, one of project requirements already have such request, since this project is already done in coordination with city representative and a sponsored mobile operator, there are many other aspects and requirements, such as Push notification of buss arrival among many. I am trying to bridge Boinc/Gridcoin as one of the things on my own initiative by convincing them it's good marketing for them as well. Shall this happen to be a good job, we should definitely consider doing this on our own as a way to popularize Boinc and GridCoin. I expect this to result in case-study we can build our own free internet access in cities.
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In that case, do not take my pointer to mesh software. Stick to something that works so you won't get fired.
Push notification to bus arrival? I usually see the bus when waiting on the stop and if I am not on the stop, it is already too late.
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The current solution is relatively bad. You need to text to a short code with line number and your station number to get the status of your line. This will solve the problem of traffic jam related issues, that are common causes of buss delays. The service will inform the approximate number of minutes you need to wait.
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Hey @crt,
first of all: great post and project! If you run BOINC on a Raspy, you might consider a tiny heatsink. My Raspy 2 running 100% BOINC reaches 56°C with heatsink already attached, I am not quite sure how well the ARM processors can handle heat! :)
Your "click here" does not work, maybe you could have a look? I would be interested on further reading about the project!
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Hey @dysprosium, are you using any sort of heatsink? Notice the two of them I am using on picture. I tested for a week, with 4 cores (100%) utilization, no troubles so far. As for the read more, it was related to what will be served once user logins and will lead to gridcoin.us
Do you think i should go with better solution when it comes to heat? Also note, most of the devices will be placed outdoor.
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I know summers in Belgrad might get very hot, especially when the Raspy will be placed in a sunny but station. How do you take care of that?
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Its possible to set temp_limit in the boot file, that should throttle the CPU down
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makes sense, will look into it as possible solution, rather then writing kind of watchdog script.
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Its actually at:
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Something like this should be safe enough in your opinion? I found this value is set to 85 if omitted.
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Yeah 50 is quite low, mine is 80 on my Pi3, check to see if it throttles the cpu, you can use
and
To see how your temps / cpu clock is working
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I hate those wifi "guest pages" that hijack your dns/http. It once downloaded that welcome page as package update and messed up my package manager. But I understand that those are required for legal things.
To the heat issue: is it necessary to cool that second smaller chip? It is only ethernet + usb adapter.
Also when crunching with, the SD-Card might wear out sooner. Consider tuning, boinc or the filesystem parameters to reduce writes. sysctl vm.block_dump might provide information on what is causing writes to the storage.
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Agree about guest pages, (as long they don't require installing self signed certificates that are later used for https inspection) - happened to me once in a nice hotel doing not so nice things. But as you said, this will be a simple disclaimer and an opportunity for user to known more about "City & GridCoin Sponsored Wifi", which could be a good read while waiting for a buss.
As for the cooling, I was unsure at the moment of order. But since the LAN chip is going to be active all the time - connected to Raven Airlink Device via ethernet, i was thinking it's a good idea. Anyhow, it should not hurt.
SD-Card issue, good point, I did not think about that. Will test it under heavy load and try to calculate how much it could be expected in terms of durability.
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Great project!
Not good enough, but here are some ideas for a 'round' sticker. although it seems box has rounded corners only... Beware - Apple does have a patent for rounded corners! :)
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Green WiFi!!!! That's it! This made me think of even a shorter alternative of "GreenFi Initiative". Way to go @hotbit! Thanks for a great contribution.
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How wow this is very interesting, thanks for sharing!
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crt!! Thank you, your Post.
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How are you protecting the Pi's from the elements being outside? Are they going to be connected to a business's internet and distributing WiFi from that?
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The solution I decided to go with is AirLink Raven XE via ethernet port. It's industrial grade, so far looks like a good choice.
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