TerraSwarm Test Bed Workshop Produces First Generation SwarmBox

The TerraSwarm Test Bed Workshop, held in the Swarm Lab and Invention Lab at UC Berkeley on Friday, January 16 and Saturday, January 17, attracted 35 participants from UC Berkeley, UCSD, UIUC, UMich, CMU and industry.  The goal of the two-day hands-on workshop was to design and build the first generation of Swarm Box hardware, software, assessors and apps.  Outcomes included designing and laser-cutting the mounting boards, and the building of one complete SwarmBox. Ubuntu Studio was selected as the operating system to use for the first generation SwarmBoxes since it supports the required networking interfaces such as 1588.  During the meeting, a number of details were discussed and documented on the Test Bed wiki.  Future plans including completing the first set of 20 SwarmBoxes and distributing them to member universities.  Discussion about design and implementation details is continuing on the testbeds mailing list, which is open to all TerraSwarm members. For instructions about getting on the mailing list, go to http://www.terraswarm.org/testbeds/.