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By Youblob on
First off, some might ask: Why spend time creating "just another site" ?
My whole idea with this site is to bring hobby engineers and alike easier together, primarily to establish interaction with each other, and help each other become better in what they like to do.
For this I have added functions like Chat / Webinar / Project development / Events / Forum / The Oracle / Blogs and last but not least the Volunteer program.
And they are all provided free of use.
F.ex. everybody can become Project Lead, or host their own Webinar etc.
You are also able to put up local Events that occur in your city, or that you think others might like to know about.
When looking for particular stuff, or trying to keep updated on subjects. People tend to spend too much time searching for this information.
Too much information can sadly also become a barrier for new engineers trying to put up their first projects. So one of the future plans is also to integrate Learning plans on different subjects to the site.
An international community... Everyone can write in their own language if they prefer that. And also recieve help from others writing in a whole different language.
Chinese is one of the most used languages in the world, it would be silly not to include that. And the japanese are way ahead when it comes to robot technology.
Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, well most of the asian countries have very good engineers, even though they do not speak English. You get my drift.
Lastly, I have made this a commercial free site, I am so very tired of commercials. And I do not see the value in pushing unwanted information towards the users.
This site is all based on open source.
Many subjects... to many?
3D Printing, Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, CNC, Electronics, Geology, Programming, Robotics, Mechanical, Molding, Welding
No, I do not think it is to many, they are all interacting with each other one way or the other.
As the site becomes more functional and grows in users, I might add even more subjects.
But for now I believe these are the main subjects that needs to be covered.
It would be very exciting to see Biology projects combine with f.ex the 3D printing community.
(This has allready been done by the way, with producing artificial human 3d printed ear)
Or Geology project combining with Robotics.
Creating an unmanned Drone Scanner, which is one of my next projects I am part of :)
My future ToDo-list
The plan for the shop, is to be able to add every bits and bytes / tools / materials available out there, so that the user do not need to spend time (again) searching for what they need.
The shop will be integrated with a build generator. So f.ex you want to build a drone. You will automaticly get all the required parts needed for this build, which you then can tweak the way you want it, and also be able to share with others.
Integrate the user log on with all the extensions that will become / are available on this site. It is lame to have to log on several times :p
Create Learning plans on the different subjects, I might need help on this one. As it is quite time consuming...
I have some other plans too, but we will leave it at that for now.
Why Drupal was chosen:
Drupal was chosen because it is easy to work with, it has great community, and most importantly it is Open Source. I am so happy to have access to this tool, or else I would not be able to create this.
So, everyone reading this and have contributed to Drupal. Thank you!
Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome):
Goals
A community by Engineers, for Engineers
We believe that the information for hobby engineers are to widespread and needs a more consistent place to live and develop.
By combining useful tools based on open source to the user, so that interaction and development on heavier projects can go more smoothly.
It is something we hope schools and larger institutes also can make use of.
Instead of having to pay a lot for project development modules, and who knows what. We provide it for free.
Everyone gets to feel included, if you have made something good and other people likes your blog post (<100 thumbs up), it gets automaticly ported to the front page as a news item.
Oh, and we have Experience points. This was mainly added for fun to see how much contribution/effort and time you put in to the site. Every Roleplaying fan luvz XP.
Later we might add extra functions to the users XP, f.ex trade in for cheaper merchandise in the shop, tickets to events etc.
Outcome
I do not know yet, I believe the community will decide if it becomes a hit or not.
The hardest part, is to get the word out that a community like this exists. So please, if you think this is a good project, take 2 sec. and share it with your friends on Facebook and other social medias.
Technical specifications
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen:
Theme: Touch
There were done some minor changes to the theme, like darker text. As it was hard to read certain parts.
Chat / Webinar: Big Blue Button
I have not been able to implement this module towards the BBB that is running currently. So this is something that will come in the near future hopefully.
But we are running the BBB, so people can already host webinar, chat with other users and have conferences, share desktop etc.
Best Answer
This one is quite nice, instead of using the forum you can more easily post a quick question, and rate best answer based on all replies you get.
Module: Events
Events is something I had to have on the page.
It will be used to generate happenings around the world and be a tool for users to get together on happenings, tournaments etc.
Module: Open Media Crew Connect (om_crew_connect)
I only stumbled over this while browsing modules, and it is amazing. Just the kind of thing I wanted.
I have set it up so that you can join the Volunteer program, and be listed up when people are searching for specific people
Team members:
Project team:
Currently this have been a 1 man project. Created this in my spare time between ordinary work, and diaper changes... x_0
In the future I might need more help. My wife starting to think I spend too much time in front of the computer :p
Sectors:
Blogging
Education
Non-profit
Social Networking
Technology
Telecommunications
