Adventures in RetroPie

One of my goals with Raspberry Pi was to turn it into a vintage gaming console like the video above. I tend to be seduced pretty quickly by cheap ways of using interesting technology. The video can be found with more detailed written instructions on Lifehacker.com. Unfortunately, for the total noob like me, there are lot of little steps a long the way that made this "easy" project take way longer than prescribed.

Step One required me to download and install RetroPie on a SD card. RetroPie is the software that allows the Raspberry Pi to be used as a multi-platform vintage gaming console. The installation was not a simple drag and drop action. Lifehacker suggested using RasPi SD Card Builder for the Mac. One tutorial noted that Card Builder caused problems for some people. I, of course, am some people.

RasPi SD Card Builder seemed to stall about 3/4 of the way through the process. I made multiple attempts. A couple of times I received the error below.

Noob that I am, I wasn't sure  how to fix the problem. A couple tutorials suggested beginning a Terminal session on my Mac to build the SD card. However, they also mentioned being EXTREMELY careful. Entering the wrong syntax could cause major corruption to my Mac if I did things wrong. I really didn't want to cause total system failure just so I could play Super Mario Brothers and Excitebike.

Against, my better judgement, I began a Terminal session. I was very careful and followed the instructions from Tuts+ for flashing an SD card from Terminal. It really wasn't difficult, but the looming threat of a corrupt Mac had me worried. For the next 20 or so minutes, I starred at the window below.

In Terminal, there is no status bar. No blinking cursor. No spinning wheel. Nothing. You just wait. And hope that something is happening. And hopefully that something, isn't completely catastrophic to your hard drive. Multiple tutorials for RasPi setups use the phrase "this may take a few minutes, be patient". Unfortunately, "a few minutes" is really vague. Sometimes it means 2-3 minutes. Other times, it means more like 20. For flashing this particular image, it meant 45 minutes. By the time it was done, I was ready for bed.

The next morning I attempted Step Two and booting RasPi to boot up Emulation Station. Emulation Station is like an OS that manages multiple vintage gaming console emulators. You can load NES, SNES, Sega, Atari, and several other systems and play any ROMS (games) that you may have. Step two is not particularly difficult, other than setting up your "Internationalisation Options". Setting up your keyboard properly is essential to making things work. My Apple keyboard proved to be a little troublesome at first. But with some tweaks, I think I figured it out.

After another reboot, I had to set-up my controller for Emulation Station. I was using a  USB SNES controller from Amazon. To be honest, I didn't really know what I was doing in this step. I was just blindly following instructions. Things seemed to be working right. But after spending several hours just trying to flash the SD card, I was happy to just see RetroPie booting. I semi-successfully set up the controller for Emulation Station, but something was wonky. I didn't feel like I had full control of what I was doing. The buttons on the controller didn't seem to be acting the way I thought they should. I soldiered on.

Step Three required me to configure my controller for the emulators. This is a separate step than configuring the controller for Emulation Station. Remember, Emulation Station is like the OS. The emulators themselves (NES, SNES, Atari, Sega, etc) are more like the apps. Emulation Station and the Emulators have their own sets of configuration. I had to go back into command line and tap each button on my controller (up, down, left, right, a, b, x, y, l, r) when prompted. It wasn't difficult, but it took a couple tries.

Step Four was where things started getting real. I had a few ROMS that I had played on my Mac. Super Mario Brothers, Excitebike, RC ProAm, Blades of Steel, Contra, and NHL 95. In Step Four, I needed to load them on my RasPi. Lifehacker recommended CyberDuck for transferring files from my Mac to the RasPi. I downloaded CyberDuck, connected RasPi to my router via Ethernet and realized that I no idea how to find the IP address of my RasPi. Using "ifconfig" in command line, I learned how to find it, thanks to this link. (fwiw, i could never have done any of this without google) I connected to RasPi and eventually transferred my ROMs.

I rebooted to happily discover NES and Sega appearing in Emulation Station. Yay! I attempted to navigate to my games using my controller with little success. Something wasn't working right. I kept getting lead into a menu screen with options that weren't mentioned in my tutorial. I kept tapping buttons until finally I managed to reach the opening screen of Super Mario Brothers. Success! Kinda. 

The game itself worked flawlessly. I was jumping, busting bricks and collecting coins like it was the late 80s. Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to exit the game. My Apple keyboard was unresponsive as I tapped F4 and ESC. I couldn't even get back to command line. Frustrated, the only way to end a game was to reboot by pulling the power cord. This is not good practice with RasPi or any computer.

I ended up reconfiguring the keyboard settings a little to provide myself an exit from the game and Emulation Station. However, I feel like I should be able navigate and control the entire console from the controller.

Now it is probably worth mentioning that I attempted this project using a 25+ year old 13" composite TV. I do not recommend this! Composite TVs crop to much navigation from the top and bottom of the screen in both Emulation Station and Raspian. Raspian is unreadable on a composite. HD is essential. I later connected the RasPi to my 40" HDTV and was amazed to discover an entire menu at the bottom of Emulation Station that had been obscured by the cropping of my composite. My controller suddenly didn't seem so wonky.

While this project was not a gigantic undertaking, I really don't know how comfortable I am putting something like this in front of my K-4 students. While many of them have surprised me, the need for Terminal sessions seems a little too advanced. I have two RasPi  for my classroom this year. I thought I had an idea of what I'd like to do with them. Now, I'm not so sure.

Reflecting on ISTE 2014

Saturday
As a veteran of a large multi-day music festival like Bonnaroo, I can honestly say that the ISTE conference is comparable in size and scope to Bonnaroo. It is overwhelming on every level for anyone that has not attended. With over 1500 speakers, exhibits and events, it was difficult to figure out where to start. Strategy and pace are essential to getting the most out of the experience.

I arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday hoping to get a feel for the Georgia World Congress Center. I  also wanted to hear the opening keynote address from Ashley Judd. There was a lot of confusion and congestion around the escalators, but after entering the keynote hall it became clear just how big this convention was. There were 14,000 people gathered for the opening address. A live jazz band from New Orleans created a uptempo vibe that made the whole thing feel more like a party than a convention. Enormous projection screens flanked either side of the stage to give everyone a clear view of the evening's speakers. Ashley Judd's keynote, while heartfelt, seemed slightly off topic at several points. Following the keynote, I wandered Building B to get familiar with the meeting rooms and got a sneak peak of the Expo Hall. I decided to make it an early night, so that I could be prepared for the next day.

Sunday
I spent over two hours wandering the rows of the Expo Hall on Sunday morning. I narrowed my focus to vendors that offered robots, gameification, 3D printing, programming, iPad resources and anything associated with the Maker Movement. Highlights included GameStar Mechanic, LightCube, Hummingbird, Autodesk, Makerbot, Next Engine, Griffin, 2Simple, and Filament Learning. Of course, companies like Google, Samsung, Scholastic, Edmodo, Pearson, Panasonic were also present. I was more interested in finding smaller companies and products that I hadn't heard of before.

I don't know if wandering the Expo Hall for two hours was the best strategy to start my day because my head was spinning from sensory overload by 11:30 AM. However, I'm not sure if I can imagine trying to see everything after spending a morning in sessions either. I tweeted "EdTech vendors as far as the eye can see".

In the gigantic glass and concrete "hallway" of Building B, there were two Playgrounds set up with mini-sessions and hands-on demos for different themes. Little Learners, technologies, and big learning was set up on level 3. I had the opportunity to play with two different robots Play-i and KinderLab Robotics. The Play-i robots (Bo and Yana) featured iOS and Android based programming tools to control the robot. While I was familiar with Play-i, it was great to see a prototype in action. Bo and Yana will begin shipping in the fall. I was more encouraged by their development of a tablet based simulator. Play-I's apps will be free. Even if classrooms or students don't own a Bo or Yana, they can practice programming in the simulator on their tablet device. There may also be the ability to store code in a cloud.

KinderLab Robotic's Kibo, takes a different approach. Kibo is programmed by linking wooden blocks together that have scannable barcodes. Users then take Kibo's barcode reader and scan each block in sequence to execute a specific command. Kibo seems very Pre-K and kindergarten friendly.

Next I attended Full STEAM Ahead, Cultivating connections with the Arts with Kyle Pace and Michelle Baldwin. This well attended session focussed on integrating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) with traditional and arts classrooms. The session emphasized that all students are creative but in different ways. STEAM education, when done correctly, gives every student voice and choice. A highlight of the session was the creation of a selfie that integrated math, pattern, shadow, and reflection. My collaborative project is below.

Coding for the Future: Engaging student interest in Programming was the first and only session of which I shut out. Many sessions at ISTE are ticketed by preregistration. Otherwise, you have to wait in the stand-by line. I lined up 20 minutes early and still got shut out. Needless to say, CODING IS HOT!

I wandered back the Murphy Ballroom to see the father of the flipped classroom, John Bergmann present Flip your Classroom: The Intersection of Content, Curiosity, and Relationships. While I've been quite familiar with flipped classroom, I haven't entirely implemented it into my own class. I tweeted my key takeaway, "If you can be replaced by a YouTube video, you should be".

My last stop of the day was in the Murphy Ballroom Galleria to visit the American School of Bombay's poster session on Designing your Makerspace. I shared my teaching situation with Karishma Galani who then spent the next ten minutes talking to me about strategies for moving forward with my own classroom. Their session also gave away copies of Future Forwards: Exploring Frontiers in Education.

By 6 PM, it was time to call it a day. I had an even busier day scheduled for Monday.

Monday
The Monday morning Playground featured Build Your World: Makerspace at the Mobile Learning Playground. I listened and met with Trish Cloud who was doing amazing things with Minecraft Pocket Edition and her elementary school students. I watched a MakerBot Replicator 2 3D printer in action, played with Bee-Bot and spent some more time learning about the application of Augmented Reality to the classroom.

My first session of the day was called Thousands of Tiny Robots which featured ModRobotic's cube shaped robots called Cubelets. These simple building blocks give young students the opportunity to explore robotics without coding. What I appreciated about this session was their focus on educational benefit of teaching robotics. Specifically, they addressed issues like scientific method, computational thinking, design thinking and life science.

Josh Caldwell immediately followed with an incredible presentation on the application of Arduino to his middle school technology classroom. I've been reluctant to get involved with Arduino because it seemed too advanced for my K-4 students. However, Caldwell's expert knowledge of this technology showed me otherwise. Arduino is an essential physical computing tool.

Back in the Murphy Ballroom Galleria, I met Christopher Michaud who was presenting the Georgia Tech developed Earsketch. This web-based audio production tool gives users the ability to produce a song by using Python to code each instrument and track. It seemed like a very musically engaging way to learn Python. Michaud explained that he had taught Earsketch to students as young as 3rd grade.

In the Murphy Ballroom, I had my first experience with Google Glass. This technology is not something that seemed to have much application to my professional or personal life. However, after watching Christine DePaulo and Christian Penny's presentation, I started to think differently. I even had the opportunity to try a set on. I took a picture and a 10 second video. Unfortunately, the $1500 price tag will probably keep Google Glass out of my reach for a while.

I headed over to the Sidney Marcus Auditorium next and was disappointed to find out that I missed Make Magazine founder Dale Dougherty. However, I did catch Guy Hoffman's EdTekTalk about the humanity of robots. Hoffman explores robotic body language to promote creativity in humans. His work has even been featured comedically on the Colbert Report. He shared a great article from The Economist and has created robots that can improvise jazz music.

I ended my day with Gamification, Makerspaces and Minecraft with Douglas Kiang. With only a small bit of experience in Minecraft, I was very interested learning more about how to use it as a teaching tool. Douglas Kiang did a brilliant job of addressing the issues of curriculum, classroom, and community in the 21st century classroom. He then related those issues to the virtual worlds created in Minecraft. His students created stunning recreations and redesigns of their school campus in Minecraft.. The student's work was beautiful and Douglas Kiang's delivery was uplifting. My most significant takeaway was the relation of Minecraft to the book Andrew Henry's  Meadow by Doris Burn.

Monday evening brought the opportunity to mix and mingle with other educators. After attending Tennessee Education Technology Association's mixer, I made my way to the Tabernacle Music Hall for EdTech Karaoke. While I've never been a fan of karaoke, it was great to network with other passionate educators.

Tuesday
By Tuesday morning, I felt that I was running on empty. I had only planned to stay half a day before returning home. I attended Learn How to Use a 3D Printer-Right Now! with Shawn and Stephanie Grimes from the Digital Harbor Foundation. It was exciting to see a Printrbot 3D printer in action. They showed the process of design and printing using mostly free tools. Shawn and Stephanie's presentation made this technology even more accessible to anyone just getting their feet wet with 3D printing.

All the technologies that I had read about on Twitter and blogs became more accessible through the conference. It was inspiring to hear so many well-informed professionals talk about 21st century tools for learning. The ISTE conference is world-class professional development that will motivate and inspire any teacher. It was also a great way to expand your professional learning network. It is a truly exciting time to be an educator.