---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Teach the teachers: I'd like some direction from the project team on this one. I view the BOINC project as a great way to entice the interested minds of teenagers into the wonders of science. And the diversity of BOINC projects gives them lots of room to explore whatever appeals to their own unique interests. Teenagers have a lot of PCs... but they also tend to not think things through entirely. So, my question is, "Do you feel promoting the project to teens is going to lead to more problems than help?"

The idea is to put together some course materials for science teachers to use to explain Rosetta, and how the science that you are doing relates to some of the science that they are learning. Perhaps targetting high school Freshmen (age 15) with 2 hours of material.

If such a plan were then rolled out, you could promote it further if you award the school team with the most credits a personal Dr. Baker appearance at a student assembly. The local press is invited, more publicity, etc. etc. Some time a year later a kid in each school does a science fair project around the Rosetta project, another Rosetta mention in the public at the science fair, and also in the local newspaper when the kid wins, etc.

I note there are presently no team names with the word "school" in them. So, perhaps just have each school create a team with the word "school" in the team name, and have them compete for a personal appearance.

Timeline, if you feel this one is a good idea, the timeline is important. Give your volunteers some time to put together the materials. You want to get the teams established early in the school year and have them competing as long as you can... and still keep their interest. And then the winner's assembly with Dr. Baker would have to be before they're out of school for the year.

So, the following timeline:

Develop course materials, to be completed by say June.
Give the teacher a little time to work the material in to their curriculum.
Team formation allowed starting October 1st and runs through March 31st of 2007 (6 months).

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Teach the teachers: I'd like some direction from the project team on this one. I view the BOINC project as a great way to entice the interested minds of teenagers into the wonders of science. And the diversity of BOINC projects gives them lots of room to explore whatever appeals to their own unique interests. Teenagers have a lot of PCs... but they also tend to not think things through entirely. So, my question is, "Do you feel promoting the project to teens is going to lead to more problems than help?"

The idea is to put together some course materials for science teachers to use to explain Rosetta, and how the science that you are doing relates to some of the science that they are learning. Perhaps targetting high school Freshmen (age 15) with 2 hours of material.

If such a plan were then rolled out, you could promote it further if you award the school team with the most credits a personal Dr. Baker appearance at a student assembly. The local press is invited, more publicity, etc. etc. Some time a year later a kid in each school does a science fair project around the Rosetta project, another Rosetta mention in the public at the science fair, and also in the local newspaper when the kid wins, etc.

I note there are presently no team names with the word "school" in them. So, perhaps just have each school create a team with the word "school" in the team name, and have them compete for a personal appearance.

Timeline, if you feel this one is a good idea, the timeline is important. Give your volunteers some time to put together the materials. You want to get the teams established early in the school year and have them competing as long as you can... and still keep their interest. And then the winner's assembly with Dr. Baker would have to be before they're out of school for the year.

So, the following timeline:

Develop course materials, to be completed by say June.
Give the teacher a little time to work the material in to their curriculum.
Team formation allowed starting October 1st and runs through March 31st of 2007 (6 months).

I really like this idea, as well as the others on this thread. I spoke today with the media relations people at the University of Washington and Howard Hughes Medical Institute to see if they could help coordinate some of these efforts.
But I think it is really going to come down to individual volunteers taking the lead on the different projects. For each, it seems, it would be good to have a lead person and a number of others helping out. This seems a non trivial organizational problem--let me know how I can help--what comes out of this should be great!

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For getting participation of students, once we get the 1% bug killed, it would be advantageous to try and get students involved in CASP 7. It adds a lot to the results to know that you were a part of the project's ability to score as well as they did in a CASP competition.

I admit that the competition within the team got me hooked on DC; and participating in CASP 5 with DF kept me paying attention to the forums waiting for the results.

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...I really like this idea...

Thank you Dr. Baker! Actually it's one of my favorites. Census statistics tell me there are about 4 million teenagers of any given age in the US alone. If 30% have a PC (and census data implies north of 40% do), and only 30% of those participate... that's 360,000 machines! There's your 10 fold increase right there! And then you've got the thousands of science teachers of those kids, and you've got parents of 4 million kids, some of which will participate as well. If just 10% of the parents of the kids that actually participate join too, that's another 36,000 machines! (more than doubling the current active count for Rosetta). And SOME of those parents have influence over IT departments... etc. etc. And SOME of those kids are going to get industrious and knock on doors and recruit the rest of their community to help them win! (an activate your community kit should be included with the teaching materials). The kid will set up your computer for you! You just connect to the internet once and a while.

Should I take your comment to mean that you are willing to make the personal appearance? And that you can use some of the funding you illuded to in another post, to make the necessary travel?
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I like the idea of basing it around CASP 7. Gives a more specific target. And helps the kids see they are part of that win. In fact we might characterize this as a contest between the science kids, and the scientists! "You, collectively, can help Dr. Baker beat the rest of the scientists". They'll love that. I'm sure (I've been running the latest Ralph code) that the 1% bug will be dead by the time we're ready to roll anything out to schools.

{edit}
I see now that CASP7 runs April - August of this year. I don't think that timeframe is doable. And doesn't coincide very well with the school year in the Northern hemishere. Do we really have to wait until 2008 for a CASP8?
{/edit}
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If you're an educator... and would be willing to help. Please review this thread and join the volunteers Yahoo! group. We could use your help.

Could I ask Moderator (website admin) Keith to weigh in? Would it be possible, with the roughly 6 months timeframe we have at this point, to tailor the Rosetta website a little to gear up for these school teams? All I have in mind is some extra links basically for "create a team for your school here" (and validate that the word "school" appears in the name, and a query to "Show top schools". Just to make the site a little more geared to the schools. Maybe standardize the formatting of school team names "School-[Country]-[State]-[City]-[SchoolName]".

I guess we'd also need to enforce the contest start and end dates. Or take a snapshot of how many credits they had as of the end date. They'd have to be able to create the teams ahead of time, and then start tallying credits only after the start date (or let them tally credits to see they've got things set up right, and then zero them out at start date).

Also, to make it more fair to small schools, we should base the contest on credits per student. But I don't have a great idea for determining number of students other than taking the word of the team creator. But, it means there would also need to be a field for that size of student body added. And report total credits, and credits per student, and sort by credits per student for the "top schools" list. (sorry that "all I have in mind" list grew as I went along there :) ...just like this whole thread.

Are your servers going to be ready for all this traffic? :) It's a serious question.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

[
Could I ask Moderator (website admin) Keith to weigh in? Would it be possible, with the roughly 6 months timeframe we have at this point, to tailor the Rosetta website a little to gear up for these school teams?

If I know DB, and I've worked for him for 5.5 years, I think the correct question to ask is

"Is is possible for you, the Rosetta community, to develop an appropriate website, if we provide the computing resources here?"

I can provide servers running BBs, wikis, etc, but I don't have the time to develop the content - noone here does. We're a small operation, really. You folks are our only hope to set up something like this. How about it? Wanna build something cool?

Are your servers going to be ready for all this traffic? :) It's a serious question.

Oh yea, we're pumping big $$$ into this gear (wicked FC-SAN in a couple of months, more beefy servers front and back, even redundant installations for greater uptime). We've had hiccups (it's a learning curve for all) but we're going to be building this bad-boy for a possible/hoped growth of ten-fold.

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Whilst I think about it.. Mr Baker, would you be willing to travel to other countries to vist a winning school? That way we'd be able to work, for example on the UK as well as US. Or germany, denmark etc.

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do we have any creative graphics types who could do a pamphlet and have it available in pdf form here so any member can download and print it off their own pc for local distribution? nothing fancy.....use the rosetta@home logo, U of Wash logo....keeping it to 1 page front and back?

we could use this as a mailing to our local schools, or as a hand out.

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Feet1st,

Regarding your idea for the school team contest (a nice one, by the way). Your initial pool of candidate students is higher than the 4 million in the U.S. you quoted above.

According to the 2000 census there are 20.2 million teenagers aged 15-19. Specific numbers for 13 and 14 year olds is not listed in my World Almanac (2006) but I extrapolate that total to be approximately 8.2 million. That's good news. You have a larger initial pool to hope for. :-)

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Founder of BOINC GROUP - Objectivists - Philosophically minded rational data crunchers.

You have a larger initial pool to hope for. :-)

Yes, if you count two years of kids, then you get double the number. I was trying to actually be a little conservative in my numbers. I didn't count kids outside the US, I didn't count on all of the teachers using the material, I didn't count kids without a computer... that might install it on someone ELSE's computer (with their permission I'm sure!), and I left plenty of room to say that SOME of the kids are ALREADY participating.

...do we have any creative graphics types who could do a pamphlet

Yes, a one pager that would look good in black and white, but even better in color. If you can volunteer some graphic arts talent, please chime in over in the "CAN YOU HELP ROSETTA??" thread.

I'd ALSO like to see if we can put it all on a double sided business card! It REALLY makes ya think about what the key points are!

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

The point of idea is to attract high school age projects. These projects have students in the U.S. that range from age 15-18..

According to the statistics I just quoted you along with the reference of the latest and 2000 U.S ONLY census that number is 20 million alone. 5 times your original number....

Remember, you used this as the base of your original starting number BEFORE you added in your other variables such as who would participate and on how many computers, etc. Again. Your starting number was quoted off by 5x.

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Founder of BOINC GROUP - Objectivists - Philosophically minded rational data crunchers.

I'm signing up a new member and unless I'm missing something....


GET THE URL FOR THE PROJECT PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON MAIN PAGE.

Thank you....I'll send it to him and take the pills you sent me. :-)

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Founder of BOINC GROUP - Objectivists - Philosophically minded rational data crunchers.

I'm signing up a new member and unless I'm missing something....


GET THE URL FOR THE PROJECT PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED ON MAIN PAGE.

Thank you....I'll send it to him and take the pills you sent me. :-)

Which Main page? If you are talking about the Rosetta@home main page, the address for that page IS the project address.

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Moderator9
ROSETTA@home FAQ
Moderator Contact

Which Main page?

I believe the confusion is that when you attach to a new project, it askes for the project URL. But if you're planning to come in under an existing account, and just enter your EMail address and you know your password, you don't have that EMail confirming your account handy. So if you don't realize that it's the same as the site's homepage, then it is unclear what to enter for the project URL.

I see now that if you click the "Join Rosetta@home" heading (it's not entirely obvious that you should TRY to click the heading), that the project URL is included on the following page. You can get the same place by clicking the link for "please join us" up at the end of the page intro. on top.

I don't believe the project URL was mentioned there as recently as a few weeks ago. Perhaps this concern is already addressed.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

My idea for spreading R@H, or even other boinc projects, is to get someone involved who interacts with a lot of computer owners who wouldn't otherwise hear about boinc, let alone have the experience to install it.

That's what participants want (at least me):

1. Stability: Make the apps stable and rock solid. Not everyone likes to micro manage his/her Boinc clients (I do :)). Some of them have data centers that would crunch for rosetta. But they need the clients to be the "fire and forget" way. Start it and don't bother about it any more. Still not possible with Rosetta due to some showstoppers in the client.

THIS is the most important thing! If You want corporated admins run R@H, it has to bug free. Managing more than 100 computers means that there is no time for checing every computer every week.

Client should be also easy to use. If admin of 100 machines farm has to ask something about daily running, something is wrong. If answer is a useless list of links to boinc wiki or some scientific Hebrew, it is sure that client will be thrown away.

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Which Main page?

I believe the confusion is that when you attach to a new project, it askes for the project URL. But if you're planning to come in under an existing account, and just enter your EMail address and you know your password, you don't have that EMail confirming your account handy. So if you don't realize that it's the same as the site's homepage, then it is unclear what to enter for the project URL.

I see now that if you click the "Join Rosetta@home" heading (it's not entirely obvious that you should TRY to click the heading), that the project URL is included on the following page. You can get the same place by clicking the link for "please join us" up at the end of the page intro. on top.

I don't believe the project URL was mentioned there as recently as a few weeks ago. Perhaps this concern is already addressed.

I've had this problem too - the URL is located in the 'Join Rosetta@home' link, but it's not obvoius that that's a link. I think the whole installation & setup instructions section needs redoing for clarity - is anyone on with that already? I can help out on that front when I've got time later this week.

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I've had this problem too - the URL is located in the 'Join Rosetta@home' link, but it's not obvoius that that's a link. I think the whole installation & setup instructions section needs redoing for clarity - is anyone on with that already? I can help out on that front when I've got time later this week.

IMO, Einstein@home has the most intuitive layout for first-time users, in the simple 1-2-3 step way, as we discussed earlier in this thread (also mentioning the BBC/CPDN and landing page).

Also, looking at R@h homepage, I think that in "Join Rosetta@home" section, step #3 "Create account" is not required anymore AFAIK (by BOINC 5.x under Windows at least, which is probably 90% of the population), as registration (give URL/email/passwd) is handled from within BOINCMgr itself. E@h join section also explains how to join using outdated BOINC-clients.

Overall, I like best E@h's layout for first-time users. KISS.

PS: Wouldn't it be nice if the various BOINC projects just use a template a la E@h for joining data + instructions, so there is uniformity?

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Best UFO Resources
Wikipedia R@h
How-To: Join Distributed Computing projects that benefit humanity

I think the whole installation & setup instructions section needs redoing for clarity - is anyone on with that already? I can help out on that front when I've got time later this week.

dcdc, I've been thinking that as well, that the page apparently hasn't been revised for the new "EMail oriented" signup approach. (for those that are new here, we used to use account IDs rather than EMail addresses) I've already got Rosetta installed on all of my PCs, and so was planning to UNinstall and do some tinkering to reconfirm what I know about the process to offer suggestions on improving that page.

Right now, the Rosetta Volunteers are focused on the "Tell-a-friend" idea. We could use help from people like you to review and improve what we're doing, and to help with some additional little "to dos" like this one so we can better help the Rosetta@home project.

The Dutch Power Cows are working on an easy install client. But I believe the instructions pages will still require revision. And I believe the efforts would be welcomed by the Rosetta team if a volunteer took on that straightforward task.

Please come join the Rosetta@home volunteers Yahoo! Group as outlined here. So we can coordinate our efforts to help with the great work the Rosetta folks are doing.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
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Now THIS is a nice looking chart!

But the volunteer group to take on some of these ideas presently looks like this:
and we're HOPING to make it look more like THIS:


We need most anyone that can chip in an hour or two each week to create or review work that's being done. To weigh in with ideas and suggestions so that we can deliver back to the Rosetta team projects that are truely completed rather than still being in an outline form.

Please review the Help Rosetta thread and join the Yahoo! Group mentioned there today.

---

Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
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I hope I'm not rewinding an old tape here since I can't read message boards too often, but in the last few days I've begun to think along the lines of getting already existing users to up the time that their hosts are running R@H. How about an email to rosetta users (which is an option when we signed up) to give a minimum of, say, 20% to R@H. That's a minumum of 4.8 hours per day for R@H. After all, I am amazed at how many boincers have five or especially more projects running on all of their machines. For me, I run two: E@H and R@H, and frankly I'm seriously considering making R@H my primary now that the project and the volunteers are really getting into this thing. I'm even considering trying to get involved with the volunteer efforts this summer between semesters because of what I'm seeing with so many other great volunteers. My thinking is that if we can sell it harder, educating users to the benefits of R@H and its potential to fight disease, maybe they just might up the ante for R@H knowing their are practical, life-saving benifits for this project.

Gerry Rough