#educationaltechnology

If you follow us on Twitter, you’ve probably seen software development company The Mad Botter dangling a System76 machine before your very eyes. Thanks to the company’s recent conversion to Linux, that’s not the only System76 machine you’ll find there! This week, we sat down with Michael Dominick, The Mad Botter’s Founder and CEO, to discuss his team’s switch to System76.

What kind of work goes on at The Mad Botter?

Michael: We’re a software development company. We mostly code on Python, along with some Ruby and Rust, coding IDEs, and using a whole lot of LibreOffice. One of our products is a radar display that runs on Linux and Windows. We actually use a Thelio as a flight simulator to test our software.

Our new product is an automation tool called Rabbot. It involves us having to very quickly spin up a bunch of Ubuntu servers for customers who need them. Having the .deb instances on our computers has made that process a hundred times easier, because we can deploy test units to our machines with the same docker container that works exactly the same as it does on our cloud instances.

Why is it called Rabbot? And what’s with The Mad Botter?

I went a little crazy with the Lewis Carroll references. I have a degree in literature, so I’m very familiar with Carroll’s work. When I moved from New Jersey down to Florida, the name of the company conflicted with a very large football team in Florida, and they did not like that. I had to rejigger everything. We already had a product called Alice at the time, so we decided to build around that.

How long have you been in business?

The Mad Botter has been around for 3 years, and the company before it in New Jersey was around for an additional 3 years. I’ve been running development businesses for around 11 years.

How did you hear about System76?

When I was hosting Coder Radio with Chris Fisher, he would always tease me for being an Apple guy. You know—hipster coffee, the whole thing. He told me, “If you really want a controlled experience to try Linux, take a look at these guys in Denver.” So I did. It wasn’t a huge investment to try on a laptop, and I ended up loving it, so I got the Ratel tower. That was the beginning of a long road to Linux purity.

What System76 machines do you have around the office?

I was the first one to adopt a System76 computer at the company. Now, to make life easy, we only buy System76 computers. Currently we have an older Galago Pro, a Thelio, and 3 Lemur Pros. There’s a couple of Darter Pros running around, too. All of our machines are running Pop!_OS 20.04.

Moving forward, we’re standardizing down to the Lemur Pro and the Oryx Pro. People who have to run VMs are getting the Oryx Pro because you can spec it up a little more. Everybody else is using the Lemur Pro, which is a great all-around computer. The Thelio is a special case because we have to run our flight simulation software on it.

What prompted you to bring your company fully onto Linux?

Honestly, it was macOS Catalina. We were having too many problems with people updating OS X and breaking Homebrew packages, to the point where we had to reinstall our custom toolchain every time we updated. The last guy on Mac updated to Catalina recently, and he had to struggle with Excel libraries because Apple moves things between OS versions. It just wasn’t worth it. I’ve been talking about it for about a year with my CTO.

All of our back-end service runs Ubuntu. Most of the client-side work we’re doing is for IOT devices, and that’s all Linux. We ended up basically having an expensive machine so that we could emulate Linux on anything. It didn’t make a lot of sense to keep using Mac, so we switched.

How was the transition from macOS to Linux?

Actually super easy! Once we wrote a few setup scripts and packages we needed for different jobs in our pipeline, we were up and running. We already had a bunch of scripting and automations for the servers we had, and they’re all on Ubuntu, so it’s not a big jump in terms of the command line.

How did you find the overall experience on Pop!_OS 20.04?

I found it pretty intuitive. Learning the keyboard shortcuts took about a week. I really don’t have any issues. I like the tiling, I use that every day. It definitely makes it easier to multitask on a laptop screen.

Have you tried other distros?

We had a brief stint with Fedora, but because all of our back end was on Debian or Ubuntu, it made sense to stick with that Debian world. We also tried Linux Mint briefly. But honestly the ease of being able to buy a system pre-installed with Pop!_OS that you guys support—where I can just go to your GitHub and see if there’s an issue—is an attractive option.

Have you had any experiences with our support team?

I have a bad habit of spilling tea and other beverages in my laptops... A few times you guys were able to walk me through my issue. I think the most recent one was with Thelio. There was an issue with the graphics card where only one of the DisplayPorts actually worked, so they walked me through trying different things and we were eventually able to figure out why that was happening.

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Committed to STEM education and open source software, The Mad Botter INC team is holding a Fourth of July contest for high school and college students! Create and share an open-source project that addresses ballot access or assists with voting, and you can win a System76 Thelio. Hey wait, that’s us! Check out the contest page for details on how to enter.

Michael Dominick is also host of The Mike Dominick Show, where he looks at the latest news from the worlds of technology and open source. Listen to his interview with System76 Principal Engineer Jeremy Soller—stay tuned for the teaser!

Many teachers find chalkboards to be almost a thing of the past with the advent of projectors in the classroom. Rather than writing notes across a board, teachers can make use of PowerPoint presentations, images and even film as teaching tools through the use of projectors. Consequently, teachers and students alike find projectors to be useful classroom devices.

Diversified Woodcrafts is the leader in the educational market for science, art and industrial furniture. Last year, Diversified Woodcrafts reached out to System76, a Linux Computer Manufacturer and the creators of Pop!_OS, for a technology solution to go with an Augmented Reality Sandbox kit they were creating.

The difference between a traditional sandbox and the AR Sandbox is the projection of color, representing virtual topography, onto the sand. In the AR Sandbox, the colors adjust in real time as the sand moves. In order to power this, they needed a portable, yet powerful, Linux-friendly computer that could run a fast NVIDIA GPU. They decided on the Oryx Pro laptop.

In asking Diversified Woodcrafts about their decision in choosing System76 they said,

The software for the Augmented Reality Sandbox is only compatible for Linux, and was popularly used among System76’s education customers. The original code was a little difficult to consume, so in 2015, System76 packaged the AR Sandbox software for Ubuntu-based OSes making it easier to install. During this time, System76 also created step-by-step tutorial instructions that detailed how to get the software and hardware calibrated. These instructions are included in the Diversified Woodcrafts’ Augmented Reality Sandbox kit. Now with the powerful Oryx Pros on their way, along with the AR Sandbox instructions, Diversified Woodcrafts now had a truly comprehensive solution that was ready for a successful launch.

What makes the AR Sandbox incredibly engaging is its ability to adjust the topography colors in real time as the sand moves from mountains to valleys. Even more impressive, is the augmented action of creating water. Hold your hands over the sand and rain will fall directly underneath. The simulated water flowing down mountains or filling valleys adds to the education component of the AR Sandbox, and extends its application to be used as a planning tool as well.

Using the AR Sandbox As An Education Tool

A QUOTE FROM DIVERSIFIED WOODCRAFTS:

90% of our business is done in the education marketplace. We have found that the sandbox has appeal across multiple curriculum areas. Science is the obvious one, as the software was designed to study watersheds. But it has applications elsewhere, too.

For example:

History teachers can use it to explain why certain historical events happened the way they did based on topography. We had one person lay out the Battle of Little Bighorn and another lay out Pearl Harbor.

Special needs teachers find the sandbox as a great tool for children with sensory issues. Autistic kids can shine, while they use the sandbox and interact with other children without the stress of having to look them in the eye. Children with behavioral plans can earn time to play in the sandbox, when they hit their benchmarks for a week.

Geography and topography education is an obvious area, as well.

High schools and universities with architecture and engineering programs can use the sandbox to test their designs and see if water would flow to the intended areas.

Other industries that have contacted us are: museums, the military, municipalities, architects and engineers. Someone who had lost their house in the recent Hurricane, told me that they wished Houston had used a sandbox when developing new areas of the city: City Planning.

Solution + Results

As noted above, the AR Sandbox has been a popular educational tool among history, geography, and science teachers. City-planners, libraries, and makerspaces can find valuable teaching or planning opportunities with it as well. Diversified Woodcrafts was looking for a powerful machine to facilitate an extraordinary learning experience. System76 was able to provide the technological solution, documentation, and support that Diversified Woodcrafts needed to create an all-encompassing educational-furniture solution to museums, schools, and other educators.

As a result, Diversified Woodcrafts sold ~50 kits last year and won two awards in the category of “New Product of the Year.” 

If you’re looking to build your own Augmented Reality Sandbox, you can follow our DIY instructions at <system76.com/weekend-project/arsandbox>. The best-recommended machines that can handle the graphics processing required are the Wild Dog Pro desktop or the Oryx Pro laptop.

How Can a TRRS Headset with an In-Line Mic Improve Student Engagement and Testing Scores?

NotebookLM is an AI-powered academic support tool designed to enhance learning, teaching, and research by working directly with user-provided educational materials. Its design makes it particularly suitable for students, educators, and researchers who require structured, source-based academic support.

As a computer education graduate and educational technologist, I outline below the key features of NotebookLM that are useful for academic purposes.

Key Academic Features of NotebookLM

Source-Based Learning Environment

Allows users to upload academic resources such as lecture notes, textbooks, PDFs, articles, and research papers, and interact with them intelligently.

AI-Powered Summarization

Generates concise summaries of lengthy academic texts to support comprehension, revision, and study efficiency.

Question-and-Answer from Uploaded Sources

Enables learners to ask academic questions and receive responses strictly grounded in the uploaded materials.

Study Guide and Concept Explanation Generation

Supports the creation of structured study guides, topic breakdowns, and explanatory notes from academic content.

Mind Map Generation

Automatically converts complex academic content into visual mind maps, helping learners understand relationships between concepts and ideas.

Audio Overview

Provides spoken summaries and explanations of academic materials, supporting auditory learners and on-the-go revision.

Video Overview

Presents visual and narrated overviews of academic content to enhance understanding and multimedia learning.

Academic Note Organization and Knowledge Management

Allows users to organize multiple documents into notebooks for different courses, subjects, or research projects.

Research Analysis and Idea Exploration

Assists in identifying key themes, arguments, and insights within academic materials.

Citation Awareness and Source Traceability

Links responses to specific sections of uploaded sources, promoting academic integrity and responsible use of AI.

Teaching and Lesson Preparation Support

Supports educators in developing lesson outlines, instructional explanations, and teaching resources from existing academic materials.

What Comes Next

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into education is no longer a future concept, it is a present-day reality that is reshaping how teaching and learning take place. AI-powered tools are increasingly supporting educators, students, and institutions by improving content delivery, personalization, assessment, and engagement.

As a educational technologist, I have observed that when properly applied, AI tools can enhance instructional effectiveness, promote learner autonomy, and support inclusive and adaptive learning environments.

This series introduces selected AI-driven platforms that are particularly useful for teaching, learning, and academic productivity, including but not limited to:

NotebookLM – for research assistance, document-based learning, summarization, and study support.

Whisky – for intelligent content generation and productivity enhancement.

Khanmigo – an AI learning companion that supports students and teachers with guided explanations and practice.

Elite.org – a platform that integrates AI-driven learning resources for skill development and educational growth.

These tools can support activities such as lesson planning, content creation, research analysis, personalized learning, and academic collaboration when used ethically and pedagogically.

This post serves as an overview and foundation. In subsequent posts, I will be sharing step-by-step video demonstrations on how each of these platforms can be effectively used for educational purposes, both in formal classroom settings and independent learning environments.

Personalization performs a vital role in modern-day teaching, and a custom QR code offers educators a effective manner to beautify studying experiences. By the use of a QR code for education , teachers can proportion tailor-made content material together with lesson plans, assignments, recorded lectures, or interactive sports—at some point of a unmarried scan.

A custom QR code permits schools to suit branding, arrange subjects, and improve recognition at the same time as retaining a professional appearance. Whether utilized in classrooms, libraries, be aware forums, or student handbooks, a  QR code for education streamlines get right of entry to to digital sources and helps combined getting to know fashions. It additionally encourages scholar independence by means of imparting short, self-guided get right of entry to to substances.

With Digi QR Code Generator, growing visually attractive and exceptionally functional QR codes is quick and easy. Educators can personalize, update, and control QR codes without technical complexity. Bring readability, creativity, and convenience into training with QR codes designed for today’s virtual newcomers.

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