The Funf Open Sensing Framework is an extensible sensing and data processing framework for mobile phones. The Funf project aims to help both developers as well as non-technical researchers and individuals. The Funf-in-a-Box service lets users configure and build a custom data collection app in less than five minutes, with zero programming. Funf Journal, a mobile app available on the Android Play Store, allows users to collect and explore data about their lives (quantified-self), and gives developers/researchers a chance to evaluate the capabilities underneath the hood. All of these are built on top of the Funf SDK, which can be used by developers to incorporate sensing functionality into their apps, and can be extended to provide new sensing capabilities.
This is Funf’s first year in Google Summer of Code and we formed a small and tight working group consisting of our two organization mentors and our two amazing students, Swetank Kumar Saha and Pararth Shah. We have been working on two fronts: Adding core functionality to the Funf SDK and enhancing Funf In A Box (FIAB) which has become very popular with researchers and data collection enthusiasts. Pararth has spearheaded work on the core library and added support for high bandwidth probes, including raw audio, video, and timelapse. We’re now diving into advanced triggers and scheduling that will allow for dynamic sensing configurations. On the FIAB side, Swetank is adding support for configuring and deploying custom surveys and capturing additional user input. Amazingly, he also managed to fit in porting the FIAB architecture from a single Amazon server to Google Cloud Services, which is going to greatly reduce our costs and increase our performance. The summer isn’t over yet, so stay tuned for more new features and updates!
By Nadav Aharony and Alan Gardner, Funf Organization Administrators
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The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) has a clear mission: "To support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development." We have three exciting Google Summer of Code projects contributing to CloudSim, Gazebo, and ROS, which currently represent three of our biggest open source efforts.
Esteve Fernández has been adding support for OpenStack to CloudSim, a project developed by OSRF to run robotics simulations in the cloud. CloudSim was used to support the DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge and currently supports the Amazon and SoftLayer clouds. Esteve added support for private clouds to CloudSim, enabling organizations to run simulations on their own networks. Furthermore, Esteve is contributing to CloudSim by fixing bugs, improving the code base and helping with any task that comes up. In the following weeks, he will be making CloudSim constellations accessible to users in an OpenStack cloud provided by OSRF as a public service.
Andrei Haidu is developing a fluid dynamics physics engine for the Gazebo robot simulator that will enable the use of aerial and underwater vehicles in simulation.
Gonzalo Abella is developing a new parameter server prototype for ROS. He is exploring making all parameters dynamic, and integrating the capabilities of the dynamic_reconfigure package into the core API.
By Carlos Agüero, Open Source Robotics Foundation Organization Administrator
We hope you have enjoyed reading about many of the new organizations participating in Google Summer of Code this year over these past 3 months. Students have a little over two weeks to wrap up their summer projects before the soft pencils down date on September 16th. For more details on important dates you can visit our program timeline and you read about all of the 177 open source projects participating in this year’s Google Summer of Code on the program site.
By Stephanie Taylor, Open Source Programs
