jason

Originally published at Lemmingworks. You can comment here or there.

From Slashdot | OLPC Mesh Networking Tester Explains How It Works I found this article Coming to a watering hole near you: OLPC’s mesh networking that explains about mesh networking and the olpc. Comments on the slashdot page unpack some of the criticisms and problems, if you’re interested, and at the bottom of this post there’s a link to the robin project for setting up your own mesh network.

For the past two years Cameron has devoted his diverse technical talents to testing the wireless network component of the One Laptop Per Child project.

Cameron got involved with the project because he lives and works in the outback, in a small village called Tooraweenah, 58km from Coonabarabran (approx 500km northwest of Sydney).

There are few wireless access points and little noise in the radio spectrum there, making it the perfect location for testing the OLPC XO laptops as it mirrors the third world environments they are being deployed in.

“One of our test scenarios is two kids under a tree, in the middle of nowhere, who want to transfer a file between one laptop and another. At the moment with the software that we have, the hardware, and the mesh automation, they can open their laptops, transfer whatever it is they want and then walk off. They don’t need any IP address configuration or anything special. It just works,” he said.

RO.B.IN open source mesh network

ROBIN (ROuting Batman Inside) is an Open Source mesh network project, deployed on top of OpenWRT kamikaze, running on any Atheros AP51 routers such as Meraki Mini or La Fonera and using the BATMAN routing algorithm.
ROBIN spreads a wired internet connection such as a DSL throughout an apartment complex, neighborhood, village or school, and work on a variety of commonly available, low-cost hardware.