UW’s Community Networking Capstone
In the fall of 2021, we (Matthew Johnson and Esther Jang) ran our first iteration of the PIT-UN funded Community Networks capstone course (CSE482A) here at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. This class is a project-based 1-quarter capstone focused on bringing core CS technologists (undergraduates) into the space of community networks and teaching them about the technological and social elements of building systems that attempt to directly address poverty through wireless networks. Building off our own efforts with numerous partners on the Seattle Community Network (specifically the Digital Stewards training materials built with the Black Brilliance Research Project) as well as with partners at NYC Mesh and Althea, our students spun up four projects (installation, training, visualization, and infrastructure) and completed three different technical assignments (core networks, long-distance wifi, and spectrum) in just under three months. It was an amazing journey putting this class together with them and we’re very excited for the results!
As a final output of the class, we asked each of the groups to provide a writeup for this blog as well as a video that details the project outputs. Here is that content:
Teaching the Internet Better (video)
NYC Mesh Visualizations (video)
Improving Site Surveys/Deployments (video)
We thank all of the students for their participation and energy. If anyone would like to repeat this class at their own institution, feel free to reach out to me at kheimerl@cs.washington.edu for the materials. They are also available on the website listed above.
