Kickstarter

Hi!  I'm Chris McCool and I've been a debate coach for the past 10 years.  

A few years ago, Whitman College revolutionized competitive debate by going "paperless".  Instead of diligently printing and filing evidence, they had created a digital workflow that changed debate overnight.  Now, many programs and students are getting left behind because they cannot afford the laptops needed to keep up, let alone the software license costs!  Our goal is simple, eliminate the need for costly software licenses by supplying the debate community with a free, fully open-source solution to paperless debate

With the help of the debaters and coaches at Ballard High School in Seattle, WA, I am developing a linux distribution with the high school and college debater in mind.  By switching to linux and LibreOffice we have been able to successfully use laptops from 2002-2003 that have been donated or purchased from local used laptop stores.  No team supplied laptop has cost more than $100, far less than the cost of printing a small set of policy debate evidence.

Last year, I helped Ballard High School start the first debate program to be based on the Open Office system and struggled through finding out what linux software, desktop interfaces and applets were most useful to debaters.  Despite the hurdles, they successfully showed that a team can go "Open Source" and not have to pay for software.  Now we are putting that knowledge together to create a USB bootable + installable (out of the box) version of linux that embraces both the novice and the advanced debater. 

The desktop has been designed with the policy debater in mind, but has incorporated programs that also help individual events, especially extemporaneous speaking, as well as general academic software students find useful. 

This year's high school policy debate topic, Space exploration and development, is very important to me.  On February 1st, 2003 my dad, Willie McCool died on the Space Shuttle Columbia.  His experience with debate was minimal.  My dad judged a few debate rounds with some fellow astronaut volunteers at the Clear Lake High School debate tournament in 1999 and they came away believing that every student in America should have access to a competitive debate program!  It is with this in mind that I've begun developing truly free alternatives for students and debaters.  In honor of STS-107, I have codenamed this Space Topic version of Debate OS, "Columbia".

Debate OS "Columbia" Highlights include:  

-Wirelessly jump files without the internet or DropBox

-Automatically installed Template, Macros, flow template and keyboard shortcuts

-A debate specific panel that include your digital debate tub, timers, DocFetcher and Inhibit (an applet that prevents your screen from going to sleep during debates).

Development Schedule:

December 12th:  Debate OS "Columbia" alpha to select debaters for testing.

January 16th:  Debate OS "Columbia" beta launch.

February 1st: Debate OS "Columbia" final release

February 2nd:  Begin Debate OS curriculum/instruction manual and videos

March 1st:  Final Debate OS curriculum/instruction manual 

*about the image* - This is an illustration by the European Space Agency of space traffic, including satellites and space debris.  Both Orbital Rights and Space Debris are major debate case areas this year.