Web-based software for interfacing with CMA educational interfaces and sensors.
Coachium serves as an alternative to the Coach software developed by CMA Amsterdam, which is used to communicate with interfaces and sensors made by the same company, which aid you in measuring different physical quantities and capturing measured data into a graph.
Since this application is web-based (using WebHID technology, which is currently only implemented in Chromium-based browsers), it is not limited to computers only running MS Windows. Even Chromebooks are now capable of using these devices.
Coachium is attempting to be as easy-to-use as possible (compared to the relatively complex CMA Coach), making it available for everyone. CMA Coach is in fact a highly extensive piece of software, which also means that even the simplest operations still require the user to have some prerequisite knowledge about using the software (eg. if you want to start a capture into a graph, first, you have to create a graph panel and configure it, then configure the capture and finally start the capture), without which you will not simply get by.
Thanks to the simple user interface of Coachium, everything makes sense, all operations which you might wish to perform are easily available in the panel of icons, which are all comprehensively labeled, nothing is ever hidden here.
That is why Coachium has to slightly differ to the way the old CMA Coach was used. Coachium operates on a "workbook" principle, meaning that if the user opens Coachium, they can create as many captures and graphs as they wish and then save it all as a single "workbook" file (ie. if you are performing current–voltage characteristics of several components, you don't have to save each component as an individual file). Of course, there is still the oprion (and it is highly recommended) to name each capture, so that the teacher could make sense of your handed in workbook.
Moreover, since Coachium is being developed in the 21st century, it has some modern "tricks" up its sleeve. Mainly, you are able to save your workbook of captures directly to your Google Drive with a single click, from where you can instantly hand it in to your teacher in Google Classroom.
We strongly hope that we have introduced to you what Coachium actually is, and we also hope that you will enjoy working with it!
- CMA €Lab
- CMA intelligent sensors (most, if not all)
- Ability to communicate with CMA interfaces and sensors using a web browser
- Modern easy-to-use user interface
- Multiple language support (currently only English and Czech are implemented)
- Capturing data in real time into charts or tables (interchangable)
- Save a near infinite number of captures to a single workbook file (as opposed to Coach, which can only save a single capture per file), which can be then saved locally or to Google Drive (for submitting directly to Google Classroom, for example)
- Loading workbook files from local storage or Google Drive
- Can be loaded offline (thanks to the caching system) after first launch, as it installs itself into the browser's cache (only available in the cached version)
Please click here to view the current status of the Coachium to-do list.
If you are interested in trying this software out, visit our central instance (uses the pre-cached variant). Beware that the default language of this instance is Czech, however, you can change that by clicking on the button in the top right corner.
If you do not own a compatible device for connecting, you can still experience some parts of Coachium by downloading and opening the example file (in JSON format).
However, if you are an educational institution wishing to use Coachium in your classes, it is highly recommended to run your own instance of Coachium on your own server, where you can select your own default language. See below for instructions.
FOR NORMAL USE, PLEASE INSTALL THE CACHED VERSION INSTEAD! It's smaller in size, faster to load and able to run offline in case of disaster! The following procedure is for development purposes only!
Since it is a simple static webpage, it is incredibly simple to set up. If you have a Linux server, do the following:
cd /var/www/html # Or any other directory where your server root is!
git clone https://github.com/prochazkaml/Coachium coachium # Make the downloaded repo lower-caseThen, open the file js/i18n/default.js, where you will see the following as the first line of actual code:
const DEFAULT_LANGUAGE = "cs";There, replace cs by your preferred language (i.e. en – see the js/i18n directory for all supported languages). Save the changes, and Coachium should be ready to use on your server!
To update your existing instance of Coachium to the latest version, run the following:
cd /var/www/html/coachium # Or wherever you installed Coachium
git pullPRO TIP: Set up a Cron job to do this automatically for you.
By default, on your own instance, all Google Drive-related functionality will not be accessible, because your origin is not on the list of the allowed domains. Restricting access from unknown origins was done to prevent API abuse by applications other than Coachium and to pass the Google verification process.
Instructions for applying for a request to enable your domain name in the central instance will be published at a later date.
I might translate the program to French at a later date (as I have been stundying it for the last 7 years), but all other languages would have to be outsourced (or in the worst case done through a machine translator, although the results from this method are often laughable).
If you would be interested in translating Coachium to your language, feel free to make a copy of the js/i18n/en.js localization file (i.e. copy it to js/i18n/fr.js) and translate it to your preferred language. Any pull requests with new translations are of course always welcome.
Contact me and hook me up with said hardware.