Open Source with SLU Develops, Releases First External Web Project

The Center opened in 2022 with grant funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

ST. LOUIS – Open Source with SLU, Saint Louis University’s open-source software center, has delivered its first project to an outside partner.

SLU computer science graduate and undergraduate students, under the guidance of Kate Holdener, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, and Daniel Shown, program director of Open Source with SLU, have developed and released the Pi4 Micronaut library version 1.0 for partner Unity Foundation.

Unity Foundation approached Open Source with SLU with this project idea in the summer of 2022.

“Partnering with the Unity Foundation has given our students a valuable experience and useful industry connections,” said Holdener. “I am proud of all the students who have worked on this project over the past two years, making this release possible.”

Pi4Micronaut is a Java library crafted for developers who aim to build Internet of Things (IoT) applications leveraging the Raspberry Pi platform. This library is used in combination with the Micronaut framework to build and run web applications directly on the Raspberry Pi. The library provides an interface between the high-level Micronaut framework and the low-level hardware control provided by Pi4J, a low-level Java library for Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi is an efficient and inexpensive computer that runs Linux and allows developers to control peripheral electronic components, connected to Raspberry Pi through GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins. Pi4Micronaut simplifies the programming needed to control such peripheral components in a Micronaut-based web application.

Pi4 Micronaut is the latest addition to Unity Foundation’s Micronaut Framework, a free and open public-use software development framework for building modular software applications.

“Micronaut was designed to have minimal resource requirements in processing power and memory consumption,” said Jeff Brown, Unity Foundation’s Open Source Operations Director. “This is valuable when designing solutions to run on small devices like the Raspberry Pi, which has limited computing resources, and also valuable in large scale cloud deployments where memory consumption and processing time have a direct effect on operational costs.”

To use the product, a developer would include the Pi4Micronaut library in their Micronaut Java project. The library abstracts the complexity of hardware interaction, allowing developers to focus on the application functionality and logic, thereby enabling the creation of efficient, scalable IoT solutions.

Access Pi4 Micronaut

“Teams have been working on this for two years,” Shown said. “We are ready for people to be able to utilize it.”

Open Source with SLU was established in 2022 with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Its goal is to help SLU researchers with their custom software needs and to give students practical software development experience.

Open Source with SLU employs Computer Science graduate students to prototype, design, and deliver open-source software to help SLU researchers and their collaborators worldwide. Undergraduate students enrolled in project-based courses work with Open Source with SLU under the mentorship of the graduate students to contribute to ongoing open-source projects.

Since its founding, more than 100 undergraduate students have gained practical experience in coding under industry-based standards.

Most Open Source with SLU projects come from faculty members seeking specialized software tools, but the Center engages with community partners with similar educational and research goals.

“Working in the open is a way for us to showcase our students’ talents and market them to potential employers,” Holdener said. “Students contributing to Open Source with SLU projects own their code contributions and build up strong GitHub profiles through their code contributions and open discussions on project issues.”

Open Source with SLU will hold a hands-on, how-to session at 2 p.m. Friday, April 5, in the Academic Tech Commons of Pius XII Memorial Library. 

Researchers and SLU faculty may request development or updates to open-source software for research endeavors here. Questions can be directed to oss@slu.edu.

Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 15,200 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.