public laboratory for open technology & science: diy aerial mapping

Imagine Your IdeaMAKE YOUR TOOLTell Your Story

www.publiclab.org

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It’s all about access

• Design around inclusion

• Consider that everyone has an expertise

• Design to address full data lifecycle

• Prioritise price points that are accessible to individuals and community groups

• Provide access for storytelling and entry into decision making process

• Redefine the term “user”

mapknitter.orgWeb-tool for creating maps from DIY aerial imagery

Google Earth

Outreach

earth.google.com

/outreach

People like you and me seeing things more clearly

COMPOSTING FESTIVAL IN

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN

21 October 2012

JUAKALI WOMENS CRAFT

MARKET, UGANDA

5 October 2012

aerial mapping

balloon

mapping

camera

Helium-filled

weather balloon

simple noise monitor

kite mapping

kite-making workshop

camera

Kite

when to use balloons, when to use kites

Creative Commons Share Back with Attribution for the collaborative production of knowledge

DIY camera rig: made from plastic bottle and cardboard stabilisers. Cameras set to continuous shooting, button held down by a rubber band

Why kites/balloons? Building openness & accountability

revealed operatorconcealed operator

…stories of the

Gowanus Canal, NY

Helping to set up a cleanup process – but where ?

Gowanus Canal Sewage: gets a million gallons a day …

‘Gowanus Low Altitude Mapping Program’ formed to take pictures of the canal’s water quality and opportunities for improving it

15 DECEMBER 2012 BALLOON AERIAL

Gowanus Canal mapping of sewage plumes from hurricane Sandy damage

15 DECEMBER 2012

BALLOON AERIAL Unmapped

spring

discovered

Gowanus Canal mapping of fresh water inflows from historic spring into sewage contaminated waters

Fresh water spring outlet as seen from the canoe

Can we map all the old ghost streams and creeks? These can help divert rainwater out of sewers and reduce sewer overflow pollution.

Looking for Solutions to the Problem…

1766 Freeke’s Mill

Building

Potential

SpringThis is a public

Right of Way:

Could this stream

be restored for

the new park ?

Why are plants in concrete cracks

growing so well ?

Is the spring still running ?

July 2011 Balloon PhotoCIVIC DATA THAT ASKS QUESTIONS

FIRST

STREET

BASIN

1766

Can historic maps help us understand our grassroots aerial photos?

EXISTING

SPRING

1766

streamFIRST

STREET

BASIN

GOWANUS

CANAL

(SALTY

WATER)

COLONIAL MILL

NEEDING FRESH

WATER

Historic map from 1766 overlaid on “Do-It-Yourself” balloon aerial image shows us what is going on

Surviving stream is now argument for official 5th Street Basin Greenway &Park Restoration

Grassroots Community Data Collection helped focus attention on this site

…stories from

Jerusalem, Israel

Ala Salman created an aerial map of a contested road that splits his Jerusalem neighborhood in two and damages its environmental and communal infrastructures. He presents his DIY aerial image to MPs in the Israeli “Kneset”

“ Our story – the story of communities, is portrayed on an aerial image that seeks to reveal social and environmental context through collaborative mapping.

It is not only about an objective reality to be visualized and decoded, but about seeing the subjective story that is embedded in it and which is inseparable from the concrete features of the landscape. ”

- Hagit Keysar, 2013

“ The people I was working with had a story to tell on top of that aerial photograph they created. They re-appropriated “the master’s tool”, the same tool that is being used to erase their presence and identity off the map or to rationalize plans for destruction and regeneration in the city that ignores their local perspectives. ”

- Hagit Keysar, 2013

Once the map is left by itself in the offline and online streams of information, the makers of the map ask - who will it reach? what story will it tell? “where do our maps go? ”

“…aerial photographs do not speak for themselves. And in particular those made by communities. Exactly like any other form of photography, aerial images are ground for interpretation and re-imagining.”

- Hagit Keysar, 2013

…other stories

Mapping demonstration efforts

mapping use of a park

mapping forest

damage

mapping a demonstration

Nat Fein, 1947, Central Park

SMALL DATA vs BIG DATAReconnecting the State with it’s

Citizen KnowledgeTELLING THE LOCAL STORY

Grassroots

Mappers

YOU

youth engagement

Kite-mapping with youth from Hyperion Lyceum school, Amsterdam

Youngsters teach others DIY aerial mapping techniques

Youngsters analyse their Near Infrared pictures taken with cameras ‘hacked’ by them

Public Lab platform for NIR image analysis:infragram.org

Youth create their own DIY Near Infrared cameras &teach the public of Amsterdam about NIR & plant health

Family Kite mapping at

Bletchley Park for the Electro-magnetic field festival, 2014

Thank you to PublicLab.org community for their work and open source materials, many of them included in this presentation

publiclab.org | @publiclab

@cwb_London

c.regalado.lopez@gmail.com