In the Public Lab community newsletter this week you'll find notes on mapping Revolutionary War era mass grave sites, the trials and tribulations of launching a balloon in Mexico City, mapping trees in danger of uprooting in Jerusalem, updates on spectrometer development and a whole lot more. Enjoy!

1. New Public Lab Kickstarter. If you happened to miss is, Public Lab launched a Kickstarter for the spectrometer this week. Although 225% of the goal has been reached in the first four days, your help with outreach efforts (send a Tweet, post to Facebook, write a blog, email your friends and family) would be appreciated! You can also get involved in spectrometer development by purchasing a spectrometer through the Kickstarter or following the easy to follow instructions on the Public Lab website.

2. Balloon mapping grave sites. Balloon mapping efforts to find a Revolutionary War era mass grave in the Gowanus subwatershed were included in this NYTimes article with comments by Public Lab community member, Eymund Diegel.

3. Developing annotated map layers. The above case presents another interesting instance of historical mapping. Join this conversation on developing annotated map layers. A question for the community... is it worthwhile to tag all historical maps with "historic" in MapKnitter and post a gallery of them? Let us know what you'd like to see!

4. Atlantic Cities article on Public Lab. Hot off the press! Atlantic Cities writer, Emily Badger, published a piece on Public Lab balloon mapping this past week after speaking with Public Lab staff member, Stewart Long.

5. Last day to vote for Public Lab SXSW panels. Voting ends sometime around midnight tonight for SXSW 2013. There are two Public Lab affiliated panels that would appreciate your votes:

6. Public Lab, Pachube, Citizen Sensor and DontFlush.me are submitting Empowering Communities with Civic Science and Data

7. Brown University and Public Lab are submitting Revolution on the Ground: Next Generation Maps

8. MapKnitter and Indoor Floor Plans. There has been a flurry of indoor floor plans georeferenced on MapKnitter (check out one here), might this signal new interesting things to come?

9. Mapping Mexico City. After a run-in with police that kept him from launching a balloon in Chapultepec Park, Alex Barth wrote up this how-to guide for getting permission to aerial map in Mexico City.

10. And of course, research notes from the past week: Mapping trees that are in high risk of uprooting at Shapira Neighborhood, Tel Aviv-Yafo (posted by shaief) Laser-cut picavet for PET bottle rig (posted by mathew) Testing coffee spectra at Toscanini's (posted by warren) Jerusalem, photos from last balloon mapping (posted by Hagit Keysar) Low altitude test of the AR Parrot 2 and Swann "thumb" camera (posted by patcoyle) Spectral yeast tests at Mystic Brewery (posted by warren) New map Sunrise Orchards, Cornwall, Vermont (images by cfastie, posted by gonzoearth) New map Toorcamp 2012. Makah Passage, Neah Bay, Washington (images by mathew, posted by gonzoearth)

As always, if anything was missed, please email to the list, write a research notes or email shannon@publiclaboratory.org for inclusion in the newsletter next week. Best wishes for a great start to your September, Shannon