Public Lab Wiki documentation



Staff call notes 10 7 2011

1 | 2 | | #501

(Google Doc link)

Collaborations

  • finally heard back from Carlos at East Harlem Tutorial Program EHTP. They were busy starting an entire charter school, and their high school “STEM” program started this week and they are looking to fill some timeslots before January. Teaching options: Tuesday / Thursday afterschool with freshmen and sophmores, Wednesday afternoon with juniors and seniors. Next Steps: Set up a thermal camera hacking afternoon in NYC - maybe Monday night October 17.
  • Tom MacWright (dev seed) - My Superfund - PAH site nearby Boston - http://macwright.org/superfund/
  • EoI went into UNICEF on Monday, haven’t heard back about next phase contract.
  • UGANDA?? what is this $60K for 6 months (6 weeks in country)? please forward the email. broader research community vs PLOTS staff. Chris C. has mentioned this opportunity to Leif, but we need to learn more. The original pitch seemed to say “we have money and nothing else, and you need money and will do anything to get it” - so it was dismissed. What about PLOTS taking overhead from a large contract like this? People in the community taking on projects where we aren’t staff, we allow ourselves to be available as support staff and take overhead.

  • Butte - writing MOU to situate plots tools in housing and urban redevelopment context.

  • LAGCC at Newtown Creek - Sunday 9th call.
  • what is ongoing relationship between GCM and PLOTS? if they start ballooning at every site assessment, what is our relationship?

  • BROADLY -- what about a large organization using us to help them work with mapping in someone else’s community? like UNICEF, like GCM perhaps. lateral partnerships.

Recent & Upcoming events

Fundraising

Public Archive/Web

  • MapKnitter at 1.0
  • Mapped around 130 acres in North Boulder last month, finishing the 3vis, 2 ir maps today - Stew
  • planning meeting for PublicLaboratory.org site
  • Rio map by Stewart is amazing and the folks in Rio love it

Organization

  • need to open up more contribution opportunities to the larger list as activists, active users, evangelist, community leaders. need to model this after other Open Source communities. Can we be like a utility to support the community?

Field work this week

  • Basurama landfill mapping Monday morning - public event, Harv. grad students coming along, and Jen Hudon
  • Saturday GCM mapping in Providence - at a potluck! Monday, October 3, 2011

Collaborations

Recent & Upcoming events

  • Barn raising...50 powerlines crossing in 1.5 miles. Can we get on river? Please finalize participants list directly into the barnraising wiki page.
  • Shannon to DC for talk with Emma and Kate on Togo
  • Next Gowanus Mapping (Fall color) October 23 Sunday.
  • Follow-up with Bucket Brigade in Rhode Island is happening on Sunday October 9
  • Adam’s been mapping 1-2 times x week with students at WCU, using knitter and PS - should make PS screencasts for YouTube - http://camstudio.org/
    • training with community around asphalt plant.
  • Also GCM doing site inspection with balloon mapping as prototype for adding this method for all their site assessments.
  • Catherine d’Ignacio/RISD mapping class trip on Oct 12th - Save the Bay’s remediation site in Providence
  • LAGCC - Newtown Creek add into partnerships with Riverkeeper. good to have the map exported.
  • Lecture/mapping at Clark University - Hamil Pearsil - peer-reviewed papers
  • Lecture/mapping at Harvard GSD/Mike Hooper, Basurama/Pablo Rey

Fundraising

  • Environmental Anthropology $2K
  • NEH process - procrastination? project management?
  • UNICEF - submit LOI

Public Archive/Web

Organization

  • Switching Friday call to tool/site updates led by Jeff (tool) and Shannon (sites)
  • Time accounting- how can we make this process easier for people
  • Reimbursements
  • Health insurance- Sara

Field work this week