Our work in Somerville is developing in partnership with Parts and Crafts. Somerville is also home to Sprout and the Boston-area Dorkbot chapter.

The Public Laboratory chapter in Somerville is currently hosted out of the p.irateship, a coworking and hacking space at 438 Somerville Ave. For Somerville and greater Boston-area folks, the best person to get in touch with about getting involved is Jeffrey Warren.

In Somerville, we've been interested in

• measuring vegetation health using near-infrared cameras
• detecting heat leaks with cheap, DIY thermal photography, allowing for better winterization and heating bill savings
• investigating waste flows, such as where our trash goes -- with Pablo Rey from Basurama.org
  • check out this map of a landfill in Saugus, MA which we made in late 2011
  • improving the DIY spectrometer for investigating oil and tar contamination (mainly for use at the Gowanus Canal and along the Gulf Coast

Where is the p.irateship?

See http://where.irateship.com for a map, the photo below for the front of the building, and http://p.irateship.com for some nonsense which may or may not be useful.