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 -- but folks have also held events at or near Parts and Crafts (above).

If you are in the Boston area, consider joining the local PLOTS mailing list and getting involved in local work and events:

Projects

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

Above: a kite map of the Saugus incinerator ash landfill, where most of the Boston area's trash ends up.

We occasionally have meetups at the Pirateship, so get in touch on the mailing list if you're interested in participating in or organizing a local meetup.

At Parts & Crafts, we've been doing occasional workshops building spectrometers, infrared cameras, such as the one used to take this photograph:

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.