This is an overview of the development timeline for many Public Lab tools and techniques. Not all Public Lab tools follow this exact sequence, but this reflects some common steps in the development of a new environmental monitoring technique.

We may mark tools like the spectrometer or WheeStat with notices like:

Why do we develop new techniques?

Why don't we just use well-established techniques to collect data and do research?

accessibility/affordability issues, also invitation to critique existing monitoring techniques, to deconstruct expert/participant boundaries... etc

something about different orders in which this might happen

some suggested major or minor milestones:

Problem definition

Team building

Background research

Prototype