Having a distributed team is great for countless reasons, we have a talent pool literally the size of the entire world and no matter what time it is here, it's primetime for someone else so things can move pretty fast when they need to. Tools like our GitHub repositories help with that a lot. One of the downsides is out of sight out of mind - basically it's easy to push things off to the side and forget about them for months.
Towards the end of last year we devised a plan to help keep the momentem going, as well as sync people up to ensure that everyone had the same goals in mind, which can get confusing and lost in an endless flow of emails. So we decided to have 3-4 individual week long hanckathons in 2013 - each in a different city around the world. We'd bring people together to huddle up and get heads down together for a week and see what could happen.
In January we had our first hackathon, which we held at our offices in Shibuya, Tokyo. We brough in team members from Boston, Los Angeles, Dublin as well as pulled in people from all over Japan. It was incredibly helpful and we made a lot of progress on a number of different fronts. Behind the scenes we fixed a lot of issues and improved our database and API. Our map got a huge update and loads about a million times faster, as well as now having a direct link to the database so what's shown is much more current. The data upload section of our site was redesigned from the ground up. On the hardware front we made considerable progress on the new bGeigie Nano kit which we're hoping to have available in early March - this will allow anyone to build their on bGeigie and drive around to collect data for Safecast. We also took a few big steps with our new air sensors which you can read about here.
Overall it was a huge success, lots of progress and many people met for the first time. Putting a face with the name on the email you just got is always good. Our next hackathon will happen at the end of April, beginning of May in Boston. Putting together the plans for it now.
The Safecast iOS app has been continually updated and if you haven't grabbed it yet you definitely should. It's loaded with our full data set and acts as a virtual geiger counter!
On a final note, Global Giving is having a donation matching campaign in March with 200% matching on March 11th. If you were considering making another donation, that is a fantastic way to really multiply the impact!
We’re incredibly excited to announce the launch of the Safecast iOS app available in the App Store now. Last year we reached out to Nick Dolezal, creator of the most amazing GeigerBot, with some questions and ideas about his app. It didn’t take long for us to realize he would be a fantastic addition to the Safecast team and he agreed. We started brainstorming on what a Safecast iOS app might look like and what it might offer. The results of those continued discussions are live now. We’re most excited about the “virtual geiger counter” aspect to this app – using the GPS on your iPhone or iPad you can quickly see readings that have been taken around you. We’ve got the full Safecast dataset on board, as well as a handful of other publicly available radiation measurement data sets which gives a comprehensive exposure map for the US and Japan, with other areas being filled in as we collect those readings. There’s also the ability to connect your own geiger counter and take readings which can be submitted back to the Safecast Database.
We feel like this will be an incredibly useful application for just about anyone to have, and hope to keep improving it’s functionality as well grow. Enjoy!
The JapanTimes called it "strangely addictive" -- Download the iOS app now
Also, Tokyo based filmmaker Adrian Storey made this fantastic 3 minute documentary about Safecast for the Focus Forward Films competition and it’s made it to the semifinals! We’re really excited because not only is Adrian is an all around awesome dude, but he made an excellent film that hopefully many people will be able to check out and if he wins this competition Safecast will get some of the cash to help continue our efforts. If you have a moment and can go vote that would be much appreciated!
It's been a busy few months for the Safecast hardware teams. Part of the process for collecting more data requires getting more devices into people's hands so we're constantly working on that end of things too.
Robin has been heading up design of the improved bGeigie design (bGeigie 2) - the old ones included off the shelf parts and took a good day to build each one by hand. This new version is based on a custom board we're having manufactured which will cut both the time to build and the cost in half. We're excited about how this will allow us to get more of these out on the road so much quicker than previously.
Lionel has been working on the bGeigie Nano, which is the guts of a bGeigie in a much smaller housing which is great for travel and easy use by basically anyone. With any luck our entire team will soon be outfitted with these to carry with them around the world. We're also working with Medcom to produce a kit version of this so anyone can build their own as well.
Speaking of Medcom, they are moving full speed on production of the device we designed and kickstarted earlier this year, expecting delivery before the end of the year for sure. Firmware tests are in progress as we speak.
We've brought in almost a million data points since the last update which is thrilling. Our new map displaying this data can be found at map.safecast.org.
