[SoaS] [IAEP] [support-gang] Quake Catcher Network

[Yamandu Ploskonka]

Provincia San Luis in Argentina is doing an amazing project of 
calculating the carbon footprint of every community in the Provincia, 
the kids go house byhouse interviewing the families on what kind of 
appliances they have, number of lightbulbs, etc.  Classmates running 
winnows, alas.



Please disregard the rest of my response below - I'm into nonsense, no 
need to take any of that seriously, I just find it somewhat quaint I 
fell into that, so I'm leaving it there


as to massive data gathering, something on the lines of weather projects 
could be fascinating, with adequate sensors.  Anyway, so far we haven't 
even been able to figure out even what it is that kids use their 
computers for, which simply would require to see / spider / datamine the 
Journals.  To assume that we will be able to have kids regularly upload 
information, and also somehow will we manage to get them previously the 
proper sensors...

Now, with *adequate* data processing, having weather data moving across 
a locality with a couple hundred sensors *accurately* located would be 
terrific, especially cross referencing that with satellite data and 
doing it over a significant span of time.

Same difficulty with anything of this kind.  It's cute this was 
originally sold as something that would use accelerometers in computers, 
but, oh, it turns out you need separate sensors.

I've seen a few very clever Science Fair seismic sensors, but even the 
cheapest ones can run beyond what is practical to consider as individual 
expenses.  And don't forget calibrating them, etc. I would be surprised 
a sensor that actually can give useful information would cost less than 
an XO!



On 04/18/2010 09:39 PM, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> Hi Nick,
>
> Thanks for the link to the Science For Citizens site.  Sounds like 
> most of these projects are for the US only.  I wonder if there are 
> similar projects in other countries? Some really nice lessons could be 
> developed for students to do with their XOs with web access.  Does 
> anyone know of others?
>
> Caryl
>
> > Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:18:15 -0400
> > From: ndoiron at andrew.cmu.edu
> > To: support-gang at lists.laptop.org
> > CC: soas at lists.sugarlabs.org; iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > Subject: Re: [support-gang] [IAEP] Quake Catcher Network
> >
> > The accuracy of an individual sensor, yes, is suspect. But that's why
> > Stanford is asking for many sensors to be registered -- a thousand or
> > laptops moving simultaneously (or in outgoing waves) could 
> triangulate the
> > location of an earthquake before the waves even register at the main 
> USGS
> > seismometers.
> >
> > These projects also connect the kids to science in a direct way. Most
> > volunteer science projects are a bit more hands-on and a little less
> > hardware-intensive. I've been interested for awhile in seeing the 
> laptops
> > connected to a project such as this -- see
> > http://www.scienceforcitizens.net/ for some more examples =)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Nick Doiron
> >
> > On Sun, April 18, 2010 8:04 pm, Yamandu Ploskonka wrote:
> > > Caryl,
> > >
> > >
> > > I think it is wonderful you do share about this. It is always
> > > interesting to see how some idea can have unreached effects and 
> become a
> > > wish for more
> > >
> > > I have been quite involved in seismic monitoring in my day, and to
> > > imagine personal computers could be used for that, beats 
> everything else
> > > this week as to wishful thinking turned into vaporware, even though I
> > > spent a lot of time reading so called evaluations of ICT for 
> education,
> > > and there was that revival of the crank...
> > >
> > > Now, if you can, and abusing a lot on your patience, please do not see
> > > what I said as a criticism to you, or that you should not share 
> with us
> > > this kind of stuff.
> > >
> > > Actually, for someone like me it is extremely valuable to be aware of
> > > what is going on out there, and in the absence of things that make 
> sense
> > > completely, it does help me hugely to, well, hear about this kind of
> > > things, because at some level these do reflect real dreams and desires
> > > which are perfectly true and valid, even though their put into 
> effect is
> > > not.
> > >
> > > I guess I could go into detail, but the basic reason this cannot 
> work is
> > > separating "real" seismic data from any other, from steps close to the
> > > machine, to a car rolling outside... This of course will not stop a
> > > skilled grantwriter, who would offer to prepare software that can
> > > discriminate data. However, the nearly mathematically unsolvable 
> problem
> > > is in separating *overlapping* data, which is the real reason they 
> forbid
> > > cellphones on planes.
> > >
> > > That is why real seismeters are set underground, as far away from 
> human
> > > activity as possible.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 04/18/2010 05:31 PM, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi...
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Here is something intriguing I heard about on NPR yesterday. It is a
> > >> Seismic Monitoring program that can run in the background on 
> computers
> > >> that have built-in accelerometers (newer Macs) or PCs with an 
> external
> > >> one with usb connection. The hope is to have a world wide network of
> > >> computers sensing quakes, especially in places where there are many
> > >> quakes.
> > >>
> > >> It is designed to be an educational project with schools involved
> > >> doing "citizen science" (sort of like CoCoRaHS). They have
> > >> interactive/educational software and seismic monitoring software.
> > >>
> > >> Disclaimer... I haven't tried the software yet so I can't 
> recommend it
> > >> one way or the other until I do.
> > >>
> > >> Does the XO have an accelerometer? No matter if it doesn't because it
> > >> has usb ports to spare. Any chance of someone getting a version 
> of the
> > >> software to work on the XOs? Maybe one of our developers who 
> knows what
> > >> would have to be done to get it to work on the XO could contact the
> > >> Quake Catcher Network and ask it they could do it?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Here is a link to the site:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> http://qcn.stanford.edu/downloads/
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Looks like it is based at Stanford.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Caryl
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> > >> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> > >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
> > >>
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> >
> >
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>
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