Open source hardware has led to amazing developments and innovations in hardware at an unbelievable pace. Within the last few years, the OSHW community has harnessed the capabilities of all types of sensors, power supplies, batteries, and communications to create technology that people outside the community would never have dreamed possible. In the humanitarian world, there is a huge need for technology, specifically open source technology, to address critical areas in humanitarian work. The needs are often very specialized and the budgets are typically small, but the potential impact could affect many lives. In the talk, I will be going over my experience with OSHW in Safecast as a response to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. I will also discuss my experiences working with the United Nations (UNESCO) in developing an open source weather monitor and the International Atomic Energy Agency developing a crowdsourced radiation monitor. These devices would never have existed without OSHW and they required very close collaboration between engineers and domain specialists such as climate scientists.
Find him in the lifestream archive of the first session at OHS!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
