National Geographic Takes Open Source To The Wilderness With #RaspberryPi #piday @Raspberry_Pi
National Gegraphics uses Raspberry Pi to collect scientific data and keep it open source. via open source
A team of National Geographic Explorers set out to the Okavango Delta in the African wilderness to measure water quality, wildlife sightings, and more using open hardware and the Raspberry Pi as well as open source software. They created a portal to share data openly, preserving a piece of African wilderness with the help of open source.
You recently returned from the Okavango Delta wilderness in Africa where you applied both open hardware and open source software to measure, record, and access certain variables. For one, the Raspberry Pi. Why did you chose these methods?
Open source is at the heart of the Okavango Wilderness Project. Our team of National Geographic Explorers collaborated on this project with the hope to fundamentally change the way that scientific field expeditions are conducted and shared. In the past, scientists would go on expeditions and gather data, just to return and fiercely guard the data until they can publish it for scientific accolades. When we traveled to the Okavango Delta in August 2014, we shared every piece of data we collected live including environmental readings, water quality data, wildlife sightings, biometrics, and more. All of the data was available on IntoTheOkavango.org and though it’s API to any researcher, citizen scientist, artist, student, or interested person that wanted it.
We wanted those accolades to come from the interesting things that these people would do with this information. We wanted to open source our entire expedition. This approach will continue as we return to the Okavango Delta with National Geographic over the next few years and we have some interesting things in the pipeline. You can follow along at on twitter at @intotheokavango and @okavangowild:
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Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!