[ba-unrev-talk] WANDER Completed: 1) a Portable Linux Data-Collection System & 2) Impacts on CITRIS
Several recent CITRIS meetings, have highlighted the growing interest in
the biological, ecological, environmental and other research communities
in the development and deployment of large distributed systems for
information collection, aggregation, analysis, simulation, predictive
modeling and realtime analysis within their respective disciplines. (01)
Likewise, the 911-tragedy caused concern and raised interest in the need
for similar systems in the context of homeland security. It seems
apparent that a structured discussion of the needs for these systems
could create opportunities for synergistic efficiencies between the
various user communities. (02)
To date, however, no such discussions have been held among these
differing user communities, nor among these communities and the groups
providing and developing technologies to support their needs. (03)
So relative to the Earth summit's outcome, may be its time to start a
discussion between the Bootstrap Alliance and CITRIS partners, etc.,
about recent results from BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE BY WIRELESS (NSF) PROJECTS
may help facilitate today's schoolchildren and 'citizen scientists' to
begin to 'collect and communicate field data' ? (04)
Cheers,
- John (05)
1) THIS NSF PROJECT BY STEVE ROBERTS. THE WRITE UP BELOW, FIRST PRINTED
IN THE EMBEDDED LINUX JOURNAL, MAY-JUNE, 2002 ISSUE IS AN EXCELLENT
SUMMARY OF HOW IT WAS ASSEMBLED AND CONFIGURED. --Dave Hughes PI
<
http://wireless.oldcolo.com/biology/ProgressReports2002/Progress%20Reports2002/41-progressreportWanderCompleted.htm
> (06)
About the authors: (07)
Steven K. Roberts is perhaps best known as the guy who wandered 17,000
miles around the US on a computer-laden recumbent bicycle during the
1980s. Since then, he has been taking entirely too long to build the
bike's successor, a networked amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimaran
known as the Microship. (08)
Ned Konz was writing robotics code in Smalltalk for semiconductor
factory tools but then escaped on his recumbent bicycle. He entertains
himself by designing microcontroller systems and programming in Squeak
Smalltalk, Perl and Ruby, and was the lead WANDER software designer. He
is also available for consulting work. (09)
2) May, 30, 2002 - "Prototype Testing and Evaluation of Wireless
Instrumentation for Ecological Research at Remote Field Locations by
Wireless" (Special Report on NSF ANI-9909218 by David R Hughes PI)
<
http://wireless.oldcolo.com/biology/ProgressReports2002/Progress%20Reports2002/43-Special%20Report%20May2002.htm
> (010)
Scroll 2/3 down to: (011)
IV - Impacts on Society and Education (012)
"One, very recent, development has been to apply the findings of this
study, in particular the potential for miniaturization and large scale
deployment of wirelessly connected sensors to the threat of biological
and chemical attack. The results of this study has been fed into the
Multi-Sectored Crises Management Consortium which is under the umbrella
of NCSA, and has been provided to other government agencies in early
2002. Collaboration with such agencies, and Russian scientists, as well
as Industry, has occurred. The same wireless devices being designed for
scientific data collection can be used for these national security
purposes. (013)
Education in Field Science at every academic level has been enhanced by
the use of the wireless connectivity, interconnected to the Internet,
using techniques developed and demonstrated through this project." ... (014)
"Because of the low cost, while high bandwidth, internet-connectable
wireless technology this project has pioneered along with appropriate
interface and sensors links, schools, or even independent 'citizen
scientists' can collect, and communicate data from their own research
projects, fulfilling a prediction Dr. Larry Smarr <
http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/~lsmarr/vita/biography.html> made when
he saw results of this wireless project at a 2001 NEON conference. He
stated that schoolchildren and 'citizen scientists' could begin to
'collect and communicate field data' far beyond the ability of the
limited number of doctoral level researchers or graduate students can
presently. Likewise they can benefit in their own studies by having
access to data collected elsewhere. Comparative, simultaneous, real time
data from many places can be analyses from any connection to the
Internet. " (015)
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