Introducing GeoMakers
Within the Geospatial community, there is an abiding interest in anything involving location, surveying and mapping, remote sensing (such as satellite or airborne imagery), 3D terrain characterization, navigation, and understanding change over time within a particular geography. GeoMakers (http://geomakers.org/) is a community, open to anyone, for geographers who draw inspiration from the intersection of these two Revolutions. GeoMakers was founded by AGS Councilor Jared Novick (jared.novick@geomakers.org), who noted, “At GeoMakers we envision a world of DIY location-aware open-hardware and open-software. GeoMakers.org will be an open platform to dream, make and promote game changing geospatial technologies.”
The GeoMakers community was established to further the work of technology oriented, do-it-yourself “Makers” to create new remote sensing and similar tools. GeoMaker’s projects often involve mapping, remote sensing, navigating, and other ways of understanding our world geographically. Recent GeoMaker projects include inexpensive, 3D printed buoys (with off-the-shelf electronics) for tidal monitoring, and an innovative portable antenna array to track aircraft and drones.
GeoMakers, as a non-profit educational network seeks to cultivate a global community of innovators, implementers, educators, and advocates to create, adapt, curate, and spread the word about location-enabled open source hardware, open source software, and open source geodata projects so that each provide fun, engaging, and inspiring STEM learning opportunities. Mr. Novick added, “Creating a community to develop GeoMaker projects has the potential to change how people see and interact with our world by using inexpensive DIY techniques.”
By Eddie Pickle, AGS Councilor