Idea Lab

Public Lab's Keys to Developing Low-Cost Science Tools

by Adam Griffith
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

This piece was co-written by Mathew Lippincot. The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science community is a massive petri dish for low-cost science tools. Our balloon-mapping tool is in its mature phase having evolved out of the agar during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This success was due in large part to the feedback provided by the community of tool users and consumers of tool data and their revisions to the tool. As we've broadened our development, we've asked, how can this success be replicated with other low-cost science tools still in the petri dish? Rather than looking...

• May 22, 2012
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Public Lab's 'Barnraising' Focuses on DIY Infrared Camera Development

by Adam Griffith
2011 Knight News Challenge Winner

Stephen Debique, a student from Trinidad, carefully removed the screws from the digital camera, trying not to destroy it in the process. His hands shook a little as he hesitated just before popping the hot-filter off the heart of the machine with exactly the correct amount of pressure. After a few minutes of nervous reassembly, Stephen and several others had successfully modified off-the-shelf $49 cameras to take infrared (IR) images instead of regular images in the visible light spectrum. IR images are useful in determining how much photosynthesis is happening in an area and have traditionally been used by governments,...

• November 16, 2011
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