python

Improving public transportation reliability to encourage people reduce their carbon footprint.

Submitted by Keshy on December 9, 2011 - 17:46
Summary: 
  • Managed to achieve a good prototype of a semi-real time tracker
  • Pulled data off the MARTA schedules to be used as our primary dataset.
  • Platform agnostic and user friendly.
  • Involves SMS service and use of smartphone technlogies to cater to a wide section of international population facing this problem
Why we are working on this problem: 

see http://www.rhok.org/problems/improving-public-transportation-reliability-encourage-people-reduce-their-carbon-footprint

What we accomplished during the event: 
  • A good notion of routes in different countries.
  • A decent working framework to be able to get an idea of approximate time your transport is due in to the stop near you. 
  • A user friendly way of updating information in a crowd sourced framework. 
  • Intelligent route prediction possible once the data sets evolve over time. 
  • SMS service to cater to developing nations. 
  • Potential integration with Google transit as a way to handle deviations from predicted schedules in developed countries. 
Code Repository: 
https://github.com/keshy/crowd_sourced_transport_tracker
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
PHP
python
HTML5 + CSS3 (iPhone)
JavaScript
Frameworks: 
LAMP
End user environments: 
Web
Mobile
iOS
Symbian
Blackberry
Windows Phone 7
Android
Desktop
Windows
Mac
Linux
Images and Video: 

D2020

Submitted by aeschylus on December 4, 2011 - 16:30
Website/App store links: 
http://www.d2020.com
Summary: 

Problems can be hard to solve. Games make problem solving fun.

 

D2020 is a platform to inspire people to code, build games, and save the world.  

 

D2020 aims to train 2020 new game developers to make 2020 games by 2020, each one confronting one of the many pressing problems humanity faces. 

Why we are working on this problem: 

We believe all knowledge should be playable.  

 

Our game Code Hero teaches you how to code while you play, but there's more to making all knowledge playable than just the technical skills. We need to inspire the minds and build the teams that will make all the world's problems solvable. 

What we accomplished during the event: 

We built the first revision of the D2020 platform, along with an example game that teaches you how to make a problem-solving game. 

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/lxpk/D2020rhok
Category: 
Methodology
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
python
PHP
HTML/CSS
JavaScript
Frameworks: 
RenPy
Unity3D
Drupal
End user environments: 
Web
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
RHoK Global December 2011
Images and Video: 

Drop2Drink: Website + Foursquare Awareness for SF Emergency Hydrants

Submitted by squeed on December 4, 2011 - 16:15
Website/App store links: 
http://www.drop2drink.org/
https://foursquare.com/user/17653678/list/sf-emergency-drinking-water-hydrants
http://twitter.com/drop2drink
Summary: 

San Francisco has 67 Emergency Drinking fountains marked with a blue water drop, designated to provide drinking water in the event of a disaster.

 

However, awareness about these hydrants is very low. SF city published a PDF listing of hydrants, but did not make it otherwise available.

 

Why we are working on this problem: 

A project presented by Sarah Filley at the San Francisco Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK#4) event on  December 3rd-4th, 2011.

 

Citizen-led Urban Innovation can activate micro preparedness actions that can impact neighborhood resiliancy.

 

Using mobile and web to digitize this map increases awareness of an exisitng SFPUC program.  By exporting our data to foursquare we are directly influencing millions of users to take small steps towards Emergency  Preparedness.  By Focusing on a physical object we can leverage technology like foursquare, to bring these digital tools back into the every day routes of citizens on the way to work, play, or school.

 

 

What we accomplished during the event: 

To raise awarness of these hydrants, we created

 

  • Website
  • An interactive Emergency Drinking Water Hydrant Map
  • twitter
  • Hydrant DB
  • SMS group messaging system
  • A venue in Foursquare for every hydrant
  • QR codes to attach to hydrants as an interventionist strategy to activate vital information.

 

We also started the framework for other civic groups to do the same. We've started a system for converting Fusion tables to FourSquare venues.

Progress made since the event: 

First Place!  New video available: http://animoto.com/play/yUOEncZXPenUR3tFnb0fzQ

Traction: 

@drop2dink

www.drop2drink

SF2drop group message

Next steps: 

We need to finish our generic Fusion to Foursquare converter. Then it needs to be made available for similar civic-minded groups.

Community help: 

Drop2drink is interested in partnering with civic, public, and private groups to make these features more broadly available.

 

In addition, we are looking to partner with small businesses to offer redeemables to four square mayors surrounding these 67 hydrants as a way of publicizing our preparedness message and activating the neighboring residents and communities.

Code Repository: 
https://bitbucket.org/jeffreyyungwu/fusionsquare/src
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Operational
Programming languages: 
python
Frameworks: 
Google App Engine
FourSquare
End user environments: 
Web
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Images and Video: 

Integrating Microtasking into Existing Crowdsource workflows

Submitted by omdesign on December 4, 2011 - 14:58
Summary: 

Have PyBossa running and have begun spec on the data interchange process.

 

Problem:

 

http://www.rhok.org/problems/integrating-microtasking-existing-crowdsour...

Why we are working on this problem: 

There is a great deal of lost productivity and confusion from running multiple unlinked applications to coordinate volunteer activities.

 

Microtasking is extremely effective for successful crowdsource projects.

 

A generic framework to break out broad ranging tasks into specific manageable ones requires far less training of new volunteers, faster process of getting 'up to speed' by experienced volunteers and ability to provide assistance to other tasks outside of the volunteers traditional field of expertise.

What we accomplished during the event: 

Problem definition

Novel approach decision

PyBossa set up, functioning

Next steps: 

build parser/importer to populate task stack

build exporter to update task source environment

 

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/rgrp/pybossa-geodemo
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
python
JavaScript
HTML
End user environments: 
Web
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
Boston
Images and Video: 

CuiBono: A truth detector for political ads

Submitted by boblannon on December 4, 2011 - 14:39
Website/App store links: 
https://github.com/CuiBono
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=d3fqpjr_52fbrbvnts
Summary: 

This mobile app listens to political advertisements and returns information important for understanding the context of those advertisements.  Information will reference coverage on sites like FactCheck.org and data maintained by the Sunlight foundation and its partners. It will include:

  • links to journalists' coverage of the ad itself (when available)
  • links to coverage of related issues 
  • links to information about the political action committee (PAC) responsible for the ad
  • a link to a parody video on the (soon to be live) FlackCheck.org

Technical details: The app makes use of the echoprint software made open and free by echonest: http://blog.echonest.com/post/6824753703/announcing-echoprint

Why we are working on this problem: 

Because while all political ads have to be "true," context matters.   Political ads aren't bound to tell "the whole truth," and viewers are not always aware of the context from which quotes and facts were selected.

After the Citizens United decision, interest group spending on ads increased. For House races, between 2008-10 there was a  277% increase in volume of  ads aired that were paid for by interest groups. (Source: Wesleyan Media Project).  Many experts expect to see a continued rise in this volume as we enter the 2012 election season.  

In order to ensure that voters can understand the context of the information communicated in political advertisements, it is important to make coverage available to those voters immediately.

What we accomplished during the event: 

During this event, we developed three key components of this application:

  1. a mobile application that quickly samples a small stream of audio and converts it into an echoprint audio fingerprint
  2. an api to which the mobile application can submit queries in the form of an audio fingerprint
  3. a server that recieves audio-fingerprint queries and returns the closest match from a database of advertisment
Traction: 

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the open-source code made available by echonest at https://github.com/echonest

We have been in contact with two journalistic resources to plan future collaboration:

Next steps: 

UPDATE: 

As of 2/13, we now have a fully functional application and webservice, complete with submission forms for advertisements.  Going forward, we hope to bring on board content creators as well as develop web scraping routines to help curators keep current with the fast-paced world of political ads and coverage thereof. 

We'll also be looking at ways to refactor our code and bring the webservice to a more mature state.

Next Steps:

  1. opencalais integration to parse journalistic resource text
  2. intergration with more sunlight foundation apis to generate richer content
  3. a public site for user submissions of advertisements and associated metadata
  4. developing matching algorithms to pair journalistic resources with advertisements
Community help: 

Any and all journalistic resources that can be brought to bear on this problem will make the data returned to users rich and germane to the relevant issues.

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/CuiBono
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
python
Java
Android
C++
Frameworks: 
django
End user environments: 
Mobile
iOS
Android
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
RHoK Global December 2011
Images and Video: 

Data Journalism Developer Studio 2.0

znmeb's picture
Submitted by znmeb on December 4, 2011 - 13:36
Website/App store links: 
http://susestudio.com/a/RQrRBY/data-journalism-developer-studio-20
http://borasky-research.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/About-The-Data-Journalism...
Summary: 

The Data Journalism Developer Studio is a 100% open source Linux™-based appliance designed for data journalism developers. It can be run as a desktop or a server and is designed for development of data journalism desktop and server applications.

The Data Journalism Developer Studio is modular. The core appliance consists of the operating system, desktop, browser, and data acquisition / cleaning / analysis / visualization tools. The core appliance is available as a virtual machine in VMware / VirtualBox / KVM format, as an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) appliance and as a bootable LiveCD that can be installed on a desktop or laptop PC.

Additional packages can be installed as required using installation scripts provided. Each additional functional package can be independently installed to match the needs of the users.

Installed Components (Core Appliance)

  • openSUSE™ 12.1 32-bit Operating System
  • GNOME 3.2 Desktop
  • Mozilla Firefox Browser
  • gcc-c++ and gcc-fortran
  • openJDK Java runtime, development environment and browser plugin
  • R patched
  • RStudio™ integrated R development environment
  • R.rsp R Server Pages, websockets and Rook Web Server Interface

     

Why we are working on this problem: 

Journalists today operate in a world dominated by two trends:

 

  • Real-time many-to-many communications platforms
  • Large sets of complex data with stories waiting to be told

 

Major newsrooms can afford staffs of coders, reporters, writers and editors and thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software. But a citizen journalist or journalism student cannot. The Data Journalism Developer Studio collects robust open source solutions to the problems of real-time data collection, data analysis and visualization, digital media creation and, to a lesser extent, server construction.

For more information, see Data Journalism Developer Studio Overview   http://borasky-research.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/About-The-Data-Journalism-Developer-Studio.pdf

What we accomplished during the event: 

Deployed a beta version of the appliance.

Traction: 

This is still pretty much a one-person show / hobby project. I have about 200 downloads of the previous version, but haven't really tried to build a community yet.

Next steps: 

1. Finish the 2.0 release.

2. Write user documentation.

3. Build a community.

Community help: 

At this point, the appliance is very much a solution looking for a problem. I've collected the tools and I'm looking for users. Personally, I want to move on to developing some stories using the tools, primarily in the area of economics and finance.

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/znmeb/Data-Journalism-Developer-Studio
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
R
Perl
python
ruby
JavaScript
Frameworks: 
django
node.js
End user environments: 
Web
Linux
Server requirements: 
16 GB disk, 1 GB RAM, 32-bit x86 minimum
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Images and Video: 
Seeking people with skills in: 
Data journalists / reporters / editors / publishers

ATC 20 Mobile application for Sahana

Submitted by phaas on December 4, 2011 - 12:16
Summary: 

Using Sahana building assesments plugin working on mobile app

Code Repository: 
https://code.launchpad.net/~flavour/sahana-eden/buildingAssessments
Category: 
Methodology
Status: 
Concept
Programming languages: 
python
Android
Frameworks: 
ODK
End user environments: 
Web
Mobile
Server requirements: 
Sahana Eden instance
Images and Video: 

Coordinate

KB3JUV's picture
Submitted by KB3JUV on December 4, 2011 - 12:06
Summary: 

Coordinate is a simple mobile app and database that allows emergency response officials to plot hazards in an accurate and structured manner.  It allows an EOC and other response agencies to receive validated reports from responders out in the disaster area.  Information can be updated out in the disaster area allowing for a better common operating picture of what hazards still need to be resolved.

 

Project Members:

 

Nick Costa

Benjamin Hitov 

Avni Khatri 

Eron Gjoni

Amos Scott

Justin Kates

 

A couple of examples of how Coordinate will be used:

 

 

A major storm has occurred resulting in many trees and power lines being brought to the ground.  The Emergency Operations Center has been established to help coordinate the response.  Roads need to be cleared and downed power lines need to be removed

Fire Engine 4 has been responding to emergency calls since the incident started.  While traveling to calls, the Fire Officer has been plotting hazards on his smartphone with the Coordinate app.  The EOC has been monitoring these hazards as he plots them in the Coordinate Web UI and map displayed in the facility.

A Public Works crew has been dispatched by the EOC to handle a tree across a roadway.  They clear the tree, and the hazard that was plotted is edited to show it being cleared by Public Works at 3:30pm.  The EOC sees this and knows that the road is now opened back up

The Mayor's Office has been receiving calls about downed power lines all across the City.  A phone operator is taking these reports and entering them into the Coordinate Web UI.  All users on Coordinate are seeing these new incidents being plotted in the system.

A citizen, about to venture out after the storm to purchase food, visits the City's website to view the roads that are still closed.  He views a map on the website with information about hazards still out in the community, and determines that he should stay in his home until the roads are cleared.

 

Project Presentation:

 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hj4Vt_Q9DdIBsw48VEOy0pLx1Lt8bTZv...

 

Coordinate was named the winner of the December 2011 RHoK Boston event!

Why we are working on this problem: 

Road obstruction information (and other hazards) is extremely difficult to coordinate after a disaster.  Various response agencies are keeping logs of data without any coordination.  As hazards are cleared, not all agencies know it is no longer an issue.  Current hazard mapping solutions are very feature rich and not simple enough for response officials to quickly and accurately plot hazards.

What we accomplished during the event: 

Lot of work was completed on both the Android and iOS app.  Lot of work was completed on database.

Progress made since the event: 

Work continues to be done on the entire system.  A meetup is planned after the holidays to determine key focus areas to complete the project.

Traction: 

There are too many Crisis Mapping projects currently going on in the Open Source community without coordination.  Many of the solutions don't allow for the capability to "dim the lights" on unnecessary features.

Next steps: 

To test the use of the apps and database in exercises and real events in the near future.  Continue to provide an necessary functionality while keeping the project extremely simple.

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/bhitov/oemweb
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
HTML
Java (Android app)
JavaScript
objective c
python
XML
End user environments: 
Web
iOS
Android
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
Boston, MA, U.S.A.
Images and Video: 

Wound Triage Application

Submitted by Yaser Alyounes on December 4, 2011 - 11:26
Website/App store links: 
http://alyounes.net
Summary: 

The proposed phone app would allow volunteers to walk through a refugee camp after a disaster and take pictures of those wounded, next to a fixed-length reference object. When an image is taken of a wound, the app would measure its dimensions (height and width) based on manually inputted 4 points on top of the image (top edge, bottom edge, left edge, and right edge), automatically calculate how much suturing and other materials are needed (patient-based and for the entire location), estimate how long it would take for the wound to heal and automatically set a reminder to check on the wound. This would allow the volunteers walking around to take pictures of those wounded, and help them identify which patients should receive immediate medical care. Moreover, it will automate the process of estimating how much supplies are needed (how many sutures, sterilizing alcohol, band-aids, etc). Lastly, Physicians from all around the world would be able to look at the wounds and triage them. If a wound is classified as high severity, an automated alert will be sent back to the volunteer on site with instructions to direct the patient to the physician on site.

 

You can access the presentation for the app here

Why we are working on this problem: 

There are generally 3 key target markets that we would like to help with this app:

 

  1. People in an area struck by disaster where there aren't enough medical practitioners to traige the wounds. The app would allow physicians from all over the world to assist in triaging patients and quickly directing those at high risk to seek medical attention. This way we would significantly cut down the triage time and make sure to reach everyone before it's too late
  2. People in remote regions where they do not have access to medical assistance. This could include people who live in remote regions or even people who are camping in the woods.
  3. Mothers of young children who want to confirm whether they should take their wounded kids to the ER or just receive instructions from pediatricians on how to avoid coming to the ER or what to do until they get to the ER
What we accomplished during the event: 
What is done: 
  1. The Physician User Interface was finalized
  2. The back-end of the system for processing and calculating was finalized
  3. The initial design and functionality of the phone app (on Andoid) was finalized.

 

What is pending:

 

  1. Connecting the Phone App to the Back-end securely
  2. Sending back alerts from the back-end to the Phone App.
Community help: 
  1. We need Phone Application Developers to develop apps for the different phone platforms
  2. We need input from the medical community and emergency respondors on how to improve the functionality of the app (e.g. what additional pieces of information we should be capturing)
  3. A comprehensive Wound Image Library which will allow us to compare the image of the wound to the image library (using image processing) in order to automate the classification of the wound
Code Repository: 
https://github.com/mtbottle/wound-classification
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
python
End user environments: 
Web
Mobile
Android
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
Toronto, Canada
Images and Video: 
Seeking people with skills in: 
Phone App development

Fair Trade Finder

mattwestcott's picture
Submitted by mattwestcott on December 4, 2011 - 09:34
Website/App store links: 
http://map.oxfairtrade.org.uk/
Summary: 

A mobile web application to find shops and outlets selling Fairtrade products in your local area, searching by product type and distance. Data is managed at a regional level, to allow local community groups to take ownership of the data, and an open API is provided to allow future client apps to be built on the platform.

Code Repository: 
https://github.com/practicalparticipation/fairtradefinder
Category: 
Application
Status: 
Prototype
Programming languages: 
python
PHP
JavaScript
Frameworks: 
django
geodjango
End user environments: 
Web
Mobile
Desktop
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for: 
Oxford, United Kingdom
Images and Video: 

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