Featured Project: Every Blip Counts – Low Cost Seismic Sensors

Featured Project: Every Blip Counts – Low Cost Seismic Sensors

from Jarrett Byrnes

[youtube http://youtu.be/IoBdd90DYEs]

What if every computer in the world could be turned into a seismic recording device?

Earthquakes are a scary and dangerous part of life (particularly here in California!) To prepare for them and forecast when and where they’ll hit, we need to know how their seismic energy moves across the face of the earth – but that requires an incredibly data rich fine scale map of seismic activity. How can we get this data?

Debi Kilb’s project, Every Blip Counts – Low Cost Seismic Sensors is the answer. Debi’s project is an incredibly ambitious and important effort to harness Citizen Science to develop a low-cost high-resolution sensor network. It’s a small thing that plugs into your computer, and keeps a central database updated with the seismic activity happening right there, right at your desk!

Fuel her project and you’re fueling citizen science!

Not only that, but part of her funds are going to an awesome outreach project using a Kinect game to help connect (ha!) people to the kinds of research done by seismologists.

[youtube http://youtu.be/uL0yUpHAWPo]

If you help fuel Debi’s project you can be forever immortalized in the game – either naming a character or helping to design some of the look.

[youtube http://youtu.be/sLoUf5WNZ4M]

So, not only are you fueling citizen science, but you’re helping to improve science outreach. It’s a project whose underlying philosophy is right there in line with #SciFund. So get on over and help to #SciFund earthquake research, citizen science, and outreach! It’s a triple threat!