The Public Laboratory

PLOTS Balloon Mapping Kit – get started for $115

You can always assemble your own, but for a quick start PLOTS now offers a retail kit. You supply camera & helium. Read more »

PLOTS Archive maps republished on Google Maps/Earth

Maps produced by members of the Public Lab community were recently republished by Google »

PLOTS Spectrometer kits

PLOTS offers $30 kits to build your own optical spectrometer. Measure the spectrum of light bulbs or help develop techniques for analyzing water samples »

Infrared vegetation monitoring

Balloon mapping with DIY infrared cameras »

Contamination monitoring

Brooklyn activists document the Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal and other sites of industrial contamination »

Using inexpensive DIY techniques, we seek to change how people see the world in environmental, social, and political terms. We are activists, educators, technologists, and community organizers interested in new ways to promote action, intervention, and awareness through a participatory research model.

This community began as the Grassroots Mapping project, an effort to produce Do-It-Yourself satellite imagery with balloons and kites, most notably during the 2010 BP oil spill. We are now broadening our scope to explore new inexpensive and community-led means to measure and explore environmental and social issues.

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