Tokyo Hackerspace’s Geiger Counter Project Continues to Evolve

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Tokyo Hackerspace’s Geiger Counter Project Continues to Evolve

This March, Tokyo Hackerspace was hooking Geiger counters up to the Internet to get accurate radiation readings and stream the data for all to see. Since then, they haven’t been resting on their laurels, teaming up with Safecast and developing a NetRad shield that fits on the Freakduino wireless microcontroller board. THS member Akiba gave us an update:

We joined up with Safecast (RDTN at the time) and since then, almost all the core members of Safecast Japan are now Tokyo Hackerspace members. The office is also inside Tokyo Hackerspace. We started up a joint project with Keio University to create a radiation sensor network across Japan. The goal is 300 nodes by the end of the year and 1000 nodes by next year. The NetRAD boards were modified to accommodate this and we added WiFi so that it would make deployment and cabling easier. All the data is open and since then, Yahoo Japan started publishing their radiation map using our feeds.

We also are using special versions of our Geiger counters mounted on cars to geotag Geiger data and create maps.

18 thoughts on “Tokyo Hackerspace’s Geiger Counter Project Continues to Evolve

  1. Anonymous says:

    Check out Sean Bonner’s blog posting of his recent Safecast rad-drive thru japan’s countryside… 
       http://blog.safecast.org/2011/08/drive-report-august-7/
    Sean is coFounder of Safecast (and several hackerspaces).  I like his b&w pics.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Here is our full drive map that has all data from all our drives aggregated on to a single map. We’re using google fusion tables which allows us to have 500k+ data points and still be fast. We custom built 15 devices which consist of a geiger counter with a GPS module and SD card. We mount the devices on the outside of a car and log the geiger data including timestamp and position info every 5 seconds. We then upload it on to the map. We’ve been doing that for the last three months:

    http://maps.safecast.org/fusion

  3. Anonymous says:

    Here is our full drive map that has all data from all our drives aggregated on to a single map. We’re using google fusion tables which allows us to have 500k+ data points and still be fast. We custom built 15 devices which consist of a geiger counter with a GPS module and SD card. We mount the devices on the outside of a car and log the geiger data including timestamp and position info every 5 seconds. We then upload it on to the map. We’ve been doing that for the last three months:

    http://maps.safecast.org/fusion

  4. risa bear says:

    Heartfelt thanks for all this. Any chance of spreading the nodes to Korea, Kamchatka, Canada and US after Japan coverage is adequate?

    1. Anonymous says:

      Yes. One of the goals of Safecast is to design a base system for uploading sensor data to the internet. This will all be open source so that people won’t have to go through the trial and error that we went through to get this radiation sensor network up. I’m hoping it can be used for pollution and other environmental monitoring as well as for radiation.

    2. Anonymous says:

      Yes. One of the goals of Safecast is to design a base system for uploading sensor data to the internet. This will all be open source so that people won’t have to go through the trial and error that we went through to get this radiation sensor network up. I’m hoping it can be used for pollution and other environmental monitoring as well as for radiation.

    3. Anonymous says:

      Yes. One of the goals of Safecast is to design a base system for uploading sensor data to the internet. This will all be open source so that people won’t have to go through the trial and error that we went through to get this radiation sensor network up. I’m hoping it can be used for pollution and other environmental monitoring as well as for radiation.

    4. Anonymous says:

      Yes. One of the goals of Safecast is to design a base system for uploading sensor data to the internet. This will all be open source so that people won’t have to go through the trial and error that we went through to get this radiation sensor network up. I’m hoping it can be used for pollution and other environmental monitoring as well as for radiation.

  5. Open Rad says:

    Where can there shields be purchased?

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My interests include writing, electronics, RPGs, scifi, hackers & hackerspaces, 3D printing, building sets & toys. @johnbaichtal nerdage.net

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