hackforthesea

Team Coassting to Victory is composed of Joe, Cory and Robert. We used node.js and mongoDB to build a solution which addresses the global problem of harm done to our marine life through pollution of our streams and water bodies. Using our software, hackers can quickly set up a portal to collect data on whatever junk users report seeing in the water. Leveraging the ubiquity of internet connected devices with geospactial tagging capability and high resolution cameras, our software can quickly begin collecting data from millions of devices and display the reports as they come in. Using common standards our application is able to run on almost any device capable of running a modern web browser which can post an image. Using cloud services and dynamic deployment technologies our software can be set up quickly for instant access almost anywhere. Also the open source nature of our implementation here sets a low barrier for anyone get started. This can be useful for studies done in remote locations or in response to emergency situations. This also enables us to quickly expand and improve on our software to better meet the needs of COASST and the marine life conservation community.

Implemented as a mobile friendly webpage here now, the debris reporter is a proof concept for how we intend to make it easy for anyone to report and measure objects seen in the water. On the other side of this we can imagine the reports making it to the eyes of humans who measure how it is effecting the water. Each report builds an awareness of how the water effects the life around us. Collectively the information of all these reports commands the attention of researchers but it no simple task to present why.

We experienced many technical challenges in connecting all the pieces but managed to overcome them to deliver a practical prototype usable on mobile devices, desktops, and more. Given more time to advance the design this project could be expanded to better meet the needs of conservationists in other use cases. Using an entirely self managed system for hosting the images debris report was a design goal that had to be cut in order to expedite development and facilitate function testing. This is however ever something that could easily be added to allow for one more full control over the whole system. Using the data collected by this software it possible that one may gain insights on what is going on in the water through machine learning and a more complete answer to the challenge of this hackathon would include something to address this. There are numerous challenges to realizing such a complete solution but it is hoped that the data gathered from this prototype could be used to spread awareness of the problem if not solve it. Neural networks real or artificial may not be able to solve this problem quickly but at least the data from this app may give us a way to measure it.