Category: Do-It-Yourself

Milo Toor, a software engineer writes about his experience with DIYBio and Counter Culture Labs. You can find more information about Counter Culture Labs and search for other DIYBio projects on the SciStarter citizen science project database. Counter Culture Labs is a 100% volunteer-run, membership funded organization, and is currently running a Kickstarter campaign, funds from which will […]

Winter weather is upon us! Many folks bundle up and venture outside to participate in citizen science, while others look for projects they can do indoors. Here’s a mitten-full of indoor and outdoor cold-weather projects for you to explore. Cheers! The SciStarter Team   Weather-IT This project is run by a graduate student who needs your […]

As we ring in the New Year, we’re celebrating the 14 Top Projects of 2014! These are the projects that received the most visits on the SciStarter website. Resolve to do more citizen science in 2015! We’ll help you with that goal. Happy New Year! Photo: Mike Hankey 1.  American Meteor Society – Meteor Observing Report meteors […]

Per the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American spends 90% of their time indoors. At the same time, when we think of citizen science, our mind’s eye often pictures the great outdoors: wide expanses of open space, jutting mountains, birds in trees, and frogs sitting near meandering streams. In part, that’s due to a perception […]

NoiseTube allows citizen scientists to monitor noise pollution with a mobile app. Come to your senses! SciStarter has curated a list of projects for all 5 senses. I was overjoyed the first time I heard the peaceful fountain, twittering bird song, and gentle rustle of wind through the trees oustide my office window. Then, one […]

The non-profit Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab) previously won a Knight News Challenge in 2011 and received $500,000 to fund a tool kit and online community for citizen-based, grassroots data gathering and research. The second Knight News Challenge the group won, a $350,000 Knight award focused on health data, will allow the group […]

Citizen science has its own song! Monty Harper, the musician behind “Citizen Scientist,” needs help from you to compile a slideshow for the piece. If you have photos of you or others participating in citizen science, you can submit them to be included in a slideshow music video for his song! The deadline is November […]

  I like to call it an antipiphany* – that striking realization of the magnitude of what can be known, which reduces what you actually understand to a paltry amount. I’ve seen it again and again with graduate students: they enroll feeling like smarty-pants, and within a year they are humbled by an antipiphany. Eventually […]

Public Lab has launched Spectral Challenge, a two-part crowd funded project to improve the use of open source spectrometers. A spectrometer is a common research tool which uses light to identify an unknown substance’s chemical composition. Last year, members of the PLOTS community successfully developed a versatile and user friendly $40 spectrometer. While more accessible, […]

Scientific research aims to answer questions, progress disciplinary knowledge, and ultimately better society by providing new applications of technology and ideas toward common problems. But, over time, the products of our countless research projects, while potentially still useful, go unutilized, and can be forgotten in the basements of University libraries or the dusty archives of […]