Map Map Revolution in Boulder, Colorado!
Amazing is the best way to describe today! Not 4 days ago, Boulder and Golden, Colorado was freshly covered in 8 inches of snow, and today was sunny, mid- 50’s and just begging for people to be outside!
Today’s mapping party was at The Cup, just south of the pedestrian mall on Pearl Street, downtown Boulder. With a Mate Latte in hand I gave a presentation to a group of 9 folks from varied backgrounds and interests.
With the day so beautiful, several people went out to hike South Boulder Open Space which was a slice of cake I had identified as needing data. Several miles of trails have been added!
Jim’s family is interested in Geocaching and wanted to see what OpenStreetMap is all about. The family decided to go map some of the University of Colorado! They made a big dent in locating benches, bike racks and footpaths on the west end of campus. The kids loved seeing their track render and the little icons mark their waypoints 
They said they’re ‘hooked’!
Also, having the OSM sign up brought in two guys interested in knowing more. Ethan sat down with me over a chocolate croissant and uploaded his run from his iPod this morning. Tyler works with open source mapping and wants to map all of Denver and Boulder’s bike ways!!! Sweet!
I had a wonderful time sharing OpenStreetMap with all my new friends today and everyone looks forward to the next event.
I’ll be in Dallas next weekend, February 7-8 and Houston February 14-15 (can you say NASA?)– but I already have plans brewing for Denver again.
Pictures to come soon!
Ciao~ Hurricane
January 31st, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments
Mapping Party Reminder
We’re giving the following mapping parties on Saturday. Everyone is taking Superbowl Sunday off with the expectation that everybody will be watching the game.
January 30th, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 0 Comments
Party Renders
I’ve done a couple of party renders for Sarah’s recent mapping parties. They’re movies that show you where people went while they were mapping. I put them on YouTube: San Francisco, January 17th and Austin, TX, January 25th.
January 29th, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 0 Comments
Keep Austin (and San Antonio) Mapping!
We had a wonderful turnout last weekend for the first San Antonio & Austin Mapping parties. On Saturday, we met at Olmos Perk in San Antonio, and were able to improve the OSM map, adding in local points-of-interest, parks and universities. You can see our efforts come to life here.
On Sunday we had an a great turnout, with approximately 20 people attending the party at Austin Java. We were able to add trails in the Barton Creek Green Belt, Johnson Creek Trail, downtown points-of-interest, as well as in and around other parts of Austin.
Thanks to both Olmos Perk and Austin Java for being great hosts (with solid wifi connections!). Keep an eye out for another mapping event in about a month’s time!
January 28th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
Keeping up to date on Parties!
Greetings from cold Colorado It’s seasonally freezing here, but it’s still a beautful sight to see the landscape sugar coated.
I am trying a new post here with Yahoo’s UpComing! event calendar:
So now you can keep up to date on where and when Hurricane will be hosting parties!
Until next time, keep on tracing, tracking and waypointing
Hurricane
January 28th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 0 Comments
Reflecting on the Tempe Mapping Party
So, here I sit in the Phoenix airport waiting for my flight; satisfied in the same way that you feel after that really good thanksgiving dinner where the turkey was moist and you went for thirds. One of those times where you savored every moment, but you don’t want to go through it again… at least for a little while! =)
The Tempe Mapping Party was a huge success. I have to give a big shout out and thanks to James Fee and RSP Architects; you were the perfect hosts and the party couldn’t have been better without you.
The success was a two-fold one. We may not have edited a large amount of road length or added millions of POIs, but we did have a great rhythm going and had 15 folks on Saturday, huddled in groups either using JOSM to upload GPS traces and add features to the map, or working with Potlatch to update map features that are already there. Those not engaged in that were congregated near the front of the room looking at the map on the two large flat screen tvs, discussing tagging and best practices for getting the map features to render in certain ways. It really was, in a sense, a great work session where I bounced around from group to group, offering advice or hints where I could, walking folks through things where they needed.
Sunday’s attendance was only 5, but what it did offer of great value was the opportunity to really provide that one-on-one (or two-on-one as it were) with James and I both walking a new OSMer, Mike Schwartz, through the ups and downs of using potlatch. The others busied themselves with a continuation of the previous days activities as they were all return attendees. Mike, there only on Sunday, got his first taste of how fortunate OSM is to have the TIGER data, and unfortunate that it is data that needs so much editing!!! His neighborhood alone was a microcosm of all the errors and discrepancies that the issue of “scale” can cause. It was a great lesson and I’ve promised him weekly check-ins to see how he, and the neighborhood, are doing… =)
More than the party, I sensed a coalescing of folks that would hold together in my absence with gentle guiding by mapping champions like James Fee or Joe Furdy. I believe they will be great stewards of the momentum they have helped me build in the Phoenix region, and I look forward to reviewing the map when I return the weekend of May 15-17.
Thanks to all in attendance; it was truly a great time.
Cheers,
Brandon
Also check out this great panorama from the trail on “A” Mountain
http://rniemeir.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/20090124OSM-SM.jpg
January 26th, 2009 - Posted by | 0 Comments
Mapping Franktown, Colorado!
It’s official Franktown, Colorado is on the map!
OSM presentation
We are a small community, mostly referred to with more cattle than folks… we claim to have one stop light, one bar (the Stagecoach rocks!), a post office and a great little restaurant called The Grill on the Hill. We are also lucky to have a State Park in our ‘backyard’: Castlewood Canyon. It is home to elk, deer, plenty of coyotes and rattlesnakes and bears (but seasonally).
I held my first mapping party here with hopes of good weather and we lucked out! For January we’ve been having stellar warm weather, but the thing about Colorado is it’s 70 one day and 30 the next!
Dwight and family
We had a varied group show up for the event. I envited family and friends and friends of friends who– in the end we all end up family and friends (yes, a mind twister)
Dwight and family mapped the southeast part of the park, while others mapped the north end and my cousin John drove around the ’south 40′ (pretty much the middle of nowhere if you’re a city slicker) to waypoint some of the best bars the area has to offer!
We also did a great informational session on ‘armchair mapping’ for those interested in mapping with aerial data from home. A great hobby for bad weather!
The final report is everyone had a great time! We enjoyed beers and brats (and hotdogs and juice for the kids )
Everyone wants to get together again and bring other folks that would love to map too!
Until the next mapping adventure, keep your traces tracking!!
~Hurricane
January 25th, 2009 - Posted by Hurricane McEwen | 1 Comments
Howdy from San Antonio!
We are having a great time in San Antonio, adding more points-of-interest, trails and roads onto the map. Can’t wait to continue mapping Texas tomorrow! Stop by the Austin Mapping Party is you are interested. You can find details here!
January 24th, 2009 - Posted by Sarah Manley | 0 Comments
Amusing mapfoolery
Apparently some pranksters changed all the signs on Bush St. in San Francisco to Obama St. photos, OpenStreetMap location. Amusing, yes, but it won’t last. Some civil servant will undo the change.
January 22nd, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 1 Comments
Open Source and Open Data
I’ve blogged a bit about the relationship between Open Source and Open Data over at the Open Source Initiative, for which I am a founding board member.
January 21st, 2009 - Posted by Russ Nelson | 0 Comments
