Incase any of you would like to join an online discussion on this on Thursday Jan 29th from 5-5:45pm EAT (Kenya time), here’s the meetup link

http://www.meetup.com/Ushahidi-Community/events/220025197/

Angela Oduor Lungati.
Ushahidi Inc.
Platforms: Ushahidi | Crowdmap | CrisisNET | SwiftRiver
Mobile: iOS | Android | SMSSync 
Skype: ngelzy
Twitter: @AngieNicoleOD

Begin forwarded message:

Date: January 23, 2015 at 10:11:18 AM EAT
From: Erik Hersman <ehersman@...>
To: crisismappers@...
Subject: Re: [CrisisMappers] Making BRCK work for crisis response
Reply-To: crisismappers@...

Hey everyone,

Over the last week there’s been a good discussion on tools that would be useful to have on a BRCK+Pi microserver. I’m calling this a “Crisis Stack” of software. (Specs on BRCK+Pi below)

While anyone who makes these tools can put some time into making their tool work on the microserver, I was thinking to list out the full grouping that came out of last week’s discussion, and then prioritize them into foundational tools that could be made into a “package” to download onto your own BRCK+Pi and which would help the broadest set of disaster responders.  

While it’s early days, and we can still move things around easily, I’ve started to put the software into 2 groups.  Right now I’m thinking the following could be part of the core package:

SMSsync - http://smssync.ushahidi.com/ rewritten to be native on the BRCK Device (without Pi)
Wiki  - Gollum, Dokuwiki or Mediawiki (which would be a good, simple one?)
Etherpad / Etherpad-lite - https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite
BitTorrent Sync - http://www.bittorrent.com/sync

The following tools (and more) could work be downloaded and work as part of the stack as a secondary package:

Ushahidi - http://ushahidi.com
WordPress - http://wordpress.org



Skype Call on Thursday, Jan 28th

If this interests you, I’ll host a Crisis Stack discussion next week on Skype, alongside Reg Orton, BRCK CTO, and Angela Oduor from Ushahidi.

When: Thursday Jan 28th from 5-5:45pm EAT (Kenya time).  

Draft Agenda:
  • Quick intros (5 mins)
  • Review of initial thoughts on what should go into core/secondary packages (2-5mins)
  • In-depth discussion on toolset to be included (20 - 30mins)
  • Next steps (10-15mins)

Here’s a Google doc link for anyone who wants to start adding some comments or notes before the call:



Additional Information on the hardware



BRCK+Pi specs:
  • IP51 water and dust ingress protection
  • Dimensions: 132mm (5.18 inches) by 72mm (2.82 inches) by 45mm (1.77 inches)
  • Native Raspberry Pi network connectivity when connected to BRCK
  • Input voltage 5 - 18V, 0.1 - 3A charge current.
  • Solar compatible charging
  • Over voltage and reverse polarity protected inputs
  • Dual USB connection to BRCK+Pi for Keyboard or Mouse (500mA)
  • Mini-HDMI Video Out
  • SDXC support (up to 2TB of SD storage), normally ships with 16GB
  • BCM2835 SoC
  • 4GB native storage (upgradeable to 500GB with extra cost)
  • 512MB RAM
  • 3.7V 8,000 mAH battery
  • Can be preconfigured with Raspbian, but compatible with any Raspberry Pi distribution.
  • Connects to the BRCK by stacking underneath, screws on for security

Other stuff to think about for BRCK+Pi management:
DNS manager to manage sites hosted on the BRCK+Pi
Interface - Needs a basic tool selection (could we make Gnome/XFCE work for this?)


Don’t forget to Signup if you want to talk about this in greater detail next week: http://www.meetup.com/Ushahidi-Community/events/220025197/

-- 
Erik Hersman

Skype: ezungu


On January 22, 2015 at 6:58:15 PM, Alan Kaplan (kaplana@...) wrote:

Michael,

Understood.  But the use case is important, right?  Using directional antennas, can increase coverage. 

Best,

Alan

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:30 AM, Erik Hersman <ehersman@...> wrote:
Michael, meant to add the BRCK+Pi specs in the last email, see below. 

Alan, the feature set is there, but we haven’t activated it for the devices yet.  Mostly this is due to us not having created a good UI for managing it by ordinary (non-tech) users.

BRCK+Pi specs:
  • IP51 water and dust ingress protection
  • Dimensions: 132mm (5.18 inches) by 72mm (2.82 inches) by 45mm (1.77 inches)
  • Native Raspberry Pi network connectivity when connected to BRCK
  • Input voltage 5 - 18V, 0.1 - 3A charge current.
  • Solar compatible charging
  • Over voltage and reverse polarity protected inputs
  • Dual USB connection to BRCK+Pi for Keyboard or Mouse (500mA)
  • Mini-HDMI Video Out
  • SDXC support (up to 2TB of SD storage), normally ships with 16GB
  • BCM2835 SoC
  • 4GB native storage (upgradeable to 500GB with extra cost)
  • 512MB RAM
  • 3.7V 8,000 mAH battery
  • Can be preconfigured with Raspbian, but compatible with any Raspberry Pi distribution.
  • Connects to the BRCK by stacking underneath, screws on for security

BRCK specs: http://brck.com/specifications

-- 
Erik Hersman


On January 22, 2015 at 6:05:39 PM, Alan Kaplan (kaplana@...) wrote:

Hi Erik,

Another question about BRCK:

Do BRCK nodes form a mobile mesh (independent of whether they are connected to Internet)?

Thanks,

Alan

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Erik Hersman <ehersman@...> wrote:
Hey Michael,

Sahana Eden is on the shortlist already.  I’ll send an email out soon with plans on it and getting everyone on a call who wants to talk about it at once.  

Love what you’re doing, keep it up!

-- 
Erik Hersman


On January 22, 2015 at 2:56:40 AM, Michael Howden (michael@...) wrote:

Hi Erik,

Great initiative! I'd be interested in being able to run Sahana on the BRCK+Pi. Having Sahana deployed on the BRCK+Pi, and then synchronizing a cloud deployment would offer a really robust solution with the best of both worlds! I was discussing this type of solution with one of the communities using Sahana in Los Angeles and it would be great to be able to use your hardware.

Do you have any technical specs for the micro server? Here's some documentation for installing Sahana on various platforms if you wanted to have a try on the BRCK+Pi: http://eden.sahanafoundation.org/wiki/InstallationGuidelines Let us know how we could help.

Having map tiles (esp. OSM) served would also be great as Sahana uses these.

Cheers

Michael Howden
CEO, Sahana Software Foundation
michael@...
skype: michael.howden
+64 (21) 126-1360
+1 (213) 261-4250
twitter:@michaelhowden
www.sahanafoundation.org

On 20/01/15 4:55 pm, Erik Hersman wrote:
Mikel, awesome!

So, we’re creating a shortlist of what we think we can throw onto a BRCK+Pi solution, and there’s no one better placed to think through the technical aspects of what would be needed for an asynchronous OSM use case.  What you’ve described below sounds excellent.  Is there someone in the OSM community who can help us put this together?

Regarding the other tools, like Ona and Enketo, I’d be curious to see if they could run on this microserver too.  If so, that would open up a lot of options for Android data collection syncing on the local as well.  Adding Matt Berg to get his opinion. 

-- 
Erik Hersman


On January 19, 2015 at 6:57:02 PM, Mikel Maron (mikel.maron@...) wrote:

Erik

Thanks for starting this conversation, lots of interesting ideas. Since I first heard about the BRCK, I've been thinking how to use it for mapping in crisis. My ideas are pretty in line with what Andrew mentions. 

Specifically, first experimental steps, been looking at how to serve OpenStreetMap and other map tiles offline from the BRCK, tools to make it easy to update locally cached maps, and very simple ways to collect feedback from the ground. From HOT's experience, responders and field GIS officers don't have time to make detailed edits, but do want to share up to the minute observations, if its very easy. So I've been looking at a simple offline javascript app running off the BRCK, which would collect lat/lon and a text description, store locally on the BRCK filesystem, and when network is present, synchronize with OSM Notes (https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2013/04/29/openstreetmap-opens-up-to-more-contributors-with-easy-add-a-note-feature/).

With RaspberryPI, I'd start looking at support for ODK/OpenRosa ecosystem. An offline server for distributing and collecting XLSForms. If Ona and Enketo can run off RaspberryPI, we'd be getting pretty close. A connector between ODK and OSM is in the works, so this would allow offline management of full OSM updates too.

-Mikel
 
* Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron


On Thursday, January 15, 2015 11:58 AM, Erik Hersman <ehersman@...> wrote:


Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking about how BRCK can work better in disaster response.  While the device by itself is good for internet connectivity, and that might be enough for a lot of people, I wonder if there’s not something more we as a community can put into it to make it better.   I’m more interested in hearing is what we could do with providing a stack of disaster-related software that could be loaded onto it.  

We recently developed the BRCK+Pi, which marries a RaspberryPi + hard drive + 8-hour battery, to the BRCK in a simple package (more here).  With this extra computing power it turns the device into a remote microserver, where you can cache content locally and do stuff even when in an offline mode.  

  • What ideas do you have that would fit on it?
  • Which problems could this help with?
  • Are there any software packages that you’d find valuable on it?

If any of you are interested in talking more about this, I can setup a Skype call or Google Hangout to discuss it some more.  Just let me know if interested. 

-- 
Erik Hersman
US: 407.427.412 | Kenya: +254 729.157.257 | Skype: ezungu
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