Mapping Party for Critical Infrastructure (OSM-US)

May 27, 2015

See challenge on http://hackforchange.org

###Celebrate open mapping with a party, balloons, and GPS as you travel around your community to identify the critical infrastructure in your neighborhood.

##BACKGROUND / CONTEXT

Use your National Day of Civic Hacking to host an OpenStreetMap mapping party, which is a fun way to encourage people to edit the map.

The format of a mapping party generally involves people getting together to do some mapping, socialize, and chat about making a free map of the world.

For this challenge we are asking for communities to map the critical infrastructure in their communities. Critical infrastructure can include, but is not limited to, facilities for water supply, hospitals, railway networks, and police. More listings can be found here.

##CHALLENGE DESCRIPTION

Some more information about mapping parties from the OpenStreetMap website:

The schedule of a mapping party can take several forms. For example, a simple mapping party can just involve going to a nominated pub after doing some mapping, but typically a larger event will involve meeting beforehand to discuss the plan and to team people up. Afterwards, the event may involve use of laptops/computers with internet, to actually input the data gathered that day, or it may not. (For a simpler mapping party, participants take their data and input it later at their leisure.)

For effective training of beginners, it’s a good idea to have at least one laptop to demonstrate editing. Be prepared to use JOSM’s offline capabilities (download and save a .osm file beforehand) in case you have no internet. If GPSs are involved, it’s a good idea to take the data off the device by way of demonstration, and because this is a tricky part which beginners can fail to do when they get home. This way you can upload their file for them.

After the mapping is finished, the participants share food and drinks, and enjoy themselves. It’s a party, after all!