I\u2019m was at Canopy B&B, waiting for ride to airport. Now I\u2019m in line at the airport.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

I had great time here. I came to visit Andrew Quitmeyer, at Digital Naturalism Laboratories (DINA: https:\/\/www.dinacon.org) via invitation from Shannon Dosemagen, long-time Public Lab friend. You can see what Public Lab is about at: https:\/\/publiclab.org\/<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019d been intrigued by a map and 3-D model of Gamboa that Andy had made from a drone flight. I brought my new Mavic Mini that I had maybe 6 min of flight time with. Andy coached me, and we flew a section of Gamboa Marsh where a music festival had fumigated and dumped a load of gravel inappropriately. So it was a live, real use case. We took over 300 photos, at 2-second intervals, from 100 m, flying manually.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

We started a map in Mapknitter, then I used Drone Deploy\u2019s trial offer to make a map and 3D model<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Andy also introduced me to Andrew Coates. His firm Cresolus (http:\/\/www.cresolus.com\/) specializes in architecture and construction in the tropics. We were able to talk briefly and he\u2019s interested in helping come up with an open source design with very simple IKEA-like instructions for building houses that might be used at the Belize Open Source – Sustainable Development site. It is convenient that he is already working in Belize for a government of Belize project funded by World Bank, to renovate a repurpose an old forest station with ~ 40 buildings, on the way to the Carocol Mayan ruins. He\u2019s also renovated the facilities at The Thousand Foot Falls in the mountain pine ridge area of Belize. Andrew had great ideas about how one might approach this similar to a boat building company out of Chesapeake Bay. They offer<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

kits that you can buy and make yourself<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

classes where you can come and learn and build your own<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

or they build and deliver to you<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Andrew talked about his Panama hut initiative which has trained builders to fabricate and then be able to flat pack and send the small very nice units. See: https:\/\/www.thepanamahut.com\/<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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I emailed Andy and Andrew that I was sure glad we were able to chat for a few minutes. Very productive!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

I sent a PDF of the dual vault composting latrine design package, as well as the bill of materials, for the ones that we\u2019ve been doing for ~ $415 per unit cost in Nicaragua (111 to date, with another Rotary global grant nearing approval to do 80 more in seven communities.)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nI also sent link to the drum-based composting toilet \ufffcsystem I spoke of separately.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nI stressed I appreciate what Andrew is doing and the opportunity to try and partner on a vision for the little Belize place.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\nI think the open source construction manual, training workshops, sponsorship for the local Belizeans to become certified builders, all really sounds terrific.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

After, Andrew wrote, \u201cGood to talk to you.I love the idea of creating a simple tropical home that is kit built from an \u201cIKEA” guide. Available to all.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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I also used another cloud based software to process a test set of photos from our El Llanito, Nicaragua water supply aerial image contractor who flew tests from up the hill to sector 5 in the community, just reaching our areas of active trenching (visible on far right side) in this scaled small sample aerial map. The preliminary results are encouraging for being able to map our project.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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