Posted by Dave Archer | Published on December 12, 2012
In the midst of a large rainstorm storm that had the word “flood” on everyone’s lips, groups of designers and developers gathered at the DeLaMare Library at the University of Nevada, Reno for the second Hack4Reno organized by the Reno Collective. The goal of the hackathon was to create Web apps and platform that benefit the local community and help build a smarter city. Individuals gathered at 10:00 am to register and put their ideas on the board, and by noon teams had organically come together and set out to build their ideas. What happened over the next 24 hours was quite impressive.
The teams immediately started designing the concepts and coding using open data supplied by the city and other sources. At the end of 24 hours the teams had developed 7 innovative applications:
Reno Sparks Wiki: A local wiki page about the community’s events, businesses, activities and history. Users can add content to make the wiki more useful and robust. Sign on to add information: www.renosparkswiki.org
Pubcrawly: A pub crawl app that maps out the participating locations and tracks user activity. People can take pictures and post them on the app at certain locations. As more pictures are posted a location will become “hotter” on the map. The team used the upcoming Santa Pub Crawl as an example. The best part of the app, it helps you call a cab at the end of the night! Pubcrawly.
City Cost Tracker: Ever wonder what it costs the city to pull you over or respond to an emergency? The city cost tracker takes public city data, like payroll, and cross-references fire and police call data to show the estimated cost of each incident. Preliminary calculations show the city spends $991 per fire call and $874 per police call. This application could be used by cities nationwide and will give local leaders and the public more information when making decisions.
Open Data Reno: At the previous Hack4Reno one team noticed that public data is often difficult to find and use. In order to make data more usable and transparent, the Open Data Reno project identifies public datasets and rates the quality of the dataset. Users can comment on datasets and suggest new data to collect. The platform also showcases apps that use its data. The first request was for dog park data. opendatareno.org/
3 Things To Do: This app is a crowd sourced community calendar. Anyone can add an activity and crowd voting raises its popularity. The app will list multiple suggestions for activities. threethingstodo.cloudfoundry.com
Harvest Reno: What originally started out as a “Where’s the bus?” app turned into a community garden app that allows people to upload photos of what they are growing. The app also lets people know where they can pick apples and vegetables even if it’s on someone else’s property–with permission, of course!
Lightweight Learning Management System (LLMS): A former Hewlett Packard software engineer developed a platform that allows users to educate others. Load a PowerPoint presentation or other format to share your valuable knowledge.
Hack4Reno Helps Build a Smarter City
In the midst of a large rainstorm storm that had the word “flood” on everyone’s lips, groups of designers and developers gathered at the DeLaMare Library at the University of Nevada, Reno for the second Hack4Reno organized by the Reno Collective. The goal of the hackathon was to create Web apps and platform that benefit the local community and help build a smarter city. Individuals gathered at 10:00 am to register and put their ideas on the board, and by noon teams had organically come together and set out to build their ideas. What happened over the next 24 hours was quite impressive.
The teams immediately started designing the concepts and coding using open data supplied by the city and other sources. At the end of 24 hours the teams had developed 7 innovative applications:
Reno Sparks Wiki: A local wiki page about the community’s events, businesses, activities and history. Users can add content to make the wiki more useful and robust. Sign on to add information: www.renosparkswiki.org
Pubcrawly: A pub crawl app that maps out the participating locations and tracks user activity. People can take pictures and post them on the app at certain locations. As more pictures are posted a location will become “hotter” on the map. The team used the upcoming Santa Pub Crawl as an example. The best part of the app, it helps you call a cab at the end of the night! Pubcrawly.
City Cost Tracker: Ever wonder what it costs the city to pull you over or respond to an emergency? The city cost tracker takes public city data, like payroll, and cross-references fire and police call data to show the estimated cost of each incident. Preliminary calculations show the city spends $991 per fire call and $874 per police call. This application could be used by cities nationwide and will give local leaders and the public more information when making decisions.
Open Data Reno: At the previous Hack4Reno one team noticed that public data is often difficult to find and use. In order to make data more usable and transparent, the Open Data Reno project identifies public datasets and rates the quality of the dataset. Users can comment on datasets and suggest new data to collect. The platform also showcases apps that use its data. The first request was for dog park data. opendatareno.org/
3 Things To Do: This app is a crowd sourced community calendar. Anyone can add an activity and crowd voting raises its popularity. The app will list multiple suggestions for activities. threethingstodo.cloudfoundry.com
Harvest Reno: What originally started out as a “Where’s the bus?” app turned into a community garden app that allows people to upload photos of what they are growing. The app also lets people know where they can pick apples and vegetables even if it’s on someone else’s property–with permission, of course!
Lightweight Learning Management System (LLMS): A former Hewlett Packard software engineer developed a platform that allows users to educate others. Load a PowerPoint presentation or other format to share your valuable knowledge.