Measuring Radiation

August 6th, 2011

Safecast

•What is Safecast? (Pieter)

•The alphabet (of radiation) (Kalin)

•The devices we build (Akiba)

•How we are measuring (Pieter)

•Japan Radiation Map? (Kalin)

•What else did we find (and not) (Kalin)

•Scanning The Earth Project (Kei)

•Q+A and Workshop

What is Safecast?• Safecast was created 1 week after the 3/11 Japan earthquake.• Core team of 5 people, almost 60-70 regular volunteers worldwide.• Team concentrations in Tokyo, Portland and Los Angeles.• Raised $37K in 30 days with Kickstarter, exceeding funding goal.• Currently: 15 mobile "bGeigie" car-based units & 75 handheld sensors

deployed.• 500,000 measurements done by GPS mapping• Short term goal is to have 1000 sensors deployed in Japan in 1 year.• All data collected and published by Safecast is open and available under

CC0 dedication.

The alphabet (of radiation) lphabet•The alphabet: ABC -> αβγ

•The isotopes: Cs-134/137, I-131, Am-241

•Units of measurement

•counts; CPM, CPS

•Sv; μSv/h

•Bq; Bq/m2, Bq/m3, Bq/kg

Arduino based Tracker

How we measure•Volunteer Truck Driver - April 16th

•Keio Research Team - April 20th

•bGeigie / Tokyo Hacker Space - April 23rd

•bGeigie Mini - Battery Powered, SD Card - May 11th

•nGeigie - fixed sensor

Prototypes - Early April

bGeigie - GPS Radiation Logger

• GPS Logger

• Arduino board for GM interface

• USB memory with Linux, Mac and PC Java applet

• Medcom Geiger Counter a/b/g

• Waterproof and shockproof

• Can be mounted on any car window

(bento) bGeigie (PC based)

What have we found?

•no-alpha, beta, gamma

•Cs-134/Cs-137

•Hotspots• Local Hotspots - Schools and Homes

• Urban-level Hotspots

• Chiba, Nasu, Abiko, Koriyama...

•Contamination?• Not in the air; on asphalt, concrete, roofs

• How does it behave?

• How to remove it?

Volunteers in Fukushima

Volunteers in Fukushima:

Orphanage

Scanning The Earth Project

•Collaboration between Safecast and Keio SFC campus lead by Prof. Jun Murai

•Focus on Fixed Sensor and Mobile Sensor network measurements

•Research on devices, methods, calibration, geo mapping

•Fixed sensor deployment started in June

Next steps•Start measurement of food and solids

•Expand mobile drives across Japan and World

•Aggregate other sources

•Fixed sensor deployment

•Safecast Geiger Counter

•DIY kits for Fixed Sensors and iGeigie

More information•Safecast.org (map and news)

•@safecastdotorg

•@safecastJapan

•tokyohackerspace.org

•ScanningTheEarth -- scanningtheearth.org

•iGeigie.com

Q&A

Workshop

Measuring Radiation