Field+Sites+EF

Honestly, I am still in the cursory stages of figuring out exactly which sites I will be focusing on for research. For now, I know I will be looking at digital, online communities and more than likely the newly established Troy Makerspace. I may also focus on AS220 in Providence, a community center in Philadelphia, the Hacktory in Philadelphia, Resistor in NYC or Hackett Middle School. For this MEMO I will focus on the Troy Makerspace, “The Internet,” and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia as a site to examine how museums interface and engage with the public in terms of scientific data and research.
 * MEMO 3 FIELD SITES**

__Troy Makerspace__

Tech Valley Center of Gravity: This space has recently sprung up and is a combination of the Schenectady/Albany Maker group which did not have a set location for their group and a Troy initiative to get a physical Makerspace. It is located in downtown Troy, in the parking garage across from the “mall” where the old horse-betting facility once was. More than any other Makerspace or hackerspace I have checked out, it seems fairly focused on being an incubator for innovation and part of a network of spaces available to convince RPI students to stay in the area after graduation. Although, there seem to be two competing viewpoints of what the space could really do and for what it might be utilized – definitely the makers from Schenectady seem more interested in getting a myriad of different people involved and are not as interested in it being an incubator or a way to keep RPI students around. They are fairly welcoming and excited to get things started. At the moment they have a great deal of equipment that has been donated, and they are opening their doors for making and use of the facility on March 1st.

__The Internet aka Online communities aka my office__

I will be looking into a myriad of on-line communities for information, and may also be looking at on-line scientific journals and blogs. I might focus on Publiclaboratories.org and other community sites for citizen science documentation and networking. Publiclaboratories.org is a site dedicated to the Public Laboratories for Open Technology and Science group which develops and applies open source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. Through “civic science” their main goal is to help under-served communities identify environmental hazards, create awareness and seek accountability for said hazards. I will also look at Instructables.org, and other spaces that tap into Maker culture. Instructables.org is a space for tinkerers and makers to document their own projects and disseminate instructions to a larger community for how to do said projects. It has an interesting dynamic and focuses on opensource projects to open up the projects for modification by others.

__Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia__

Located on Franklin Parkway in downtown Philadelphia, this museum would be an interesting case to explore as it is mainly comprised of a research facility that is largely helped by community volunteers. They also have science programming for the public and are interested in teaching sustainability and concerns of environmental awareness.

__ Hacktory in Philadelphia __ __Hackett Middle School__ __AS220__ __Brooklyn Makerspace (Resistor)__ __Boston Makerspace__