Safecast Radiation Seminar at Loftwork, Shibuya. August 6th, 2011

1. Measuring Radiation
August 6th, 2011
Safecast

2. • 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

3. 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.

6. 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

8. Arduino based Tracker

9. 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

10. Prototypes - Early April

12. 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

13. (bento) bGeigie (PC based)

14. 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?

15. Volunteers in
Fukushima

16. Volunteers in Fukushima:
Orphanage
Orphanage

17. 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

18. 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

19. More information
• Safecast.org (map and news)
• @safecastdotorg
• @safecastJapan
• tokyohackerspace.org
• ScanningTheEarth -- scanningtheearth.org
• iGeigie.com

20. Q&A

21. Measuring Radiation