From October 21st to 23rd Public Laboratory Staff, members and local and technical specialists will be gathering in Asheville, North Carolina to have some fun while developing and testing a DIY, low cost infrared camera. Infrared photography can help assess a plant’s health, and has been used on satellites and planes for agricultural and ecological assessment, mainly by vineyards, large farms and large-scale (read: expensive) research projects. By creating a low-cost camera and working in situ on wetland restoration, brownfield remediation, and a local organic farm Thatchmore we hope to explore grassroots uses for this kind of technology. What could farmers or activists do with this kind of data if the equipment costs as little as $100? We will be working on site along the banks of Asheville’s French Broad River with an non-profit community organization dedicated to restoring the river’s wetlands and remediating brownfield sites along the banks, RIVER LINK. Over two days we aim to further prototype, develop and examine the usefulness of low cost infrared imaging from our Grassroot mapping balloons and kites for the regional brownfield remediation, wetland restoration and small scale farming. The Barnraising will be a small gathering of 20-25 participants with a broad range of expertise from participatory design, wetlands restoration, spectral and Infrared Imaging, organic farming, botany, community organizing and environmental activism. The Barnraising will involve lightening talks by participants on their background and field of expertise, workshops, field testing, data analysis and interpretation as well as celebratory feasting! ###Fieldwork sites:### * Thatchmore Farms: [editable Google map](http://g.co/maps/fxhby) * Asheville’s French Broad River with RiverLink: [editable Google map](http://g.co/maps/gcvsq) ###Tentative Schedule:### Friday 21st 5:30pm: meeting at Riverlink 6pm: Lightning talks at Riverlink- in the next couple of days we’ll send out a couple questions that we’d like everyone to respond to, but basically we’ll each discuss a bit about our personal work, what we hope to get out of the weekend and future goals that we have with tool use. 3-5 minute talks. 7pm: Short presentation on the history of rivers in Asheville and a site overview for morning mapping 7:45pm: Dinner. Saturday 22nd (Mapping and Workshop) 8:30am: Breakfast at Riverlink (editable Google map) 9am-12pm: RiverLink volunteers (10-15 people) will participate in aerial and ground mapping using visible and infrared cameras. 12-1pm: Lunch- A Venezuelan food truck will meet us at the river 1pm: until we are exhausted: Infrared camera tool development where we will focus on topics such as wavelength, stabilizing rigs, interpretation and uses In the next couple of days, we might ask a couple of you to give short talks on your areas of expertise to help the group have some information to begin working from. 6:00pm: A couple of us will break away to begin making dinner 7:00pm: Dinner, drinks and a campfire hosted at Adam Griffith's house Sunday 23rd (Farm visit and prototype testing) 9am: Breakfast 9:30-10:30am: Morning synopsis of what was done in the tool development session on Saturday afternoon 11am-1pm: Mapping at Thatchmore Farm (editable Google map) and testing out our new prototypes 2-3:30pm: Work on glitches in new prototypes from morning mapping 3:30-4pm: Wrap-up session and where do we go from here? What are the next steps in developing out this tool? ###Confirmed Attendees:### Liz Barry - Public Lab - NYC Jessica Breen - Western Carolina University - Cullowhee, NC Shannon Dosemagen - Public Lab - New Orleans Stephen Debique - GIS/permaculture - Trinidad Matt Decker - Yale School of Forestry - New Haven, CT Olivia Everett - Public Lab - Butte Adam Griffith - Public Lab - Asheville Nancy Hodges - Riverlink - Asheville Raymond Murray - Carpenter Extraordinaire - NYC Laura Sanders - Landscape Architect - Asheville Diane Styers - WCU Remote Sensing - Asheville Jeff Warren - Public Lab - Somerville, MA Sara Wylie - Public Lab - Providence, RI Dr. Alex Kolker - LUMCON - Cocodrie/New Orleans (via Skype) Mathew Lippincot - Public Lab - Portland, OR (via Skype) ###Travel and Accommodations### * [Travel](/wiki/barnraising-travel) - Options, rideshares, pickups, etc. * [Accommodations](/wiki/barnraising-accommodations) ###Resources### * [Barnraising contacts Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AleR9Fjlv3o6dDN0RFFYelByVDVkYWFMTG11aEx1Z0E&hl=en_US)