So You Want to Hack – OpenHackDay #odhd Recap and Tips for developers and new hacks

ODHD Victoria

So what happens or what do you do at a hack day? Well, using our day as a model, we started with introductions, followed that up with people pitching what kind of idea they had or what they felt they would like to work on. Some brought ideas, some had the wheels turning, others were there to help out or listen to what people were doing – this is a great way to get the wheels turning. For yours truly, I had several ideas but hadn’t really narrowed down a fixed project that I was going to tackle.

ODHD Victoria kicked off with introductions and people pitching their hack ideas

What I took away from the event was the networking and listening / watching people chase their ideas. I learned about some data resources that I wasn’t familiar with, heard about some excellent ideas for apps and web services, and watched people create and code, churning their ideas into something that could then be tested by others in the group or pitched to them for feedback and criticism. I was impressed with the ideas that people had and wowed even more with how far some of them had gone with their ideas during the day. For me, like usual, I brought too many ideas with me and had a little trouble getting focused. I also realized that quite often we are trying to accomplish too much in one solution, rather than getting focused and keeping it simple. As it turns out, a couple of the ideas I was most impressed with during the day were essentially very simple, however, they definitely served to deliver a solution that was needed and would be very useful. Indeed perhaps I need to learn to focus and keep it simple!

For myself, I spent much of my time seeking out data resources. In particular I was searching for local data products and feeds, things that are local in context and specific to our region. It became apparent to me that perhaps there was even less data out there than what I had expected and what was out there really wasn’t very usable. On the flip side, there exists many tools that are at our disposal that can really help. Using visual display environments from Google, Esri (arcgis.com) and Geocommons I spent my time testing various data feeds and WMS services and KML layers that I located on the web. I also poked around with Google Code and the various developer resources from Google, trying to identify some resources that I might use for a project once I get a little more focused. Google docs, fusion tables, Google places are just some of the things I explored a little more.

When it came to data I spent some time looking for sources that I felt could be useful. Naturally, there’s loads of social media and social layers out there including Twitter, foursquare, flickr, and youtube so I poked around, searching for ways to access and scrape the data that I was interested in… this proved challenging at times. Quick mashups were easily created and shared using tools like Google maps, ArcGIS.com, Geocommons, and Bing Maps although I have to admit I was quite impressed with the tools and capabilities provided by openlayers, something I plan to look at much closer in the future. Openlayers is an open developer environment and toolset available to developers. Data was tricky, however, it is out there but you may have to be patient… it also helps to have some good contacts! I really was disappointed with what was available with our own local government agencies (they really could take a lesson from the City of Nanaimo and Surrey, B.C) although at the Provincial level there was some good finds during the day although finding and accessing what you need can be pretty tricky – does it really need to be so tough to get at public data?

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE DAY

Overall, our local hackday was an awesome event and I’ll definitely be back again, hopefully every month. I’m now trying to focus on an idea and will put in some time to get better prepared for the next event. For the community, I’d suggest that anyone who’s remotely interested in learning about developing apps and services to give it a go. Data publishers and stake holders, I’d encourage them to attend and encourage or help people to look at your data. For local governments that are publishing data or working harder at becoming a platform for citizens this could be a great pace to make a 5 or 10 minute pitch about what your doing. Business people, developers, and others will find these to be great networking events and could even be a place where you can find some talent to help your business. 

Tip – A Google Places how to:

Projects revealed at the YYJ hackday (sourced from here)

• Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, the project team created a map of community services that are accessible by walk-in – http://ourservices.ca/
• Geoenabling BC’s Official Places in Twitter: The project team wants to create a Twitter #hashtag for every official place in BC. Could be used eventually by http://www.pep.bc.ca/index.html
• Map of Development and Liquor License Applications in Victoria
• Modelled after Mapit UK, People can input a postal code or a point such as  latitude and longitude and the app will map surrounding administrative polygons, such as municipal boundaries. The project team is working on a Mapit for Canada
• Geocoding BC School Locations and Test Results
• Nanaimo Business Registration hack
• Google Fusion Tables were used to visualize health trends over the last 10 years
• Visualization of MSP (health) Payments by Practitioners

So what kinds of things were going on at our event and at other hack events?

• One group of non-developers started a list of available icons for a food project. The list is on google docs and open so others can contribute
• Mapbox maps all the legislators influencing the house ag committee and their contact info
• Vancouver hackers tackled different areas. Bikes, Trash, Libraries, Transit, Food…
• Waterloo region waste data into Recollect and Spreadsheet Gutter, JSON CSV service – http://sheets.recollect.net/
• Search #odhd for more
  

SOME RESOURCES OF INTEREST:

• OpenDataBc – http://www.opendatabc.ca/
• BC data http://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/
• Data BC Apps Page – http://www.data.gov.bc.ca/dbc/apps/index.page?
• BC Government eteam MapServer list of data services – http://maps.gov.bc.ca/arcserver/rest/services/eteam/eteam/MapServer
• Nanaimo BC Open data layers – http://data.nanaimo.ca/
• BC ArcGIS services directory – http://maps.gov.bc.ca/arcserver/rest/services
• The Data BC Blog – http://blog.data.gov.bc.ca/
• City of Vancouver BC OpenData catalog – http://data.vancouver.ca/
• City of Surrey BC Data products – http://www.surrey.ca/city-services/665.aspx
• BC Government Social Media newsroom – http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/connect.html
• Geobase Canada available data products and downloads – Click HERE
• GISuser directory of opengov data resources

Google Tools

• Google Maps APIs – http://code.google.com/apis/maps/index.html
• Google Spreadsheet APIs – http://code.google.com/apis/spreadsheets/
• HoW to Create a map from a published Google Spreadsheet
• http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsmapwizard/makecustommap.htm
• Google places – http://places.blogspot.com/2011/05/better-access-to-your-content-is-well.html
• Rate your google places – http://places.google.com/rate

Other Useful Map, WMS, and mapping Tools and developer resources