Interesting Kickstarter project: Safecast X

Sunday, June 10th, 2012 | non-decay, odds and ends

Safecast X (image by Safecast, CC -by -na)

By chance, I stumbled across Safecast, a global sensor network for collecting and sharing radiation measurements. I.e., it’s a crowdsourcing approach to measure worldwide radiation. Their scope is mainly Japan, but looking at the yesterday’s strange Reddit story about a radiation spike in Indiana/Michigan, one might wonder if a global preparedness network might not be a good idea.

Safecast has now a crowdfunding campaign running on Kickstarter to produce an open source Geiger counter for alpha, beta and gamma radiation (most counters only measure gamma). It’s called the Kickstarter X.

Check out their campaign (which is already fully funded) and consider donating – I think it’s a worthwile effort. Rewards include a range of goodies, from stickers to a fully working Geiger counter to a measurement trip to Fukushima.

Safecast X Geiger Counter on Kickstarter