Highlights from Space Apps NYC 2017
Space Apps NYC is a hackathon that is near and dear to my heart. It was one of the first hackathons I attended that started a wave of attending hackathons and making new friends.
The event now is much bigger in scope, it has a hackathon, a conference AND workshop components. Organizing the event takes a team months and it really shows.
There was a lot of great content in the conference, workshops, and hackathon.
Conference
The conference part of the program is really dedicated to having industry oriented talks and panel discussions. If one is not directly affiliated with the space industry, this would be a good way to meet individuals in the industry.
Civilian Astronauts!
This year, the conference had talks from two civilians that went to space: Anousheh Ansari & Richard Garriott. This is amazing to me as it is a small indication that we are at a point of our civilization where individuals can buy a short trip to space.
Anousheh’s talk was inspiring when she talked about how the Russian space agency initially tried to talk her out of going to space (“can we send your husband instead?”) and made working with her difficult. By the end, she won the agency over and was even featured in the local paper, which inspired other female cosmonauts from Russia to apply (there were no other female cosmonauts when she was in the program.)
While space seems so complex. but when Richard explained that just having a solid background in engineering and understanding ham radios, he was able to handle anything in space. This gives me hope that anyone can do space work, not just rocket scientists.
Product Management
This talk was a real highlight as Ashley gives a great definition of a project manager in the current industry landscape. I have strong interest in the fields she describes a project manager works with: user experience, technology, and business.
At the same time, she explains that almost anyone can be a great product manager, no matter their background, even retail managers and athletes!
Introduction to AR
This workshop was great as the speaker introduced the virtual reality, VR, and augmented reality, AR, landscape. He explained that AR is more accessible than VR because anyone with a smart phone will be able to access AR apps. The most basic requirement for a VR experience requires a smart phone and cardboard.
I learned more about this year’s CES 2017 winner: Holocube, which has no electronics in it at all. It is an amazing feat for a product with no electronics win the consumer electronics show… think about that for a moment.
Finally, the speaker did an awesome job of showing how to ‘drag & drop’ a basic AR app with Unity. This made AR apps so easy that some hackathon projects this year used AR as part of their solution.
Open Space Project
I have experienced “Tour the Universe” show before, but now seeing Alex & Carter talk about opening up the project so anyone can give a ‘tour’ is inspiring.
I loved playing with open source space app, celestia. Now the tool Carter uses is open sourced, I’m more excited to explore space and think about the tours others can give.
Hackathon
The hackathon event takes place over the weekend where programmers and anyone wanting to solve one of this year’s NASA space apps challenges can work on it on their own or meet others to work together.
Socrata
Looking back at my first Space Apps NYC hackathon experience, I REALLY wished I knew about Socrata. It would have changed the direction of my first hack as Socrata evangelists really understand data.
Socrata evangelists would help everyone with their data questions and even if the data set is not available, they would provide advice to hackers about how to proceed with their idea. This advice is essential in the short time frame of a hackathon.
Finding Earth 2.0 Space with Sarah
I really enjoyed Sarah’s talk during the hackathon. She shared what is some of the current discoveries in finding an Earth 2.0 and the criteria used to evaluate them. I learned about astro-spectral photography, which is one of the main techniques to identify a remote planet’s atmospheric composition, even if the planet is light years away!
If you want to see more talks from Sarah, subscribe to her Space with Sarah YouTube channel
Project Highlights
This year’s projects were amazing in different categories. I do not envy the judges as they could only pick a select number of winners (and also represent NYC at the global stage).
I feel this is one of the hardest hackathons to work at because the solution space is just so open! It’s a really tough hackathon.
Conclusion
This year’s Space Apps NYC conference, workshop, and hackathon was so much more impressive than when I first attended. With great tools like OpenSpace and inspiring speakers like Anouseh and Richard, I’m more interested in the space industry.
Video Links!
- Anousheh Ansari
- Richard Garriott
- Panel: Making Space Matter
- ISS benefits for humanity
- Health and Air Quality Applications of Earth Science
- data.world Intro
- How to Turn your Ideas into a Startup pitch
- Open NASA Data from API to Data Analysis
- Forrest and the Trees: What makes an effective product manager?
- Panel: Entreprenuership in Space
- NOAA’s Big Data Project
- Vincent Cerf closing keynote
- Open Space project
- Finding other Earths