Increasing Access to NASA Earth Data for Farmers
NASA Space Apps Hackathon, October 2023, UI/UX Design
WHAT
Agriculturists face barriers to information such as climate projections and soil and water quality. High-level data is often raw, complex, and hidden in huge libraries such as NASA OpenEarth. How might we make data from NASA, ESA, and other agencies more accessible?
HOW We rapidly ideated over 48 hours, drawing inspiration from Tableau and other data dashboards. Our goal was to equip farmers with the tools to access the NASA OpenEarth data portal effectively. As part of the hackathon, we also had access to subject matter experts.
InSAR and Vegetation
Finally! I got to use some useless knowledge of new Earth monitoring satellites: ESA’s Sentinel-1A and 1B, and NASA-ISRO’s upcoming (as of writing in 2024) NISAR satellite. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is like a high-tech space wizard that uses satellite radar beams to craft super-detailed 3D maps and track Earth's shifting surfaces, vegetation growth, and water content.
I learned how hard it is to design an effective data dashboard.
Primary indicators for farmers:1. Weather forecast
2. Air, Water, Soil conditions
3. Food market monitoring
SOLUTION “Project Soil Tycoon” was our solution. By abstracting away some of OpenEarth’s features and focusing only on what data an agriculturist would need, we were able to distill open data into an accessible application.
Scripts written on the backend by the data scientists on our team would pre-process data and filter it into a Tableau-like dashboard.
*Also, we won 2nd place in Washington, DC.