GovHack 2016 took place last weekend involving over 2000 people in 41 locations across Australia and New Zealand. The ALA was one of many datasets available to be hacked and attracted a lot of attention.
GovHack is an annual open data competition where teams have 46 hours to create a project page, proof of concept and a video showing how government open data can be reused.
Now in its sixth year, GovHack has seen many different innovative projects from web apps, data visualisations and virtual reality games, to 3D models, art, jewellery, and board games.
The ALA data set was listed within the NCRIS Research Data and Infrastructure Group. Other government department and agency data was also available.
Projects created using ALA data are listed below. Click on the links to see project details and videos.
- Bringing Data to the Table educational table and chairs using biodiversity and topography data and 3D printing.
- Creature Wise twitterbot to tell you what could be living nearby.
- GaiaXplorers app to help you explore the Aussie natural world and compete with your friends.
- Ausémon mobile app in the style of Pokémon Go that highlights the animals you might see along the Canberra Centenary Trail.
- Finding Forgotten Fauna plug-in and data entry portal linking ALA and Trove to harness the power of citizen scientists and digitise historic accounts of Australian fauna.
- CRITRS augmented reality mobile game linking landmarks and wildlife.
- Threat.End gamified flora and fauna education and citizen science mobile app focussed on threatened species.
- Wildsnap open source virtual reality educational app that allows players to catch and collect endangered species.
- The Outdoor Experience app for families and individuals to plan their outdoor experience, access dynamic and relevant content and report their findings.
- Put a bird on it ringtone and notification sounds of local Australian birds to download on to your own device.
- Piccohunt social game to encourage players to take and upload images of biodiversity.
- Native Go augmented reality experience that allows you to interact in real time with native flora and fauna using your mobile device.
- walkED app to help plan a journey and map it with biodiversity information.
- What lives here? app to enable data collection from nesting box sensors across Australia.
- Wilderness Buddy an app to help tourists explore Victoria’s national parks and wildlife.
- WalkaboutAus! a fun quiz game for visitors to Melbourne to play as they explore features of interest around the city.
- WINE The Wine Industry National Explorer provides growers, potential employees, students, policy makers, investors and researchers a valuable, intuitive visual tool for analysis of open datasets of relevance to grape growing.
There are some great ideas here and we wish all the teams good luck! Prizes and awards will be announced for each state and territory in September and the national awards night will be held in Adelaide on October 22nd.