Participants shaded by umbrellas, to protect them from the sun, while collecting fresh geodata with FieldPapers. UP Mindanao Campus, Davao City. Photo shared by UPMinYouthMappers in their SNS post.

While visiting the family down south, I had a chance to join UP Mindanao’s own chapter, UPMin YouthMappers while their College (of Science & Maths) was celebrating Pi Day. The coordinator asked if I have any preference for the name of the activity we had in mind, and I suggested Map-Pi Day.

A poster for Map-Pi Day. UP Mindanao Campus, Davao City. Photo shared by UPMinYouthMappers in their SNS post.

Another good excuse for map-py folks to gather and celebrate every 14th of March (“3.14”)! 🥳

Their chapter is very young, having started only a few months back, but as usual with other YouthMapper organizations I’ve met, always curious, energetic, and learning is fun with them.

Activities

Online Training

While preparing for the activity, I initially thought we could use the tools we usually recommend to participants in our other activities, but during our planning, the issue of spotty Internet access in the campus came up. So we dropped the plans to introduce new apps, and fell back on old, reliable FieldPapers.

Before the actual event, we had an online training and briefing session for participants to train on FieldPapers, team assignments, and trying to answer any questions they may have.

We were beset by unidentified Internet issues with BigBlueButton (BBB), and ended up going with Jitsi. (Trivia: Do you know that OSMF hosts a BBB instance that you can use?)

Some of those present indicated their interest in capturing images for photo-mapping, so we discussed a bit on the time-lapse app OpenCamera, for Android users. Later, we got a tip (thanks, Rally!) that a possible equivalent for iOS users is SkyFlow. (But that needs further testing, and nobody got to use the latter.)

Field data collection with FieldPapers

YouthMappers early birds, posing for the camera, asking where I’m at. 😆 Photo shared by UPMinYouthMappers in their SNS post.

All of the participants used FieldPapers to draw and annotate objects they’re interested in: lit highways, lamp lights, benches, building accessibility (for wheelchairs), new buildings, and new features still missing on the map.

Photo-mapping with Panoramax (and Mapillary)

Street-level photos uploaded with Panoramax.

Photos were also uploaded in Mapillary, shown here as point clouds. Not much to see, but hopefully the local community will contribute more photos soon, and create better 3D scenes.

MapaTime! Workshop

After the morning’s data collection, everyone took a (long) break , and we got ready for the afternoon workshop.

“Don’t we look excited?!”. Photo shared by UPMinYouthMappers in their SNS post.

We tried to digitize the data that was collected earlier that day, but the Internet gods weren’t very cooperative, so we got to do less than expected.

A laptop screen showing a FieldPapers snapshot layer while using the iD editor. Photo shared by UPMinYouthMappers in their SNS post.

We were also hoping we could utilize the imagery from Panoramax, but our bandwidth was limited (even my mobile Internet service wasn’t working) so we decided to skip that topic, and devote more time on digitizing and answering questions.

The activity ended-up being longer than hoped for and managing to discuss less than planned. Officially, we ended at 3.14 PM 😉 - though we only had initial permission to use the laboratory until 2.30 PM.

Kudos to the whole UPMin YMC for hosting Map-Pi Day 2024 at CSM, and a special shout-out to Carmela, for leading the coordination effort! The team who worked behind the scenes did a very good job, and I had fun interacting with the rest of their members, and guests (hopefully, they’ll end up joining their YMC, too.)

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After-thoughts

It’s probably a sub-conscious goal to touch bases with existing YouthMappers clubs in cities I visit. 😆

I’m really excited about the local OSM community in Davao, especially with UPMin YMC’s potential to re-ignite the interest in OSM contributors in the Davao region, starting with the academic network there.

Note-to-self: Find options for supplementing or ensuring adequate Internet access for participants in future activities, or prepare to use low-bandwidth alternative tools and workflows.