JessmFromEarth
commented
2 years ago Hey thanks so much for submitting this grant proposal to us, our team will look into reviewing your application as soon as can.
In the meantime would you be able to clean up the Markdown in the Milestones section to reflect the templet so it's easier for our team to review.
Project: SDRPF People Counter
Elevator Pitch: The San Diego River Park Foundation, a local non-profit, has a large parcel of land at the end of a rugged 5 mile trail in the San Diego backcountry. This parcel is home to protected plant species. The entrance to the parcel is off of a heavily trafficked public trail, the El Cajon Mountain Trail. Current indicators (footprints, trash, etc) indicate some amount of trespass onto the SDRPF parcel.
Gristle King Inc, in conjunction with the San Diego River Park Foundation and Lake Street Software (creator of HeliumVision and a software provider) will source, assemble, install, and maintain a trail traffic system monitoring local trail use on public and private trails.
This LoRaWAN system will consist of "people counters" using either infrared or radar technology to count the number of people using any given section of the trail. These people counting devices will use nearby Helium Hotspots (gateways) to pass traffic through to internet in order to make the data available for interested parties, including private and government agencies as well as the public.
A successfully installed system will allow local public and private agencies to monitor authorized and unauthorized trail use and develop data-backed land management policies. Additionally, it will serve as a useful template for parks and Hotspot owners globally to collaborate in the planning and use of a people counting system to monitor trail traffic.
Total fiat/hnt ask: US$14,000 To be used for purchase of equipment and development of software. Gristle King Inc & installers will work pro bono.
Name and Address: Gristle King Inc 3275 Adams Ave, Ste A San Diego, CA 92116
Team or Project website: www.gristleking.com www.sandiegoriver.org Lake Street Software: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhough/ El Capitan Country Preserver: https://www.sdparks.org/content/sdparks/en/park-pages/ElCapitan.html
Team or projects social: @thegristleking on Twitter youtube.com/c/GristleKing https://www.facebook.com/SanDiegoRiver https://www.youtube.com/user/sdrpf https://twitter.com/sandiegoparks
Code Repos of team or key applicants: -Nik Hawks at Gristle King Inc was voted Most Valuable Community Member in 2021 and has worked tirelessly to promote Helium use and education. -San Diego River Park Foundation is a mature local non-profit with the vision to protect and enhance the River’s valuable natural and cultural resources and encourage communities to embrace this legacy and to celebrate it with the creation of a river-long park system. -Nick Hough at Lake Street Software developed HeliumVision.
Project Details: Using grant funds, Gristle King Inc will purchase off the shelf people-counting hardware from vendors, prepare and install the hardware, and work with the SDRPF and LSS to provide useful information to SDRPF as well as local public gov’t agencies (San Diego County Parks) at 12 key points along the trail.
Trail use in San Diego can be heavy. Specific to this project there is a 4 way intersection deep in the park (5 miles up a rugged trail.) At this intersection, users can go 3 of the 4 ways legally. The 4th option is to trespass on private land. Currently, no one knows how much trespassing is being conducted. Trespassing puts visitors inside a protected nature preserve with rare species and plants, some of which (Lakeside Ceanothus) are found in the greatest concentration in the world on this specific preserve, and almost nowhere else.
Adding counters closer to the trailhead and along the trail will help assess how much use the trail gets and how far the average visitor goes. This is known as the most difficult trail in San Diego County. Putting numbers to that (not just the number of annual rescues) could help secure funding to make the trail safer and more accessible to future users.
This information would be made public through the LSS UplinkVision software. A very rough sketch of the dashboard might look like the following. The black line is the trail, blue marks are sensors placements, bar chart on top tracks traffic.
Once this project delivers objective trail use reports, both the SDRPF and the local County Parks agency can make informed decisions on how to best manage traffic patterns and trail use.
Images & Video Current Helium Hotspot coverage of the parking lot area (S1 on the proposed dashboard above)
Proposed S2 spot on Trailside Information Kiosk
Proposed S5 spot to Measure Alternate Trail Use
Current Helium Coverage (via GLAMOS testing along the trail)
Storytelling This project can serve as an inspirational and instructional model for other parks, both public and private. The free and openly accessible Gristle King blog will provide step by step instructions on how to approach landowners, what to offer and ask for, how to manage this type of project, and how to install, maintain, and make use of the Helium Network in a typical park "off grid" application.
In addition to a detailed blog post, Gristleking will craft a video for a wider, general audience that captures high quality images and video of the development process, deployment in the field, community impact, and illustrate the promise of the Helium's LoRaWAN network. Major content components of this rich content include:
Roadmap: