Gigapan
In 2006, I joined the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA Ames Research Center as part of the Global Connection project. Within a few years, our small team took the concept of gigapixel panoramas as used on the NASA Mars rovers and turned it into a successful commercial product and thriving online community: GigaPan.

The project is 3-fold; it consists of a robotic device for a consumer camera that takes a number of overlapping images, software that stitches the images into one large panorama, and a community website for sharing, exploration, and discussion. Users don't need to author panoramas in order to be an active part of the community; anyone can take snapshots and comment on parts of panoramas as part of the exploration and discovery process.

The original GigaPan goal was to enable people to create their own high resolution stories (and explore others) through immersive imagery. Today's GigaPan community is a thriving one including journalists, artists, scientists, educators, and historians. I could say more, but I think the gigapans themselves are the best teachers. Use the controls on the image to zoom and pan my gigapan of Sutro Baths in San Francisco as part of my appearance on PBS Design Squad.

For the GigaPan community and gigapixel panoramas: www.gigapan.org

For the robotic system: www.gigapansystems.com

My gigapans: www.gigapan.org/profiles/lbot

Yuri's Night
Yuri's night is an annual worldwide celebration of the first human in space, Yuri Gargarin. In 2007, Space Generation teamed up with a group of volunteers at NASA and beyond to throw Yuri's Night Bay Area at NASA Ames Research Center in one of the hangars at Moffett Field. The event, which took place in 2007, 2008, and 2010, is a unique fusion of music, art, and science to celebrate space exploration with NASA engineers, Bay Area artists and musicians, and space nerds from all over. I served as art and science curator in 2007 with Frank Pietrenegro, and in 2008 with Jonathan Barcan.