DIY Mapping: July Geo DC Meetup

NOTE: Meetup on Wednesday, July 11 - one week later than usual to observe Independence Day.

With smart phones, GPS devices, balloons, kites, and a million other tools, it's possible to make your own maps and add detail to existing ones. This month's Geo DC meetup will look at DIY mapping and tools and approaches to creatively make and advance your own maps. Here's the lineup:

Willie Shubert (https://twitter.com/willieshubert) will talk about how and why to experiment with balloon mapping - the art of taking aerial images and adding them to a map with a giant helium balloon, a camera, and some home engineering. For a preview and to try it out yourself, join Will and Sam Pepple (https://twitter.com/DrSvalbard) for some balloon mapping (http://knowledgecommonsdc.org/classes/balloon-mapping-redo) this weekend. Nate Smith (http://twitter.com/nas_smith) will talk how using walking papers (http://walking-papers.org/) and GPS devices, he and groups of volunteers have adding street names, points of interest, and more to OpenStreetMap in cities in Kazakhstan (http://mapbox.com/blog/open-source-mapping-almaty), Moldova, and Brasilia (http://mapbox.com/blog/surveying-brasilia/). Elliott Plack (https://twitter.com/#!/talllguy) will talk about how he's made maps and added more information to existing ones using tools like OpenStreetMap, foursquare, and others. The July meetup will take place on Wednesday, July 11 at 7:00 pm at Stetson's Bar (http://stetsons-dc.com/). We'll do a round of introductions for the group starting at 7:30 pm, which will be followed by the series of five minute lightning talks. There will be lots of time at the end for questions and conversations.

Geo DC meets once a month usually on the first Wednesday of the month. Always at 7:00 pm, and always at the upstairs bar at Stetson's, near the intersection of 16th and U streets NW. If you're interested in mapping, GIS, geography, and anything geo-related, come on out! Everyone is welcome. Only caveat is that if you are not yet 21, please notify us in advance. Stetson's is a bar, but we may be able to X you up and get you in.

For updates, follow @Geo_DC (https://twitter.com/geo_dc) on Twitter, join our google group (https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/geonerds-dc), and join us here on meetup.