Turtle Sense/Division of labor

Organization
Organization of the Sea Turtle project proceeds through informal discussions between the 5 scientists involved. Decisions as to priorities, division of labor, resources and strategies come from these discussions which may be conference calls involving all members or smaller discussions with only two or three of the scientists involved. The latter may involve topics such as probe design and construction, trouble shooting of current prototypes, and device improvements. Important decisions involve a consensus of the group.

Conference Call Summary Oct 18, 2013
Participants Tom, Sam, Dave, Eric and Chuck. The agenda had 10 items, and the important items are summarized on this page. The complete minutes can be found here. We need at least $15k for hardware for the 30 projected units, based on current designs. It appears that the National Park Service will have $50k/year for this project which might be utilized in 2014. Eric's proposal to NC Coastal Recreational Fishing License Fund (BBAFF proposal) may provide funding in 2015; total funds requested (including some labor) are $100k.

Web support, especially the Nerds Without Borders Wiki (Sam developing and coordinating) received extensive discussion. It is proposed as an open source site which covers our progress, what we've developed and learned, and, ultimately, what we consider to be best practices. It is hoped it will become a reference site for workers in the field. A topic of considerable discussion was whether in addition to the public section there would be need for a private section for those primarily involved in the project. Such a section may be needed for legal interactions with future partners. This item was unresolved.

Engineering design changes for version two were discussed by Sam and Tom. Sam reported he'd found some volunteers who were interested in working on a radio version, including prototypes. Design of a prototype is under discussion.

Funding through a Crowd funding source (CrowdRise) was discussed (Chuck coordinating). These require careful preparation, hopefully with a well-advertised buildup to an event with subsequent follow-through. It is important to have feedback to donors, from "swag" to online stroking. Overall it may be beyond our current resources and progress, but might be reconsidered if the project has successes in predicting hatching dates.

Discussions of division of labor resulted in: Eric (Hatteras Island Ocean Center non profit; interface with National Park Service including on-site actions; interface with other turtle groups). Dave/Sam (engineering/electronic communications). Tom (probe design/implementation). Chuck (admin, funding, searches for other turtle groups).