Hi there! Puneet has talked with biofabbers about a Pilgrim hack “Why the gods are angry” or “a lab in a backpack for atheist practicioners, faithful critical disciples of science” 
add ideas here http://piratepad.net/Cj4KOfAvZ3
it’s very easy to put ideas also into this forum, you can re-edit your posts, comment and quote on other people’s ideas.
Thanks @vlorenzolana. I got this idea yesterday at Hackuarium while talking to my new friends and Spanish teachers (@n.cubo.mateo, @maria.corzomar, @oquistpaola, @pablo.jluni, @ivanlarrauridemiguel, Francisco and Laura)—Why not walk the entire Camino de Santiago and do some science along the way—take water samples, air photo the route, somehow monitor the environmental impact of so many people walking on the paths, document the diversity of flora or even the humans, or whatever wacky idea strikes our fancy. Per the Wikipedia, “More than 272,000 pilgrims made the trip during the course of 2010.” That is a lot of people, a lot of footsteps. Something is worth studying there.
I believe the entire walk from Roncesvalles to Santiago is ~740 kms. At a comfortable 20 kms per day, that come to about 37 days. Round that up to 40 or even 50 days, one would have enough time to enjoy the scenery, do science, have time for talks and discussions, and learn and have fun.
Anyway, this is just a start of an ambitious project that will require planning. So bring your ideas to the table. As @dusjagr suggested, for now, just reply to this thread instead of the Pirate Pad just so we have the entire conversation in one place. We can move the discussion to the pad or some other location once we have enough content and something to chew on.
1 Like
Hi @punkish! We also could walk only a part of it, intead all the 740 km. Anyway i will love to do it!
Maybe we can do some PCR with animals and plants samples along the way, and sequence it for barcoding analysis in the genetic service of Oviedo university. Biological diversity in the Camino de Santiago!
You can in august?
alright! not a forum animal, therefore learning about forum ecosystems and its limits yet
just to point out the elephant in the room but with a solid cross media strategy this seems to be a perfect opportunity to field test and promote the BentoLab.
August is only 3 months away, so I suppose if we want to do this this year we would need to consolidate our planning efforts.
Step one would be to constitute a planning commitee of sorts.
We’ll need a person figuring out the logistics, so where do we start, which route do we take , are there any spaces on the way we could involve (hackerspaces, biospaces, artist colonies and such),
If we want this to be more then a family affair, we would need someone to handle the media outreach , ideally we would have our own camera and production team ( we wouldnt need to do a lot of post production on the road, maybe only publish videos if something significant happened during the day).
Finally i would suggest of cutting down the trip or at least the part thats gonna be mediaized to a subportion of the camino that can be done in lets say at most around 3 weeks so we would have a decent ecological variety to document .
Another option would be to take this to another level and see if we can tap into communal funds (maybe from tourist boards - just thinking outside the box-) which would however mean that this would at least become a project for 2018.
thats my first cent, give me some time and I’ll find the second
1 Like
I think it is a really good idea. An easy way to start would be documenting
the biodiversity (including human diversity) of E, Camino using Instagram
and Facebook as social media resources where “pilgrims” can document it by
placing videos, photos and stories.
I am planing to do El Camino de Santiago at the end of August with a few
friends. I will be happy to explore the possibilities and even run a few
tests-experiments along the way as proof of concept. I will bring this up
at the DIYbio Barcelona meeting this friday if that is ok with you guys.
Hugs,
Ricardo
You have plenty of biodiversity to experiment with during the Camino de Santiago routes, as most of the places are small towns and paths full of plants and animals. You also have quiet spaces where you can practice your own experiments. Just remember to always keep it safe no to hurt other pilgrims on the way.