Open source hardware and software, low-cost and DIY instruments, cloud computing, and the internet of things. Come build the future of scientific labs.

We are putting together a workshop called FutureLabCamp in Boston in early 2010.  The focus is building the future of science laboratories with open source hardware and software, low-cost and DIY instruments, cloud computing, and the internet of things. We’re bringing together hardware hackers, HCI wizards, standards builders, and forward-thinking researchers together for an amazingly productive weekend.

It’s not a conference – it is a workshop, with an emphasis on producing useful output.

Find out all about it, and sign up to get on the mailing list, at http://futurelabcamp.org.

We believe every lab instrument should provide a data feed of its measurements and that data aggregation and storage should be effortless, automatic and routine. To that end, our goal during the workshop is to prototype new and existing feed systems for popular lab equipment (Cameron Neylon’s work, Pachube, etc) and to develop a consensus of standards and an ecosystem of projects that lay the foundation for future work. When data aggregation is effortless and routine, a rich new landscape of opportunities emerges for data visualization, micro-attribution, augmented research, better scientific reproducibility, more finely-grained and realtime collaboration, and much more.

In addition to building prototypes, we hope to run several tracks dedicated to the applications of ubiquitous laboratory sensing:

• Hardware: Building open lab instruments and hacking existing lab instruments with an eye toward data logging and automation.
• Software: Automating, augmenting, and aggregating research; from mobile to desktop to cloud.
• Data: Starting, spreading, and refining repositories, journals, micro-attribution, uber-big datasets and standards. Making science machine readable.
• HCI: Natural User interfaces to augment research; visualization techniques for exploring the increasing influx of data

As we’re still in planning stages, we’d love to get your feedback on the event. Is this something you’d find useful? What in particular should we try to build at FutureLabCamp?  Let us know in the comments!