Evolution of Computers: With Your Help!

by Tahye Pitter

As humans evolve and become more sophisticated, they invent more advanced technology. Currently we are at the verge of creating more intelligent cameras, that are capable of recognizing certain animals and classifying them. Pretty cool huh? Zooniverse is a citizen science web portal for people powered research where hundreds of thousands of volunteers get to contribute to a certain research project. When I first found out about this website, I was thrilled. I’ve always wanted to contribute to a greater cause especially in the form of science. Me and my partner stumbled upon one of the projects called Zen of Dragons. Basically, A group of researchers are trying to develop this software called Odomatic where it automatically identifies dragonflies and damselflies from images.

From making this software, it can be incorporated into websites and apps designed to identify insects. However, these researchers need to train the computers to recognize these dragonflies by using lots of images. Obviously, these researchers can’t do it alone, so that’s where they depend on us, the public, to help identify these weird-like flying creatures.

After learning all about this, me and my partner were fascinated so we decided to give it a try. As soon as we joined the project, we were brought to a page where it had an image of an Odonate(s) and a cursor. Simply, all we had to do was create a box around the Odonate(s) and identify its head and abdomen. After that, we were brought to a different image of an Odonate(s) and repeated that same process.

The cool thing about this project is that you can do however many you want to! You can do one…two…ten…or even a thousand, either way, you’re still contributing to this greater cause. That feeling of helping, being useful, making a difference, is a feeling I won’t get tired of. Even if this specific project doesn’t particularly interest you, there are still plenty of more projects out there that you can contribute to on Zooniverse. There are tons of projects out there, ranging from history to arts to biology to medicine to nature, so I think you will definitely find a project that sparks a little bit of interest. Not only are you getting satisfaction out of this, but you are also impacting the world. That, I believe, is something to be proud of.