As part of my internship with OpenStreetMap I decided to do a report for all the research I have gathered since January. At the beginning of the internship I was learning about administrative boundaries between counties, how the are established and issues that may arise from them. As I am from Carlow, I became very interested in the boundary between Carlow and Laois. The town Graiguecullen is bisected by a between the two counties.

As you can see from the picture, this boundary bisects residential areas and buildings which can lead to problems for the locals of Graiguecullen. In 2016 there was a Laois/ Carlow boundary review held by local government and the result of the review was that the boundary should remain the same.

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The Mapping Project in Celbridge in County Kildare commenced about three weeks ago. It has probably been one of the most interesting tasks of my internship and an excellent learning opportunity for me.

My mentor, DeBigC presented the project to and explained that a Local County Councillor was keen to have Celbridge mapped to an exceptional extent. The locals seemed enthusiastic and were aware that a high quality mapped Celbridge would bring many benefits to the town.

My first duty was to go out and find mappers who had a knowledge of Celbridge or locals who would be more familiar with the town. I reached out to those I could find, approaching them with a friendly message explaining we needed urgent help to improve the town. A total of four people showed interest and were happy to help. DeBigC and Vanessa, the CC who initiated the project attracted more locals and, in the end, we had 13 members involved.

As soon as we gathered the group, the next step was to plan the stages of the project. After a few discussions with my mentors, I drafted a brief plan to aid one of the OSM board members with the wiki page for the project.

Subsequently to the plan being published we could finally be mapping Celbridge! My mentor created a task for the town which split Celbridge into squares, making it easier for both beginner and advanced mappers to have a go at it! I used OSM analytics to create a visualization of what buildings in Celbridge were tagged ‘buildings = yes’. That current images shows the remaining buildings and will hopefully be tagged accurately in the second task!

So far, the progress of the project has been unbelievable! Without the enthusiastic locals, the board members of OSM putting in great efforts or Vanessa’s eagerness and motivation, the project would not have advanced so far in such little time. There is still a little bit to go, adding the finishing touches to Celbridge to ensure it is of high quality once it is completed.

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Two weeks into my internship with OSM and so far I have learned a lot. Prior to have been offered this placement I actually had never heard of the company so I knew I had a lot to learn! The most interesting thing I think I have discovered so far about OSM is the amount of areas it contributes to, for example, humanitarian purposes, i.e. earthquakes, engineering and construction purposes and even aids the prevention of climate change. The HOT tasking manager highlights important tasks with areas in need of mapping, in my opinion this gives a purpose to why you are mapping.

I have also learned many new skills even with the ID editor, for examples mapping the basics such as trees and walls to mapping complex houses. I have been watching videos on how to map relations and will hopefully be confident at mapping them soon! I am looking forward to progress with my mapping and start mapping with the JOSM editor as well as learning more about the significance mapping has on so many external areas.

I started mapping on the 4th of January of this year and so far I have mapped nine days out of eleven. I am studying BA in Maths with Economics in the University of Limerick and this year I was lucky enough to agree an internship with OpenStreetMap Ireland.

Up until now I have been using the ID editor, but when my mouse arrives I will move onto using JOSM. Also, I am going to start using StreetComplete as I have noticed that many buildings are mapped already, but lack detail such as address, house number and number of levels.

I have mainly mapped around Carlow town, especially to the west of the town as shown by my hotspot. I took an interest in that area as I know it well and found the administrative boundary between Laois and Carlow fascinating. I will do a more detailed diary on what I’ve learned on mapping there.

Please feel free to engage with me if you are mapping in Ireland or if you can help me improve.