Bill: We thought NASA was a bunch of really elite scientists and what they were doing was
like another world from what we’re doing, but
the experience of working with NASA data, with
scientists at NASA, really taught us about how
we as kids can contribute.
Narrator: In early August, a new app became available on the iOS app store. Called Dust Watch,
it warns users of early dust storm conditions and helps them prepare for the
potentially hazardous weather events. The app uses National Weather Service
forecasts improved by NASA data and was built by four Maryland high schoolers,
who wanted to help people affected by the storms.
Bill: So as a group of friends, we hang out a lot and one day at the pool, I think,
we’re discussing about the harmful effects of dust storms because we watched
a really jarring documentary in school and we were talking about it and we were like
“Wow, we need to learn more.” So I hopped on the internet and
we just learned more about dust storms and we were like “Wow, this is so bad.”
Alex: We would have meetings, maybe once a week, two to three hours.
We’re in high school, so we have a lot of tests and stuff right, so we wouldn’t have
a lot of time to do that. When we had like breaks and stuff,
we would take advantage of the extra time and just have more than one meeting.
Narrator: After they decided to create the Dust Watch app, the group realized
they needed some help. A family friend introduced them to the National Weather Service
database they could use to forecast storm conditions. Then, Bill
met a software engineer who agreed to mentor them in programming.
They built the app around their already-busy high school schedules.
JEffrey: Our app pulls data from a web service on a regular basis,
so it periodically does calculations for most cities
in the U.S. that can find what levels
of certain air quality conditions there are in that
region and then the user can search that up for
a forecast or they could also have it periodically
check in the background by the app and receive push notifications.
Alex: So it pretty much just tracks all the harmful metrics of dust storms, right? So dust
concentration, visibility, wind speed and PM 2.5,
which are pretty much what cause damages and injuries.
Narrator: The team presented their app to scientists with NASA’s applied science program.
Kevin: My favorite part was attending the HAQAST meeting,
which is NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team meeting
and we got to present our app. We met a lot of people
and we got valuable feedback on our project.
Honestly, I think when we all started making this app, none of us probably thought it was even going
to be that like possible because we had zero programing knowledge at all
and it was just like an idea we threw out there and it was like
maybe we could try this and it was like in the end, we accomplished it.
It just felt rewarding and like relieving to finally have
the app up in the app store.
EXPLORE EARTH
NASA