How Our Events Deliver an Unforgettable Experience

One of the biggest strengths of the events we run at CTC is the wide variety of projects we undertake, with each one being engaging in a completely different way. In our last blog post we looked at the ‘History + Data = Innovation’ and ‘History and Culture’ events which highlighted interesting records from the 19^th and 20^th century and which generate new open data from historic sources. The Event we’re looking at today however, ‘Archeology Meets Data Science’ uncovers an even older part of Aberdeen’s History.

To give some context, an excavation of St Nicholas Kirk from 2006-2007 uncovered more than a thousand human remains and artefacts, as well as parts of the building dated at over a thousand years old. In 2018 we were granted the opportunity to work with data taken from the excavation as well as work with some of the human remains themselves – certainly not the usual kind of work you’d expect to carry out at a hack event! Six teams were formed to work on various aspects of the project such as working through the original data and compiling supplementary info in an extensive Q&A document.

The team which mostly worked with the Skeletons used a technique called Photogrammetry – this involves taking photos from many angles which with the right software, can be used to create a 3d model. 

While some experts were involved with the project many of the team had never done something like this, so there was a lot of trial and error with finding the right software. Eventually their perseverance paid off however, and the result is a great looking archive of the scanned remains freely available online. 

As well as this we also had a team of 3d modellers use Unity to recreate the burial site as well as where the skeletons were located. There’s even Virtual Reality support if you own an Oculus Go, and the burial can be accessed here. 

Ali Cameron was one of the experts involved in the project, having been involved in the field for more than 40 years, and was impressed with the work we carried out. We asked about her thoughts regarding the project, she had the following to say:  

Some of the quieter students really came out of their shells, we all got a chance to meet the coders and I have kept up with a couple of them to discuss other projects. The coders really enjoyed the archaeology side and I chatted with them all about the aspect they were working on which is quite different from a lot of the programming they had done before. The Event was extremely successful and very fascinating.

Overall the project turned out to be quite an unforgettable experience for those involved. It challenged our team and volunteers in an interesting way, and was a unique chance to interact with some of the oldest relics in Aberdeen’s history. It also highlights our goal of making data accessible very well, as we took a fascinating discovery and allowed its contents to be made freely available online thanks to our 3d modelling endeavors.We have a more in-depth post regarding the project for those wanting to find out more.

If the work we carry out interests you then our next event, ‘CTC24 – Open in Practice’, is only a few weeks away, with more information and booking links here.