Cooperative Work Experience

Propagation Labs

Background

From February - May 2023 I worked with Garrett and Joe, Cofounders of Propagation Labs, who developed the Snow Scope, an evolution of an earlier device created under a now-defunct company with the goal of making it easier for individuals to college data about the snowpack in the field. The scope itself shares some similarity to the much more expensive snow micro penetrometer and uses off the shelf consumer parts to drive down costs while enabling quality data collection.

The Task

Working together, we quickly identified an opportunity - collect data that could be used to determine whether Snow Scope data could be correlated with Snow Density to support hydrological research. I embarked on a data collection scheme, digging snowpits and collecting Snow Scope data alongside manual snow hardness profiles and snow layer density data.

The Results

It’s too early to say whether the Snow Scope data collected can be correlated with high confidence to snow density measurements. While there are some early signs that correlation exists, more data collection is required to build an appropriately large dataset. I look forward to continuing to work with Propagation Labs in the future to support their data collection efforts and refinement of the Snow Scope.