Every year, the Northern Arizona University computer science department runs a culminating experience or capstone for students entering their final academic year. The two-semester capstone is designed to partner student development teams with industry, academia, and government project sponsors who would like software developed. For their work with their USGS mentors, the NAU Geo-Kings team won an award, celebrating their presentation and progress.  

Starting in February 2023, the NAU Geo-Kings team, comprising Jackson Brittain, Zack Bryant, Andrew Usvat, Alex Poole and John Cardeccia partnered with USGS project sponsors Jay Laura, Trent Hare, Jacob Cain, and Amy Stamile to add capabilities to the GeoSTAC web application.  

GeoSTAC is a web map that supports data discovery and exploratory data analysis for Astrogeology Science Center served Analysis Ready Data (ARD). The project sponsors define the requirements, work with the development team to iterate on solutions, and ultimately sign off on a completed deliverable (after a lot of hard work by the development team!). 

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The hard work of the team absolutely paid off. They won first place for their development work, communication and online presence, and poster presentation. This is a large honor because many capstone teams complete projects for sponsors each semester, making the competition very high. 

When the project started, the GeoSTAC web map supported only gridded data visualization, for example data captured by an orbiting satellite through a camera and stored in a format like a cell phone stores images. We, the project sponsors, wanted to expand the capability and support visual information that you normally see on a printed USGS map. Therefore, the NAU team was asked to not only add support for vector data (the points, lines, and polygon one is used to seeing on a map), but to also stylize those data based on a pre-defined file. The goal of the project was not only to get the cartographic data into the web browser, but also to have it stylized the same way it looks on a printed USGS map. This is challenging for a number of reasons, so the students  certainly learned a lot. 

The GeoKings reflected on their experience over the last year: Computer Science major Jackson Brittain says “We definitely appreciate the opportunity that was given to us. The project was a ton of fun!" Computer Science major Zack Bryant continues this sentiment: "I'll echo what Jackson has said, it's been awesome to work on the GeoStac project! Definitely learned a lot in the process." 

The work we asked the development team to do is technically challenging. The team did a terrific job learning how to access different remotely managed services, getting data from different places (e.g., application programming interfaces) , correcting those data until they worked together, and then getting the results ready for applying styles. The raw data that the team utilized included the information needed to tell the computer what type of a shape or feature (a point, a line, or a polygon) to draw, where to place it, and what each features' name was. Using the name, the team was able to engineer a solution that automatically applies the appropriate style to each feature, meaning that we are closer than ever to having planetary web maps that are consistent, accurate reproductions of USGS printed maps. 

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Screenshot of the user interface of the GeoSTAC project, with symbolized polygons on a Mars map (left) and a selection panel (right). 

Congratulations GeoKings and mentors on a job well done! Looking forward to your continued successes!