Drogon, the Thermal-Sensing Drone: Exploring Aerial Imagery as a Tool for Citizen Science Research

New developments in low-cost and widely accessible drones have the potential to radically transform the existing mechanisms for citizen science data collection, scientific analysis of the gathered information, and the broader impacts of drone-based projects on science activism. In this paper, we present Drogon, a thermal-sensing drone, which was used in an initial data gathering and co-design workshop with a group of conservation researchers, policy makers, and citizen scientist volunteers. Our findings reveal three concrete directions for future thermal drone-based citizen science projects. In addition, we reflect on higher-level design opportunities and challenges for working with drones in a citizen science context, including systems for expertise sharing amongst citizen scientists and platforms for collecting, analyzing and sharing drone-based data.