Contact:
Eric Sloss
412-268-5765

For immediate release:
April 27, 2006

Carnegie Mellon's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Keeps Hikers on Track With Trailposts.com

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry project MapHub has launched Trailposts.com, a Web site where long-distance hikers on the Appalachian Trail can share their comments, location and journals with other hikers, family and friends.

"Trailposts.com was developed as a way for Appalachian Trail hikers to share images, comments and information with one another, as well as to publicize their journeys to friends and family around the world," said Nathan Martin, a research fellow in the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. "Trailposts is built using technology developed by the MapHub.org project at Carnegie Mellon, which allows for close collaboration of a community — geographically or culturally linked — through a shared online map and database," he said.

Currently, the not-for-profit organization Bike PGH! uses MapHub to collect information about cyclists. Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood relies on MapHub to provide information about after-school programs.

The significance of Trailposts is that it allows hikers who spend months on the Appalachian Trail to keep track of water supplies, clean shelters and where they can find their friends or other hikers. As the project develops, the creators plan on using Trailposts for state park and river trails.

The team responsible for MapHub includes Martin, Jeff Maki and Carl DiSalvo. Martin previously worked as a multimedia programmer and interaction designer in Pittsburgh and San Francisco. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in electronic and time-based media from Carnegie Mellon and a master's degree in integrated electronic art from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Maki is an associate fellow at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. As an artist, his main interest is how technology and communication networks contribute to and otherwise affect our culture. DiSalvo is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Design. Prior to returning to academia, he was a senior interaction designer at MetaDesign (San Francisco) and an independent consultant to the Walker Art Center's New Media Initiatives. Greg Baltus is also a collaborator on the project.

MapHub is a research project that relies on grants and gifts from supporters such as Carnegie Mellon, the Center for the Arts in Society, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Telerama and the ZKM Center for Art and Media. The program differs from Google Maps in that MapHub provides very specific geographic focus and two-way communication. For more information, visit www.maphub.org.

Carnegie Mellon's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, founded in the College of Fine Arts in 1989, aims to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, science, technology and the humanities, and impact local and global communities. The College of Fine Arts is a community of nationally and internationally recognized artists and professionals organized into schools of Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music, and their associated centers and programs.

For more information about the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry or the College of Fine Arts, contact Eric Sloss at 412-268-5765 or ecs@andrew.cmu.edu.