Who am I?

I'm a scientist, trained as chemist/biochemist, maybe a secretly frustrated engineer.  In December of 2013, I quit my job as a postdoc at a research institute to launch my own research institute (http://indysci.org/projectmarilyn).  While I'm waiting for IRS 501(c)(3) status, I thought I'd start lyfting full-time to make rent and work on my people-skills!

I also consider myself an "armchair economist" and (obviously) an entrepreneur, so lyft is really an exciting vocation for me since I get to see market disruption, capturing market demand on the large scale of what lyft is doing, and on the micro-scale the fascinating interplay of dynamic supply-and-demand adjustment, resource allocation and conservation as I watch the network of drivers self-adjust both on the week-to-week scale as well as the hour-to-hour/place-by-place scale.

I've been programming computers, mostly as a hobbyist, but also for scientific purposes, since age 5, I know about 5 or 6 programming languages, and sold a android app back in 2006 and netted about $300 total.  But this is really the first time I've come up with a project that I know I can complete that will help out a network of people!

What's in it for me?  Well I think lyft is awesome, so helping out the community is good enough for me.  But if you insist on helping out, the best way for you to help me is to support my nonprofit by putting yourself on the emailing list and magnifying the message when I launch!

Making a Cambooth for your Lyft

I'm beginning the process of figuring out how to make a cambooth for my lyft car.  Process and all code will be open-source and shared at https://github.com/ityonemo/lyft-cambooth

This is inspired by the guy who did it at sundance - but cheaper!  and open-source.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTlf5of9q4M)

Current choices (suggestions/comments most welcome):

Raspberry Pi (~$26)
Raspberry Pi camera add-on (~$36)
miniature wi-fi stub (~$10)
(use phone-based wi-fi hotspot - will be testing with sprint/android/cyanogenmod combo)
A cheap LCD screen (various, ~$20)
Sinatra (http://www.sinatrarb.com)-based webserver, localhost server controlling logic (to cut down on data transmission) (~$0), openshift or heroku remote server to store and allow users to download their pics. (~$0 for endusers)

Open problems:

How to hook up to a car power without awkward cables all over the place.
Will we need a flash?  How do we do this?
How do we mount this inside a car?

Bonuses:

Having a Raspberry Pi inside your lyft can enable some really cool features; so there might be some side development of cool things, like, mood lighting synched with the music.