The “Community Planning Hackathon” is a new kind of approach to collect and utilize physical data around the city through sensors. With the participation of a total of 29 people who live or work in the Fujimidai area of Kunitachi City, which is located in the western part of Tokyo, it also served as an opportunity for the city authority to engage people in the community with the design and planning process.

The hackathon is a two-day workshop program with the development of devices　in-between. On the first day, participants familiarize themselves with IoT devices by using MESH®︎ and later are asked to think of ideas to utilize environmental data　collected from sensors and other devices. Based on these ideas, GCL students then　develop combined devices composed of sensors, breadboards, LED displays and　microcomputers. On the second day, participants put the parts together, leave the　devices on the streets and in parks for a period of time, and, finally, try to draw　some conclusions about what should be done in the area from the perspective of　community planning.

It was found to be a good way to engage local people who had not had an　interest in community planning before, and its educative role was confirmed as　elementary school children eagerly examined numeric data collected from devices　they had made. Though this was an experiment, to improve the procedure in detail　and to incorporate “Community Planning Hackathon” into the actual communityplanning process are worthwhile tasks.