COVID-19 & Raspberry Shake, S.A

#1

Some of you might be thinking, what is Raspberry Shake doing in response to COVID-19?:

  1. In order to protect ourselves from contracting the virus and slow the spread of the virus in our Community, we are all working from home under self-quarantine and, as of yesterday at noon, our offices are closed. That means no one is unnecessarily exposed.

  2. We are continuing to work for you remotely- on new firmware updates, web apps, mobile apps and an ongoing server migration.

  3. As always, we are supporting the Raspberry Shake Community through our technical support platform.

  4. We have a ton of RS’s built, tested and ready for shipment and we will be fulfilling orders with enthusiasm as soon as we can get back to our office. We expect normal business practice to resume in approximately 2 weeks, depending on official advice. Until then, we are welcoming new orders and developing new strategies for how to spread the love for seismology to ever broader audiences.

  5. All collaborators remain on the payroll.

We hope that the decisions we make today help us to better serve you tomorrow and we appreciate your continued support as we weather this storm.

Kind regards from Panama,

branden

Support for the 4 Model B has been added to v0.18
Support for Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
#5

Thanks @iannesbitt!

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#8
#9

Twitter poll for development time while we all work for you from quarantine:

branden

#10

An update on how Raspberry Shake, S.A. has been keeping busy during the COVID19 Pandemic

Buenas tardes and saludos from quarantine here in Panama. Day #45. Here is an update on how Raspberry Shake, S.A. is responding to the COVID19 Pandemic.

What we are doing from quarantine to ensure the continued growth of the RS Network

We remain under a government mandated quarantine. To continue to encourage new people to join our Citizen Science community, we are running a 10% discount on Home/ Classroom solutions at shop.raspberryshake.org. The discount is being offered in lieu of delayed delivery. When we can return to the office, we will work around the clock to manufacture, test and ship. As a result of these measures the orders are pouring in. We are incredibly thankful to all of our new supporters and to existing Shakers for spreading the word.

How we plan to hit the ground running once released from quarantine

To ensure that we can hit the ground running when quarantine is lifted, we have decided to maintain all collaborators on the payroll throughout the month of May, even those members of our team that are unable to work at all given the nature of their jobs. No one is getting a pay cut, no one is being fired or let go. We continue to operate from a position of strength that comes from the talented individuals that come together every day to make Raspberry Shake a success.

What has been keeping us busy

  • We made all historical data available to the world via our FDSN web service and Swarm

  • The new ShakeNet mobile app which will be launched next week on Android and then soon thereafter on iOS!

  • A web version of Swarm which we estimate will come out sometime this summer (northern hemisphere).

  • Expanded functionality of the rsudp open-source application. We recently had our first contribution from the Raspberry Shake Community! Thank you @crockpotveggies! A Journal of Open Source Software publication is in the works.

  • A new software update for all Shakes including enhancements requested by the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory of the USGS. Want an enhancement? Contact us for an economic proposal. This is a great time as our programmers are under lock down and highly focused :slight_smile:

  • We are also preparing new Premium subscription services that will unlock cool new functionality in ShakeNet for existing Shakers to take advantage of.

  • R&D is alive and well :wink:

  • Technical support has continued unaffected

  • A ton of behind the scenes stuff like server migrations and enhancements

We are as busy as ever!

I would like to thank you for your continued support an enthusiasm. Have fun Shaking!

Sincerely Yours, branden

#11

Hello again!

Raspberry Shake is opening up again.

Manufacturing and testing are now underway. We are shipping as many units/ day as we can in order to meet the large backlog of orders. Here is a photo of Wednesday’s DHL-ready packages:

WhatsApp Image 2020-05-20 at 11.42.35
WhatsApp Image 2020-05-20 at 11.42.35520×1040 53.3 KB

As we open, we remain committed to:

  1. Protecting ourselves from contracting the virus and to slowing the spread of the virus in our community. Fortunately for Raspberry Shake, we have 3 separate offices - one for manufacturing; one for assembly; and a third for administration. We are leveraging this to maintain the safest possible work environment by limiting each office to one full-time collaborator. The rest of the team continues working from home under a RS-mandated quarantine. This will remain true even after the government lock-down is lifted until a) Panama opens up fully and things prove safe; or b) until we can be vaccinated against future infections. We have implemented strict safely protocols to ensure that no one is unnecessarily affected at or on their way to work (e.g., no public transportation; no car pooling; locked office doors to keep inquisitive passerby out; mandatory PPE; and dozens of other measures).

  2. Supporting the Raspberry Shake Community through our technical support platform.

  3. Keeping all collaborators on the payroll. Today is the 67th day of the RS-mandated quarantine period. We survived as a company and continue to operate from a position of strength. No one was let go. We even brought on additional collaborators during lock-down to help us push ahead on new software developments (like the recently released mobile app: ShakeNet).

I would like to close this update by thanking the Raspberry Shake Community for getting the word out. We sold a LOT of Shakes during lock-down and I am convinced this is largely due to so many of you spreading your love for citizen seismology on social media. For that we are all grateful.

Working to keep the dream alive and well,

branden

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