Join
Why Join
Research Research overview Learn Experiments Analyze Pilot 📝 Research Papers 👥 Groups 📖 Research Team Handbook
Teams
Help 🎓 Student Guide 🧭 Coordinator Guide 📖 Research Team Handbook 📄 Documents ⚡ Ask Thunder
Ask
Fun 🎴 Arcade Games 😂 Memes
🌓 Light / dark mode Sign In Join
Student guideRainflower user guide Handbook PDF Coordinator guide →
Contents · page 5 of 9
  1. 1Welcome
  2. 2Getting started
  3. 3Your dashboard
  4. 4Raindrops and badges
  5. 5Research stages
  6. 6Research groups and papers
  7. 7Community
  8. 8Getting help
  9. 9Quick reference

Student guide · 5 of 9

Research stages

Learn, Experiment, Publish, Analyze, Pilot and Assessments: what each stage asks of you.

All research starts at /research, which lays out the stages of the program as cards. Each stage builds on the one before.

Stage What you do Where
Learn Answer public surveys about water and rain, then see the live results. /research/learn, /surveys
Experiment Collect measurements, such as daily rainfall from your own collector. /experiments
Publish Write a real research paper, alone or in a team. /research/proposals/open
Analyze Submit your own observations and creative work on a topic. /research/analyze
Pilot Follow the Rainflower device being built and tested. /research/pilot
Assessments Take timed quizzes on the program and the science. /quizzes

Learn: surveys

Open a survey and press Take the survey. Each survey has a public report (View report) with charts and a map of all responses.

Experiment: rainfall and other measurements

  1. Open an experiment at /experiments and press Join this experiment.
  2. Choose how many slots you want and press Request to join. Your coordinator approves the request.
  3. Submit reports with Submit a report.

The daily rainfall form

Fill in when you checked, what you saw (measured rain, no rain, trace, overflow or missed), the amount in mm, any problems, whether you reset the collector, and an optional photo. Press Save daily observation.

You can send one rainfall report per day. Sending it again updates it but does not pay twice.

Publish: research papers

Writing a paper has its own page: see Research groups and papers.

Analyze: your own research

Open a project at /research/analyze, read its rules checklist and submit your work. You must confirm the work is your own and not AI-generated. Other members can give thumbs-up and comment; an advisor or admin accepts or rejects it.

Assessments: quizzes

Quizzes at /quizzes are timed: an answer after the timer ends scores 0. Your history is at /quizzes/history and rankings at /quizzes/leaderboard.