Kaitlin Quinn
About
I’m Kaitlin Quinn. I live in Portland, Oregon, and I tend to follow a question further than I expected to. Sometimes I’m trying to understand why something is harder than it needs to be. Sometimes I want to look more closely at a place, make something with my hands, or see what happens when an idea leaves my notebook.
That has led to maps, 911 data tools, research, a gathering, and a folded paper field book. I share the work here, including what I’m still figuring out. You can come for one project or follow the questions as they change.
The subjects change
My Portland maps and investigations live together on The Portland Porch. My other work belongs here too: 911 data tools, a national research map, a gathering, a folded field book, and ideas I’ve decided to leave in the archive.
I spent nearly a decade in public safety technology, and I am studying public health in the OHSU-PSU MPH program.
Before that, I worked in hospitality, local government, and utility forestry. I have used field software alone on a dirt road and helped the people responsible for emergency-service data figure out what the software was asking them to do. Those experiences still shape the questions I ask.
They do not define the limits of what I am allowed to make.
How I work
I like the part where an idea becomes specific. What is the actual problem? Who needs the thing? What would make it useful? What can we build with what is already here?
I work independently and across subjects. Some of the work is intended to become a product. Some is research, public infrastructure in miniature, a gathering, or a personal experiment. Each deserves a clear explanation of what it is and where it stands.
I care about making the work understandable to the person who has to use it. Accessibility belongs in the first decisions. So does being honest about what is ready and what still needs checking.
The record matters
I do not want every project to become a permanent obligation. Sometimes I finish what I came to make. Sometimes I pause. Sometimes I stop because the question changed or I learned enough to choose another direction.
That does not erase the work. This site keeps the active projects alongside the things I have completed, paused, or retired. A project can keep being useful after I stop being the person moving it forward.
Please steal my stuff
Especially the civic and community ideas. I made them because I wanted them to exist. If something here could work where you live, I want it to have that chance.
Reusable materials live with the project they came from. The TRAP starter kit is available now. Other projects explain what you can use and what is still being prepared.
Say hello
Bring a real question, an unfinished idea, or a different read on something I made.