Problems
Real geospatial problems, graded automatically. Choose a track, a level and what you want to hand in.
- Not started, How many tiles does an offline London need?Web deliveryAnswersWeb GISbeginnerDifficulty: beginner140 XP~25 min3 checksWeb GISbeginnerDifficulty: beginner
From a bounding box to a tile count: size the offline basemap for a field app across zoom 10–15.
You hand in your answers as values.
Dataset
- London boroughs · Polygon · 33 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Take the bounding box of the borough layer
- Convert box corners to tile coordinates at each zoom
- Count tiles per zoom and total them into a storage estimate
XYZ tilesWeb Mercatorofflinecapacity planningLondonAlso trains CartographyOpen problem - Not started, At which zoom does every capital get its own tile?Web deliveryAnswersWeb GISintermediateDifficulty: intermediate180 XP~25 min4 checksWeb GISintermediateDifficulty: intermediate
Count capitals per XYZ tile across zooms to decide where a label layer switches from clustering to one label per city.
You hand in your answers as values.
Dataset
- Populated places · Point · 1,251 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Convert points to tile indices at several zooms
- Find the busiest tile per zoom
- Choose a switch-over zoom from the data
XYZ tileslabelsclusteringzoom levelsglobalAlso trains CartographyOpen problem - Not started, How big does Web Mercator make Greenland?CartographyAnswersCartographyintermediateDifficulty: intermediate210 XP~30 min4 checksCartographyintermediateDifficulty: intermediate
Put a number on the most famous distortion in cartography: the same countries measured on the ellipsoid and on the projection every web map uses.
You hand in your answers as values.
Dataset
- Countries · MultiPolygon · 241 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Measure area geodesically or in an equal-area projection
- Project the same polygons to Web Mercator and take their planar area
- Express the distortion as ratios a reader can repeat
Web Mercatorprojectionarea distortionEqual EarthglobalAlso trains Spatial AnalysisOpen problem - Not started, The buffer that shrank on the way to the mapCartographyAnswersCartographyintermediateDifficulty: intermediate200 XP~30 min4 checksCartographyintermediateDifficulty: intermediate
Quantify what a 400 m buffer drawn in EPSG:3857 actually covers on the ground in London, and how much of the coverage report it loses.
You hand in your answers as values.
Datasets
- Santander Cycles docking stations (live snapshot) · Point · 799 features · EPSG:4326
- London boroughs · Polygon · 33 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Derive the Web Mercator scale factor at London's latitude
- Translate a projected buffer distance into its ground equivalent
- Re-run the coverage analysis with the shrunken buffer and measure the shortfall
Web Mercatorscale factorprojectionbufferLondonAlso trains Spatial AnalysisOpen problem - Not started, Build an earthquake contact reconnaissance queueProjectDecision support3 stepsSpatial AnalysisadvancedDifficulty: advanced550 XP~95 min12 checksSpatial AnalysisadvancedDifficulty: advanced
Screen strong shallow events, quantify airfield and settlement proximity, and hand over a traceable contact map.
Worked in 3 steps, each checked before the next one opens.
- Select the event queue · SQL
- Measure contact gaps · Answers
- Hand over the access map · Python
Datasets
- Global M5.5+ earthquakes, Jan–Mar 2025 · Point · 86 features · EPSG:4326
- World airports · Point · 893 features · EPSG:4326
- Populated places · Point · 1,251 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Select a reproducible event queue in SQL
- Measure two independent global proximity indicators
- Deliver an auditable access map with an explicit contact-gap distinction
projectUSGSnearest neighbourlogisticsglobalAlso trains Python, Data Management, CartographyOpen project - Not started, Classify a map where most of the values are zeroCartographyAnswersCartographyadvancedDifficulty: advanced290 XP~45 min6 checksCartographyadvancedDifficulty: advanced
Quantile breaks collapse on a distribution dominated by zeros. Measure how, on the river-kilometres-per-country table, and say what a map maker should do instead.
You hand in your answers as values.
Datasets
- Countries · MultiPolygon · 241 features · EPSG:4326
- Rivers and lake centrelines · LineString · 461 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Reproduce a derived per-country measure
- Compute quantile and equal-interval breaks on a zero-heavy distribution
- Quantify how each scheme distributes the countries
choroplethclassificationquantileszero-inflatedhydrologyAlso trains Python, Spatial AnalysisOpen problem - Not started, Deliver a field-ready public asset registerProjectData preparation4 stepsData ManagementadvancedDifficulty: advanced600 XP~105 min17 checksData ManagementadvancedDifficulty: advanced
Merge two open asset extracts into a quality-controlled GeoPackage for field inspection.
Worked in 4 steps, each checked before the next one opens.
- Audit both incoming sources · Answers
- Build the common asset model · Dataset file
- Verify and round coordinates · GeoJSON
- Package and verify the handover · Dataset file
Datasets
- Melbourne toilet source · Point · 7 features · EPSG:4326
- Melbourne drinking-water source · Point · 21 features · EPSG:4326
What you’ll do
- Profile and reconcile two source layers without multiplying assets.
- Normalise access without representing unknown status as public.
- Deliver a reproducible, typed WGS 84 GeoPackage handover.
data-preparationprojectgeopackagemelbournehandoverAlso trains Spatial Analysis, CartographyOpen project