Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed ORCA — the Open Radar Code Architecture — a free, open-source software framework that turns commercially available software-defined radios into functioning radar systems for environmental science, without requiring users to have a radar engineering background. The problem ORCA solves is a well-known frustration in radar research: every new student joining a lab typically spends up to a year rebuilding the same basic control code from scratch before any actual science can begin. "Every new student is just recreating the wheel over and over," said assistant professor Nicole Bienert. With ORCA, researchers buy a software-defined radio — now available for a few thousand dollars compared to hundreds of thousands for traditional radar systems — attach off-the-shelf antennas and cables, download the code, and have a functioning radar. Current applications include measuring glacier ice thickness in the Arctic, determining water content within trees, and studying ice sheet base conditions. The platform has grown through monthly meetings and online forums with participants from multiple universities across continents, and researchers can contribute their own code via GitHub. The initiative aims to make radar accessible to geophysicists, ecologists, and other scientists who have environmental questions but lack the technical background to build radar systems from scratch.