Sat 28 Jan 2012

Organizational Development 2012

Posted by Marcin

I would like to announce that I am now officially a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. This is a major development for Open Source Ecology, as the Fellowship provides a total of $360k of direct funding for the project.  I have blogged about my application 3 months ago, and you can see my application on the OSE wiki for reference

I am also a 2012 TED Senior Fellow – which I mentioned previously only in passing.  I am now one of 12 individuals selected from  the pool of 40 of the 2011 TED and TEDGlobal Fellows- to continue their TED Fellowship for another 2 years. This is important because TED provides major publicity.  My talk was featured as #6 in Best of TED for 2011, and the talk already has 671,000 views. The TED Senior Fellowship offers further speaking opportunities at the TED Conference. I am invited both to TED and TED Global, for a total of 4 conferences over the next 2 years. I am planning on giving a TED talk on the GVCS developments at TED Global.

These 2 distinctions are largely responsible for our ~$560k budget for first quarter of 2012, with which we intend to produce 12 further prototypes. See the Status Brief on the wiki for continuing prototyping updates. Aaron Makaruk, our resource developer, is working on $10M of grant applications by mid-year, from which we would like to see a 10% success rate. The goal is still to finish the 50 GVCS tools up to beta release status by December 21, 2012.

This requires a much more robust organizational infrastructure to manage a significant parallel development process. It seems to me that we will build up to that slowly, such that by mid-year, we will really accelerate. This is a rough Organizational Map that we are currently developing, and the next step will be recruiting.

(more…)

Categories: Accomplishments, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship, TED Fellows

[7] Comments

Sat 28 Jan 2012

Ironworker Prototype II Design Update

Posted by Brianna

Hello world,

This is an update for the Ironworker prototype 2.

By next Friday, Feb. 3, I will have completed the remainder of the sketchup design, and the official OSE Proposal, and will be posting both in another blog post. This will include my calculations for the machine sizing, a design rationale, an overall project plan, a bill of materials and a budget. I’ve been designing the ironworker for months now, and the design stage is finally nearing completion. See the latest sketchup model. The design is not quite finished, but will be within the next week. Major things which are missing from the design are the frame to suspend the machine, and a clamp for the flat shear. Everything else is pretty much done, except that a few bolts and holes, as well as the pins need to be fixed.

(more…)

Categories: Ironworker Machine

[2] Comments

Mon 16 Jan 2012

Quick Connect Wheels Update

Posted by Marcin

We have just installed the quick connect wheels on the tractor and have been testing them with success for the past week. These can be attached/released from the tractor in under 5 minutes by turning a cam lock and loosening two large bolts. The significance is that detachable wheels allow not only easy service of the drive system – but more importantly – allow the wheels to be part of a more general equipment infrastructure. Detachable wheels can be interchanged between the tractor, microtractor, bulldozer. truck, or even car. Combined with interchangeable power units and interchangeable parts, this gets us one step closer to a life-size Lego set for real equipment.


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You can read more about the quick connect wheels on the wiki. We just ran a successful design challenge on these, discussed in the last post. We have the whole fabrication process as a series of YouTube clips totaling 15 minutes (anyone volunteering to compose them remotely into a meaningful video instructional?). Roger Olson drew up the quick attach wheel assembly in Autodesk Inventor. Here is the PDF file.

 

Categories: Open Source Ecology

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Sun 1 Jan 2012

LifeTrac Quick Connect Wheel Challenge Results

Posted by Marcin

We put up a crowd design challenge at GrabCAD a few weeks ago – for LifeTrac IV - Quick Connect Wheels. The basic problem was: how do you design wheel assemblies for a tractor that can be taken on and off in under 5 minutes – for interchangeability or repair. We have gotten a number of excellent contributions – see results – and we are picking the design by Marcus as the winning choice:

 

(more…)

Categories: Crowd Design, Crowd Design, Crowd Engineering, Crowd Engineering, GrabCAD

[2] Comments

Fri 30 Dec 2011

Calling All Disruptive, Boundary-Smashing, Distributive Enterprise Heavyweights

Posted by Marcin

We are recruiting a Co-Founder to join the team at Factor e Farm. This blog post describes this offer. (we are also looking for project Advisors and Mentors, see last paragraph of this post)

Open Source Ecology is a movement for creating the open source economy. The means is creating distributive enterprise based on open source design of products and services. The focus is clear: to introduce material post-scarcity as  a practical option via open source economic development – starting with the 50 Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) tools as a core kernel. Our tactical platform for deployment is the the GVCS – a core enabling kernel for a wide array of enterprises and infrastructures. We are attempting the impossible: opensourcing all 50 of the GVCS technologies by December 21, 2011. We already secured $1/2M to make this happen, so we guarantee that at least 18 of the 50 technologies will reach Beta product release. We are positioned to hit the ground running in 2012, while wrapping up LifeTrac impreovements, with 9 project leaders and a basic plan of prototyping 14 machines in parallel (we are busy recruiting 5 more technical project leaders). We will come out on schedule if a protype emerges on one month cycle in each project. See the OSE Enterprise Plan.

Project Co-Founder Duties

The Project Co-Founder is an individual who shares both high level executive duties and daily tasks with the Project Founder – in running Open Source Ecology development at the global headquarters – Factor e Farm in Missouri, USA. This includes strategic development, organizational development, and prototyping – both in organizational and hands-on aspects. It is a full time job, and the Co-Founder is required to live on-site during the 2012 development phase. (more…)

Categories: Open Source Ecology, Recruiting

[5] Comments

Wed 28 Dec 2011

Civilization Starter Kit DVD v0.01

Posted by Marcin

Dear True Fans and Supporters -

We are proud to release version 0.01 of the Civilization Starter Kit DVD – our OSE Christmas Gift to the World for 2011.

While we could go on for weeks with improvements - our Publish Early and Often Policy dictates that today is the cutoff. The full DVD contents are now online, and we will author physical DVD copies by January 31, 2012. These will be part of the GVCS Kickstarter reward structure, and we will also offer these DVDs for sale as a fundraiser.
The most interesting highlights of The DVD are:
  1. Message from the Founder – The OSE Paradigm; Rollout Plan for 2012; Getting Involved in OSE; My Story
  2. Practical Post-Scarcity Video – an unscripted exposition connecting our theory to practice.
  3. OSE Enterprise Plan – a standard business plan brief – in the form of a 6 minute video.
  4. The core results are the CAD, instructionals, and complete assembly for the 4 machines, such as an 89 page A-Z instructional PDF for the CEB press. We are still working on the professional fabrication drawings.
  5. Initial construction results for 2011.
  6. Initial architecture plans for a hybrid CEB/Straw superinsulated microhouse, and more.
Still forthcoming for the DVD are:
  1. Jan. 1, 2012 – Professional fabrication drawings for CEB Press – PDF to take to your local custom fabricator.
  2. Jan. 15 – Professional fabrication drawings for Tractor. This will include the new quick connect wheels and the bent loader arms for improved weight distribution – and field testing in moving 3000 lb brick pallets and logs for forestry operations. Professional fabrication drawings for Power Cube.
  3. Jan. 5 – Completion of full architecture details for CEB/Straw Hybrid Microhouse
  4. Jan. 15 – Filling in additional information for the machines. We need primarily CAE analyses and other supporting details – listed specifically in the DVD Wanted List on the wiki. I am listing these task by task  - as bite-size chunks that lend themselves to volunteer contributions.
HabLab and Workshop construction will not be completed until after the DVD hard copy is published. We will publish those plans later.
We will be releasing 14 more beta products by April 1, 2012 – so our goal of rapid parallel development is materializing. We have $1/2M available as of today to kick it in high gear. More about this later.
After April, we will be preparing for the Build Naturally Workshop – using the hybrid microhouse plans. We expect to host the workshop in July, for which we will have the construction DVD ready – featuring full results from HabLab and Workshop construction, including embodied energy. We aim to have a small prototype of the Hybrid Microhouse built prior to the Workshop – so that we are actually making technique refinements.

Categories: Accomplishments, Civilization Starter Kit DVD, v0.01

[15] Comments

Fri 23 Dec 2011

Best of TED 2011: Global Village Construction Set is #6

Posted by Marcin

The Global Village Construction Set TED talk has been selected as the Best of TED 2011 top 6 in the Huffington Post. Read Isaiah Saxon’s followup blog post. You can also comment there (407 comments as of this writing). There is also a #18ideas you can use if you want to share via Twitter. It is an honor to share the Open Source Ecology paradigm with the world.

 

Categories: Accomplishments

[3] Comments

Wed 21 Dec 2011

Ironworker Shear Assembly Challenge: Live at GrabCAD

Posted by Brianna

The Ironworker shear assembly challenge is now live at GrabCAD. See my prior post here, and note that we are funded to get this done. We are escalating the pace, and exploring the use of open source crowd engineering in the process. This is our second entry at GrabCAD, the first entry being the tractor. Let any engineer friends know!

Categories: Collaboration Platform, Crowd Engineering, Ironworker Machine

[2] Comments

Sat 17 Dec 2011

Professional Fabrication Drawings for the CEB Press

Posted by Marcin

We need epic help on producing professional fabrication drawings for the OSE Christmas Gift to the World – full documentation of the first 4 tools of the Global Village Construction Set – the tools of construction.
If you have any time in the next week to work on this, email me at opensourceecology at gmail dot com or just start doing this by downloading the full CAD file in STEP format from the OSE file repository at Open Pario. For questions on standards, please contact Mike Apostol.
We will have full fabrication procedures documented and CAD available, and we want to release the full professional drawings by the 24th of this month. I am also open to references to others who can do this. We can spend money on this, this is important to facilitate replication.

Categories: Open Source Ecology

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Fri 16 Dec 2011

CEB Press: Generation 3 Electronics

Posted by Yoonseo

Recently, the CEB Press electronics improved to the third major iteration, replacing Generation 2 electronics from September of this year. Generation 3 electronics consist of a revised solenoid driver board that eliminates the need for the Arduino breakout board.

Generation 3 is now under evaluation at Factor e Farm and at Creation Flame. Generation 1 electronics included 2 solenoid driver boards borrowed from the RepRap project, and is robust but not recommended due to unnecessary complexity. Generation 2 included consolidation of the 2 driver boards into one, in surface mount format, and is proven in field testing with over 100 hours of brick pressing. Generation 1 and 2 included the breakout board, and the Generation 3 redesign eliminates the need for the breakout board by including sensor connections right on the driver board. This reduces controller complexity and cost significantly over Generation 2.

Furthermore, the organization of the controller box has been streamlined, the materials required for the sensor unit have been reduced, and the electro-hydraulic integration now assembles more intuitively.

We aim to reduce the complexity of the CEB controller to the point that a novice could build it in a few hours from available parts. (more…)

Categories: CEB Press Controller, CNC Circuit Mill, Compressed Earth Block Press

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