Sun 19 Feb 2012
Posted by Marcin
OSE was featured on National Public Radio today. Listen to the story.
Yesterday, we were also featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
This has resulted in 11 new True Fans subscriptions today, which is the most for any single day so far, for a total count of about 540 True Fans. (more…)
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Sat 18 Feb 2012
Posted by Aaron
My name is Aaron Makaruk, and I am working full time as an on-contingency Resource Developer for Open Source Ecology. We are busy raising money, building technology across the country, and laying the foundation for the open source economy. As our organizational development and recruiting strategy shifts into high gear, we want you to give us feedback on how to do it better.
The link takes you to a survey – Community Needs Assessment. This is a good chance to provide input on what you want to see from OSE to make the project better, and what you can offer to make that happen.
Check back soon for a followup on what we learned from the survey in the Survey Results. The survey results are transparent, so feel free to skip any questions you don’t want to answer.
If you fill in your city/state/country in the survey and put a 1 in the following question, your location will show up on this map. The best way to view the survey results is to use the ‘File’ menu to download the spreadsheet as a PDF. We will report back with a summary report next week.
Tue 14 Feb 2012
Posted by Tom Bamford
Help us go the next step in organizational development.
My name is Tom Bamford, and I just joined the OSE core team to help with recruiting. We are now developing a recruiting strategy.
At this stage, an effective use of current momentum will require that we build a dedicated development team. As funding comes in, prototyping accelerates, and Spring approaches, we need to fill a few key roles to guide and encourage that team building: so please help us do it. Tell your friends, post to your social media, and send us your nominations. Finding the best of the best will ensure smooth management and help us deliver on the promise of completing the 50 Global Village Construction Set prototypes to Beta product release by year end 2012.
These positions are the top priorities: (more…)
Sun 12 Feb 2012
Posted by Yoonseo
The OSE CNC Circuit Mill Prototype I is now complete. While there are many CNC circuit mill designs available on the internet, ours aims to maximize modularity, scalability, and simplicity, and ease of fabrication – while adhering to OSE Specifications. Here is the assembled device:
This is sample stepping motion:
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We will use the circuit mill to produce circuits needed in the Global Village Construction Set – such as the CEB Press Controller which we etched previously with hit-and-miss success. In order to mill circuits successfully, several bug corrections need to happen on the circuit mill. (more…)
Sat 11 Feb 2012
Posted by Marcin
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Global Village Construction Set development is scaling. There are currently 9 projects under active development and 3 full time developers besides me – Aaron Makaruk, Brianna Kufa, and Yoonseo Kang, two of which are currently off-site. The active projects include: the Ironworker Machine (build started), open source Tractor (modification field testing), CNC Circuit Mill (build almost complete), CNC Torch Table (build started), Dimensional Sawmill (build to be resumed next week), Heat Exchanger (prototype 1 coil done), Gasifier Burner (complete design, rationale, CAD, cam files- details in next blog post), Modern Steam Engine (parts kit arriving next week), and Backhoe (design challenge is up at GrabCAD). You can download a linked map by Aaron that shows the scope of some of the activity in the USA.
Most intriguing to me is two of high school engineers from Pasadena- who are replicating LifeTrac independently – with a goal to donate it to South Central Farmers in Los Angeles. See their work and the LifeTrac t-shirts in their fund-raising effort.
Development priorities for this year have been outlined in the OSE Enterprise Plan video – which we are passing on to potential investors. More current priorities for the next few months are outlined in (more…)
Sun 5 Feb 2012
Posted by Brianna
Last week I said I’d have the complete OSE proposal and Sketchup done for the ironworker by Friday. I didn’t get it done by then, but I am prepared to start building next week. I finished the majority of the OSE Proposal, see it here. I’ll be posting my engineering calculations onto the proposal when I get them scanned in. I also generated a Bill of Materials with most of the costs listed. I’m waiting on the quotes for the steel; these should come in Monday morning. I plan on having all materials purchased by Tuesday, and begin building as soon as I get materials to work on.
Sun 5 Feb 2012
Posted by Brianna
The backhoe design challenge is now live at GrabCAD. This is a unique challenge because it is the first in which we are offering a cash prize to the winner: $750 goes to the winner, plus an additional $250 if less than 3 design changes need to be made. We hope this will attract more experienced designers to the project. We outlined the specifications for this project in great detail, hoping this would result in designs which are very close to OSE ideals.
The challenge went live 1/30, and has already gotten 1 entry. The deadline is 3/9.
Sat 28 Jan 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.
Sat 28 Jan 2012
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.
Mon 16 Jan 2012
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.
