Factor E Farm Blog

We’re now moving onto the next phase of GVCS development, beyond the work at Factor e Farm to a global collaboration of remote prototyping work funded by crowd sources and resource development via the nonprofit sector. We are collecting bids from global collaborators at the same time that further development and production is occurring at Factor e Farm, starting with 3 orders of the brick press – tractor – soil pulverizer. Our next steps are fabrication automation with tools like the CNC torch table for cutting parts and precision multimachine for fabricating  motors and engnines, which allows people to replicate our machines from CAM files, shared globally and built locally at a fraction of the cost of closed-source counterparts.

It seems that this year will be a great step forward as the several early adopters prove the feasibility of our products. We predict that many will follow as the machines are proven in the field and as CEB houses are built.

One subject matter expert that we have recruited from Berkeley, California, is Dan Granett, who runs  a design and prototyping shop. His background includes precision machining, and Dan has helped us years ago by initial design of the Tesla turbine, which was since superseded by the modern steam engine on grounds of efficiency.

Dan will be leading the precision CNC multimachine effort, which includes a mill, drill, and lathe, plus a surface grinder attachment, plus cold-cut an abrasive saws. We will add value to open design of high-performance hardware by developing low-cost, heavy-duty (2000+ lb of force), precision (1 mil) x-y-z drives based on open source dove-tails, precision acme, digital readout, and microcontroller feedback for backlash correction. Dan will be one of our first experiments in scaling the technical development of the project via remote prototyping collaboration.

We're now moving onto the next phase of GVCS development, beyond the work at Factor e Farm to a global collaboration of remote prototyping work funded by crowd sources and resource development via the nonprofit sector. We are collecting bids from global collaborators at the same time that further development and production is occurring ...

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Sean will publish his short documentary on Factor e Farm in a couple of weeks. These are some of the sights from summer 2010 as preview.

OSE: Timelapse Reel from Sean Church on Vimeo.

Sean will publish his short documentary on Factor e Farm in a couple of weeks. These are some of the sights from summer 2010 as preview. OSE: Timelapse Reel from Sean Church on Vimeo.

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Happy New Year!

Over the holidays, I got a chance to meet Juliet Schor (author of Plenitude) in New York City. Juliet teaches at Boston College, and she co-founded the Center for the New American Dream. She wrote about Factor e Farm in her recent book, Plenitude: The Economics of True Wealth. She recently got a McArthur Foundation grant to do a case study on Factor e Farm. What I love about Juliet is that her core message is a mouthpiece for the practical work of Factor e Farm. I feel like I am listening to myself speak when I listen to Juliet. Her core message is that we can improve the economic system far beyond its present morasse of inefficiency and artificial scarcity.

Juliet Schor and Plenitude from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

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Happy New Year! Over the holidays, I got a chance to meet Juliet Schor (author of Plenitude) in New York City. Juliet teaches at Boston College, and she co-founded the Center for the New American Dream. She wrote about Factor e Farm in her recent book, Plenitude: The Economics of True Wealth. She recently got ...

[2] Comments

Dear Readers – as a result of the California Tour, the project is exploding with growth. I am back in California for the winter to regroup and reorganize. Until April 1, I am keeping the fire with collaborators at the Trout Gulch Forest Village in Aptos, California. This is a magical place that I like to call Factor e West.

California from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

We are presently working on Proposal 2012 to complete the Global Village Construction Set in 2 years with a $2.4M budget. To do so, we are building the team. Isaiah Saxon joined our core team as our Media Advisor. He’s a leader at Trout Gulch, ground-breaking film director by trade, creator of the GVCS in 2 Minutes video, and his latest contribution is a design of a clear and simple website and front face for the GVCS work:

We are looking for web developers to build the website. Contact us if you can help. You can find further notes on the website design here.

We are branding the project clearly as development of the GVCS – while not confusing this matter with the development of communities or social networks based on access to the GVCS – which is the next step in the process. The website, a longer explainer video, plus a well-refined presentation, are in the works, as we prepare for a funding campaign that may include: (1), crowd funding via Kickstarter and Beex; (2), non-profit sector investors; (3), True Fans, (4) continued public presentations; and (5), earnings from equipment orders.

Floyd Earl Smith, from Transition San Francisco, joined our team as Product Manager. His background is as a technical writer, author, and product manager. While I will lead Project Management, Floyd will focus on the documentation of development towards replicability.

Luis Diaz is joining the core team to set up our non-profit organization infrastructure and other details of enterprise form. We finally have a dedicated person who can establish and maintain tax-exempt organization status. This means that we can put forth an earnest recruitment call for a resource development professional.

The bottom line is $2.4M in 2 years, massive parallel development, and the GVCS is done in 2 years. You can see the updated list of technologies (now numbering 50) in the GVCS Technologies section of Proposal 2012. If you think you can help, contact us. The main effort until April 1, 2011 is writing the proposal, cleaning up our media presence, building a parallel development team, and upgrading the organizational infrastructure to handle an increased level of support. After April 1, we plan on getting back to the dungeon to fill equipment orders, as deployment of our machines in the field is part of the feasibility-proof of the GVCS-concept. This time around, we plan to add digital fabrication assist for LifeTrac with a CNC torch table.

Dear Readers – as a result of the California Tour, the project is exploding with growth. I am back in California for the winter to regroup and reorganize. Until April 1, I am keeping the fire with collaborators at the Trout Gulch Forest Village in Aptos, California. This is a magical place that I ...

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Here is the short Explainer Video about the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) that we promised – pure inspiration:

Global Village Construction Set in 2 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

The quality is amazing. Credits go to Isaiah of Encyclopedia Pictura (video production company responsible for Björk’s Wanterlust animations), who is one of our True Fans. We plan to translate the video to many languages and to spread virally to recruit True Fans. If you are inspired – Subscribe! We’re at 155 True Fans.

Standard : $10.00USD – monthly Gold : $20.00USD – monthly Gold Extra : $30.00USD – monthly Platinum : $50.00USD – monthly Angel : $100.00USD – monthly

You can download the raw file without the voice-over – for dubbing into other languages. The file in English is here. (note: the link at the end has been changed to http://openecology.org – forthcoming)

From the video:

We used this video in our application to the Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) Challenge. (more…)

Here is the short Explainer Video about the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) that we promised - pure inspiration: Global Village Construction Set in 2 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo. The quality is amazing. Credits go to Isaiah of Encyclopedia Pictura (video production company responsible for Björk's Wanterlust animations), who is one of our ...

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Continuing from the last blog post – the trip and Post-Scarcity Escape Velocity presentation (download here, 3.4M PDF) was breakthrough. The presentation was well-received – as the message of the Global Village Construction Set/Resilient Community Construction Set is coming through – as a potent solution to many pressing world issues. The Power Cube and Distributed Power Generator were perhaps the most notable for many listeners, as were LifeTrac II and Modular CEB Housing. While the technology was the focus as the enabler, the social impact was also becoming clear.

Hear my interview with Thom Becker, True Fan and Lastwear open source clothing company founder – who invited us to the Open Up event – on prospects of open source clothing production. We also comment on hiring a professional project manager as a means to achieving massively parallel product development program that we’ve been seeking for a long time. The practical result and major highlight of the trip is that we will position the recruitment of a professional project manager as a key requirement for the acceleration of GVCS development. We will work with David Wilhelm, who is a partner in Lastwear – as a professional project manager as recommended by Thom.

Lastwear – the Open Source Clothing Company from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

The second highlight was commitment on the part of Adam Schilling and Skylar Paris – to collaborate on  a 10 minute Explainer Video. Thus the present team is building. (1) Isaiah, who is working on the 2 minute Explainer Video for the BFI Challenge – to be finished by Friday. (2) Adam – story and script for additional videos. (3) Skylar – illustration. (4) Will Cleaver and Noah Beasler – CAD, animation, exploding part animations; (5) Marcin – product ecology technical integration. The goal is to produce extreme clarity on the GVCS via story-special effects-CAD-real video footage. We can then include this in Proposal 2011 – and the rest of our publicity work.

The third highlight came from Adam Shilling – another True Fan -with whom I talked for hours not only on the video work – but on a multiplayer online game based on the GVCS as the inspiration for its connection to the real world. Adam is going to South America to meet real people – to assess the needs of real communities. The project will link gaming to the real world – where money exchanged ends up purchasing things like tractors or renewable energy equipment for villages in South America. I think this is one of the most potentially world-changing ideas that can come out of internet culture, as applied to the real world. We were convinced on this trip that virtual reality games can indeed have a profound, positive effect on reality. Hear more in this video – the first half is on the video work, and the second half is on the proposed game – which will be marketed as a game, not an effort to change the world:

10 Minute Explainer Video and GVCS-Based Game from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

In a nutshell, this trip was another consciousness-cracking experience. Life with the GVCS is becoming ever more exciting. We will post the video of the presentation as soon as it’s available. Next, we are all looking forward to the finishing of the 2 Minute Explainer video mentioned above, and the results of our application to the TED Fellows program.

Continuing from the last blog post - the trip and Post-Scarcity Escape Velocity presentation (download here, 3.4M PDF) was breakthrough. The presentation was well-received - as the message of the Global Village Construction Set/Resilient Community Construction Set is coming through - as a potent solution to many pressing world issues. The Power Cube and ...

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Devin from Sarapis Foundation for post-scarcity economic development has informed us of Scrum, an agile project management process for developing complex projects – which we could apply to our open source product development pipeline method.

Our response to this is this burndown graph for deploying the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). See a larger picture on the wiki.

The left axis is work remaining, and the x axis is time. 2012 is approaching, so it’s high time to tidy up the GVCS. It’s only two million dollars. RepLab is the open source Fab Lab. If you would like to improve the above Burndown Graph, please download the source file (in Dia format; both the file and source images must be in the same directory) from our repository. (more…)

Devin from Sarapis Foundation for post-scarcity economic development has informed us of Scrum, an agile project management process for developing complex projects - which we could apply to our open source product development pipeline method. Our response to this is this burndown graph for deploying the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). See a larger picture ...

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We have recently shown the initial test drive of LifeTrac Prototype II. The 3D model in Blender corresponds exactly to the machine built – the point being that the models in Blender are useful as actual design drawings from which others can replicate a build. The design may be scaled – meaning that the same components may be used on a machine of a different size. This implies that a MicroTrac may be based on the same design. See our previous work on MicroTrac – which is based on one driving wheel.

We are proposing MicroTrac Prototype II to be a small version of LifeTrac, as opposed to the one-wheel drive version. Stability and traction issues need to be resolved on the one-wheel design, so a good solution may be to do another simple box with wheels, like LifeTrac Prototype II. If we use the same or similar components, that means that parts will be interchangeable between the two machines – consistent with our principles of radical modularity.

This is our MicroTrac Challenge – for you to design the best, smallest implementation for MicroTrac Prototype II, built around the components of LifeTrac Prototype II. If you have no skill or experience in building a working tractor, this could be your start in your career as a design-builder of open source tractors. We have a design that works – and it may be modified easily – so our Blender drawing may constitute an Open Source Tractor Construction Set. (more…)

We have recently shown the initial test drive of LifeTrac Prototype II. The 3D model in Blender corresponds exactly to the machine built - the point being that the models in Blender are useful as actual design drawings from which others can replicate a build. The design may be scaled - meaning that the ...

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We are producing an application for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge this year. The Buckminster Fuller Challenge from Buckminster Fuller Institute on Vimeo. Brandin Watson, one of our collaborators, has volunteered to take the lead on writing the application for us. Here are his words: As was briefly mentioned in a previous post, we will be entering into ...

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We have proposed the scalable, Open Source Product Development Pipeline methodology over a year ago. It’s merely a formalization of an actual process, which was not high.

What are the challenges to a scalable, open product development methodology – which has the power to transform the entire globe to an open economic system – within a few years, if not months? Open-sourcing the entire economy is a well-bounded problem, if done collaboratively. (more…)

We have proposed the scalable, Open Source Product Development Pipeline methodology over a year ago. It's merely a formalization of an actual process, which was not high. What are the challenges to a scalable, open product development methodology - which has the power to transform the entire globe to an open economic system - within ...

[11] Comments