Tue 25 Oct 2011
Posted by Rebecca
Instructional video on the connection of LifeTrac valves to motors, cylinders, and Power Cubes.
In order to make our videos more accessible, going forward we will be uploading to both Vimeo and Archive.org. Archive.org automatically transcodes media into a variety of formats (quicktime, h.264 & ogg). We hope this option will make it easier to not only watch our videos, but also to edit & remix them.
Wed 19 Oct 2011
Posted by Rebecca
Video of CEB controller box electronic boards hookup:
(See transcript at the wiki)
Hi, I’m Rebecca Rojer, and I’m one week into my month-long stay at Factor e Farm for a Dedicated Project Visit in documentation. I’ll be picking up where the talented Ian Midgley left off, working on documentation for the Christmas Gift To The World as well as a recruitment video for the OSE Dream Team.
Thu 6 Oct 2011
Posted by Ian
Just completed the fourth video in the new series of instructional videos. With instructions on how to make a power cube, tractor frame, and now tractor wheel, you can be more than halfway to building your own LifeTrac.
Mon 6 Jun 2011
Posted by Marcin
The next main phase at Factor e Farm is renewed focus on documentation. This emerged from our production run, where we learned that we could get perhaps 30-50% more accomplished if we had professional-quality fabrication drawings, detailed fabrication procedures on the wiki, CAM files available, and quality video Instructionals for preview by any participants. These tools become indispensable from the management perspective for any distributive enterprise – especially when the number of production run participants exceeds 4 people.
We are calling for volunteers to take on Dedicated Documentation Project Visits – which are Dedicated Project Visits focusing on documentation. We have the CEB Press, Tractor, Power Cube, and Soil Pulverizer in need of complete documentation – for the purposes our future production runs, fabricator training, and replication of production to other individuals and distributive enterprises. We are looking for 4 on-site docuemntors. We estimate that each project would take about a month of dedicated time to docuement, and probably more if we are to create thorough, well-edited instructional videos. (more…)
Fri 27 May 2011
Posted by Chris
Greetings from Factor e Farm.
Life has been busy around here.
We’re in the middle of a production run, so we’re working pretty much round the clock. What’s cool is that as we’re building things, we’re finding all these things to improve about the process. There’s a lot of room to grow, and we’re pumping out a lot.
Here’s a few photos of the past week. (more…)
Mon 14 Feb 2011
Posted by Marcin
Factor e Farm, our land-based facility for Global Village Construction Set development, has now been alive for 4 years. We encountered the place as an empty soybean field abused by commercial agriculture. This video shows in 4 minutes what has happened in the last 4 years – and points to the plans for the next 2 years. These are exciting times indeed.
4 Years oif Factor e Farm in 4 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.
The current plan is 50/2/2 – the entire set of 50 Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) technologies to be completed in 2 years within a $2.4M budget in a scenario of rapid, parallel development. By year-end 2012, we want to be done with the basic GVCS shown above, so we can move on to applications – such as the infrastructure for a real community. This is a big, hairy, audacious goal. It requires that a large parallel development team is recruited, that a scalable development process is realized, and that the organizational infrastructure to support this task is established.
We have about 200 True Fans now – including two at the Angel level. Subscribe.
Fri 21 Jan 2011
Posted by Marcin
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.
Sun 24 Oct 2010
Posted by Marcin
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.
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…)
Tue 10 Aug 2010
Posted by Marcin
We are making good progress on LifeTrac – Prototype II of the open source tractor. We have managed to fund its completion via crowd funding. We’ve got just about all the parts in, including hydraulic components. We will use Power Cube Protype I as the initial power source. After completing the frame, the next tasks are wheel mounting, as well as installation of the hydraulics and of the Power Cube. Here is the progress on various wheel mounting and loader arm mounting components. This is another beautiful production by Sean:
Wed 14 Jul 2010
Posted by Marcin
Here are some additional details from Sean’s video documentation work regarding the frame of the open source tractor – LifeTrac – Prototype II. William discusses some of the details on the frame, which was introduced in a previous post. From Sean’s videos so far, I like this one the most so far for its aesthetic qualities. You can read more about LifeTrac Prototype I here.
