Factor E Farm Blog

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…)

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 ...

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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…)

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: . We will use the circuit mill ...

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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…)

. 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 ...

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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.

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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 ...

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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.

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 ...

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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.

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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 ...

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Hello world,

This is an update for the Ironworker prototype 2.

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, ...

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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.

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 ...

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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:

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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 ...

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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…)

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 ...

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