Open Source Ecology

Towards the end of yesterday’s blog post, we mentioned our progress on the modern steam engine. This is part of our near-term development program (and part of Proposal 2011) towards upgrading our Power Cubes and the LifeTrac infrastructre to modern steam power. Yesterday we met with Robert Thomas, one of those rare individuals who builds steam and gasoline engines for fun. He built this steam tractor replica (23 hp) of a larger 1920s farm traction engine completely from scratch, including building the steam engine from heavy-walled pipe and cutting the gears:

Steam Tractor – 23 HP from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

We began a design session. Our conclusions from yesterday are to produce a proof-of-concept prototype of a modern steam engine involving Arduino to provide electronic steam injection. This is analogous to electronic fuel injection in cars. The concept looks like this. and can download this conceptual diagram in Dia here to collaborate on the design:

It is a single cylinder, 4” bore, single-acting uniflow steam engine. The inlet port is a solenoid valve operated by Arduino, with a sensor on the flywheel to provide timing. The materials cost is under $200. (more…)

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Continuing with Proposal 2011 for the rapid deployment of the remaining 39 GVCS technologies in a rapid, parallel fashion by year-end 2011 – here is an overview of the Technical Development Process, which is applicable to the development of each of the technologies. This template is a tactical simplification and further refinement of the Open Source Product Development Pipeline method. At best – after the required developments are made in our collaborative development infrastructure by mid 2011 – the remaining 38 projects can be approached in parallel according to this Technical Development Process. You can also download the source file in Dia and get involved in collaborative development of this Process.

We will climax Proposal 2011 with lucid explanation of our work via Explainer Videos, followed by a clear definition of tasks to be done for each project (as begun in the template above according to the general timeline and budget presented in a former post), together with an explicit procedure for accomplishing the same. (more…)

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What is this new flurry of organizational diagrams, started in the last blog post? We are planning OSE Proposal 2011, with a goal to deploy the remaining 39 technologies of the Global Village Construction Set in a radically rapid, parallel development fashion involving $2M in funding and 1 year in time. You can download this graph source here (in Dia) to make improvements, as this is work in progress, and Proposal 2011 is meant to be a collaborative process. Yes, you can involve yourself directly in building a new world.

The graph summarizes the organizational tasks required for Factor e Farm to build its infrastructure to handle 12 on-site people and to handle widespread global collaboration – by the first half of 2011. Key tasks in this involve explaining our work to a broad audience, recruiting a wider development team, building an internet platform, building additional physical infrastructure at Factor e Farm, and funding the whole package. We have had a major upsurge of involvement and support, and our goals, while admittedly optimistic, are definitely not impossible. (more…)

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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…)

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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…)

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This clip is a very concise and well-spoken discussion on technology for meeting true human needs. Its clarity blew me away. The video should be updated to the possibility of creating modern, small scale industrial economies that can be replicated inexpensively around the world – from local resources. That’s our proposed contribution to humanity.

In our Explainer Video, we should strive for a similar level of impact, in an even shorter presentation.

Kent – one of our True Fans, has passed on the clip above, plus this exciting email on possible speaking engagements.
(EDIT: see the full article for this video with subtitles in other languages)
(more…)

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This is a rendering of Prototype II of the open source, design-for-disassembly tractor, LifeTrac. You can download the source in Blender format.

This is the reality of the completed frame, with the wheels and wheel motors, minus the PowerCube engine unit.

Now hang the 18 horsepower PowerCube I on the rear of the frame, and take it for the first test drive.

LifeTrac II Test Drive from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

This insane freak purrs like a cat and rips the ground. Major success. (more…)

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Here is an update on the crowd funding. The LifeTrac Completion and PowerCube Prototype II funding baskets are filled. The Liberator and Soil Pulverizer Prototype II baskets are still low. On August 18, with less than a week to go, we’re at $1795 of $4700 – or at 38% of our goal.  We were at $1175 after 4 days of beginnining this campaign. We can still pull off some magic.

We need to fill these baskets to be able to pursue our building adventures of this year. The way we look at it – this year’s building adventures will serve to demonstrate the feasibility of building high-quality, scalable, low-cost accommodations. We want to be able to accommodate up to 12 Dedicated Project Visitors and full-time participants by next year – which is key to our plan for upgrading operations along the lines of scalable, open source product development. So chip in. If we don’t get the resources in time, that means that we’ll just have to spend more time soliciting donations from friends and supporters.

Yesterday we had a photo shoot on the 150 ton hole puncher – which is getting published in Make Magazine.

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Adam Mitchell, one of our new True Fans, will be joining us at Factor e Farm for a one month Dedicated Project Visit on October 18. At that time, we’ll be towards the end of CEB construction, and we will also be working on developing our True Fans and supporters network. We are discussing ways to get our True Fans more involved. Check out Adam’s comments on his vision for collaboration:

True Fan Introduction from Adam Mitchell on Vimeo.

As the Truest of Fans, here is my own introduction. It’s a decent and juicy overview of ongoing work, and there are some personal comments as well.

Marcin’s Personal Introduction to the True Fans from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

Who will be the next True Fan or or other respondent – to do a video response, to introduce themselves, or to pump in some inspiring comments? We will gladly consider blogging your video if appropriate.

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We are pleased to announce that we have reached 100 True Fans in our 1000 True Fans – 1000 Global Villages campaign. Are we at a tipping point, thanks to all of the support we have been getting? You can read some testimonials from existing True Fans here.

We are working on a 2-minute Explainer Video for the Global Village Construction Set – for purposes of recruiting more True Fans, for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge application, for Kickstarter, and for a general purpose media blitz in the near future. There has been an increasing number of quality collaboration offers, so things are clearly picking up. There are exciting updates on the ground as well, as in the last post.

We would like to announce our True Fans Doubling Campaign. We would like to double our True Fans support base within 30 days.

To achieve this – we are asking each of our True Fans to commit 1 hour of time to this task over the next 30 days.  We’re asking all of our audiences to do the same. Please talk to your friends  – and invite them to subscribe to the True Fans. We can double our population if only 100 people succeed in pulling in a friend. A web search of people blogging about our work may also be a good place to find supporters. We have two related pages on the wiki: Links to Our Work, and In the News – so feel free to put up other links there as well.

We have also had demand for True Fans membership at a higher rate of support than the basic $10/month subscription. As such, we are introducing the True Fans Gold and True Fans Platinum subscriptions – at $20 and $50 per month, respectively. We will be counting these as 2 and 5 True Fans equivalents in our tally of True Fan numbers. This subscription button is featured here on the blog for the first time – with all the three choices – and you can also go to the Support page on the wiki.

Subscription Options

Standard : $10.00USD – monthly Gold : $20.00USD – monthly Platinum : $50.00USD – monthly

Here is a graph of our True Fan numbers. The recent increase is noteworthy. Will this increase be temporary, or are we going to continue climbing?

Help us by passing this on to your friends and telling them more about us.
(more…)

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