We have proposed the scalable, Open Product Development Pipeline methodology over a year ago. It’s merely a formalization of an actual process, which we follow loosely, in the creation of open business models. The number of responses on the Pipeline post indicates clearly that we’re talking only to ourselves.
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…)
When the ragweeds grow to 12 feet at Factor e Farm, I guess it’s time to mow the lawn.
In the usual bootstrapping fashion – today’s experiment was building and using an 8-foot diameter string trimmer powered by LifeTrac, with 1/2″ wire for the cutter. Did you ever wonder what it would be like to supersize a string trimmer? We do not recommend that you do this at home.
This video shows fabrication of the string trimmer, with assistance from our recently open-sourced 150 ton hole puncher – in practical use for the first time. The trimer is then taken into the field – for some powerful exterior trim.
Here is an update on the first set of pips from Hexahatch v2.0.
Here is an update on the other peeps of Factor e Farm. In a few days, Sean and I will begin full fabrication documentation video on the next copy of The Liberator open source CEB press, where the funding basket for it is filling as we speak.
Things have been spectacular with William so far. We have basically managed to scale our progress twofold. Since he’s been here, we’ve seen full product release of the open source CEB press, The Liberator, and we’ve had significant progress on the open source tractor, LifeTrac Prototype II. We also deployed the first prototype of the heavy duty, open source drill press,which we’re now using as part of our fabrication infrastructure. We just reported on Prototype I of the 150 ton hole puncher . We look forward to using these tools towards optimizing production runs of The Liberator. We also got the first working prototype of Hexahatch, the automated chicken incubator, in operation. Four pips hatched as of now, and we have 70 eggs in there at present. We also deployed Prototype I of a honey extractor. Plus, Sean is on-site for the summer gathering documentary material, and his LifeTrac II update is choice. Also, if you haven’t seen our Economy in a Box presentation, check it out for some of the most recent thoughts. People are beginning to talk about us in mainstream books.
This leaves us in a good position to start construction of Solar Village 2010. Design work is occurring in the background. We need to build another CEB press, since we sold our first one.We have had a number of apparently serious inquiries, but so far, no money has crossed the table. We suspect that people want to see real product come out of the machine – ie, houses. Maureen still has not used her machine, and we’ve been busy in the developments of the above paragraph. Plus, we still need to finish LifeTrac Prototype II, build Power Cube Prototype II, and build the Soil Pulverizer Prototype II – all in preparation for building, which we were hoping would begin on August 15. We just burned $3800 to procure LifeTrac II parts, and we’re out of cash. We’d like to announce here that we are returning to the crowd-based funding baskets – with which we had decent success in our previous session of village-building adventures. Now this is Take Two on CEB construction, where Take One was a great learning experience. Now we’ve got Will with experience in brick laying, we’ve got mature technology on the CEB press, and Prototype II is forthcoming on both the Soil Pulverizer and LifeTrac. (more…)
Our infrastructure for flexible fabrication along the lines of the Open Source Fab Lab, RepLab, is evolving nicely. We reported recently on Prototype I the heavy duty, open source, drill press, and here we are reporting on Prototype I deployment of our 150 ton hole puncher. Both of these are critical to fabrication ergonomics optimization for resilient communities in general, and, in particular – for Factor e Farm’s present fabrication of The Liberator open source CEB press and the LifeTrac open source tractor. For comparison, see earlier notes about our off-grid flex fab facility in a blog post from 2 years ago.
Here is a video on the hole puncher, with explanations.
The implementation required a high level of attention to the extreme heavy build and die positioning precision requirements – much more than anything we’ve done with the open source tractor, automated CEB press, or other devices. This is our first device that required at least some consideration of structural engineering – beyond brute-force overbuild. The local fab shop helped on the design. You can download the dxf design file at our design repository.
While there are many open source licenses available, we feel that none of them address a practical and tactical approach towards creating a post-scarcity civilization – in mindset and in practice. Therefore, we are publishing v1.0 of the OSE License for Post Scarcity Economics. The license is intended to define the general intent behind our work, and it is intended to make our logic transparent – especially to those new to open source culture. We also feel that the possibility of the open source economy is greatly under-appreciated and therefore, its impact is still in its infancy. While open source culture is well-understood in the software community, most people are not aware of the possibilities with respect to physical products and infrastructures. This may soon change, with progressive writings such as those of Juliet Schor’s Plenitude. Our license is intended to promote the transition towards an open source civilization, with the open business models that we are beginning to demonstrate as the substance behind such a transition. Comments and discussion on the license are welcome.
Introduction, Philosophy, and the OSE License for Post Scarcity Economics
Completion of The Liberator Beta v2.0 marks the first Full Product Release of Open Source Ecology (OSE). Herein we clarify our intentions and strategic issues behind this product, and future releases, such that any user or beneficiary of OSE’s work, as well as any third parties, may understand our work and intent more completely. (more…)
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.
LifeTrac, our open source tractor, features extreme flexibility by design. We just used LifeTrac as a honey extractor. We mounted our universal rotor on the front-end loader, and used it to extract honey from comb. The process starts with a hot knife to open up the comb. We made the hot knife from a heat shrink heat gun coupled to a tube with a sharpened blade of 1/8″ steel welded to the tube, and the hole of the tube was reduced by welding on a bolt washer. The blade gets hot and cuts the comb relatively well, though this is not as user-friendly as a standard electric knife because your hands get too messy with honey all over, so the heat gun risks getting flooded with honey. We request help with the open-sourcing of a hot knife if anyone has explicit ideas on how to make one. While a fed dollars in parts, hot knives run for $90 at the store.
The honey extraction process involves centrifuging combs of honey, which are opened with a hot knife as above. See our operation in action:
Here is a short video where Juliet Schor – author and Professor of Sociology at Boston College - discusses her new book, Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Factor e Farm is included for about one minute, as an example of the concepts that she is discussing. We are just posting about 3 minutes of her talk, for context regarding her comments about us:
We posted the full video in a former post. We note for our readers that – while Professor Schor states that we are a resilient community – (more…)
Here is a video produced by Sean, on the agriculture overview of Factor e Farm:
The bottom line is that resilience in food is not difficult to come by, but it presently requires more energy than we have with 2 full time people – engaged fully in open source equipment development. We are prioritizing technical development, such that appropriate-technology mechanized agriculture makes food provision effective. Our next priorities in terms of the type of generalists we’d like to have at Factor e Farm is 2 more flexible fabricators and the open source agroecologist. The flexible fabricators should generalize in power electronics and CNC controls, and the agroecologics should generalize in agricultural and processing equipment development.
We are farmer scientists - working to develop a world class research center for decentralization technologies using open source permaculture and technology to work together for providing basic needs and self replicating the entire operation at the cost of scrap metal. We seek societal transformation through interconnected self-sufficient villages and homes. This is a stepping stone to transcending survival and evolving to freedom. Factor e Farm is the land-based facility where we put this theory, Open Source Ecology, into practice. More
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We have proposed the scalable, Open Product Development Pipeline methodology over a year ago. It’s merely a formalization of an actual process, which we follow loosely, in the creation of open business models. The number of responses on the Pipeline post indicates clearly that we’re talking only to ourselves.
