Open Source Ecology

The basic design rationale for MicroTrac hydraulic pump (and engine) size requirements is the ability to power the Liberator 2 CEB press to the extent that it can produce 6 bricks per minute. See calculations. This indicates 360 bricks per hour, or about 3000 bricks per 8 hour work day. Wow. This involves a 2 person team, one person running the LifeTrac hybrid Soil Pulverizer, and the second person stacking bricks. This improves upon the 500 brick per 8 hour shift sustained production rate that we ordealed last year, with a typical 2 person team. We still got the CEB workshop addition built – under the worst possible conditions. It was a worthwhile experiment in that we now have a spacious workshop environment – and with a planned sCEB floor and other improvements, we will not complain. It’s time to move on to the Solar Village. Now seeking collaborators for design assistance.

For a replicable, resilient community, it helps to have building material production capacity for producing required materials on the order of days, as opposed to weeks. If we take the CEB workshop addition as a particular case from our experience, it would take us 2 days – instead of 2 weeks – to press the required bricks, with machines eliminating human fatigue.

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How does one reinvent corporate R&D by using open source methods? We missed a couple of details in yesterday’s hairy diagram and explanation. Now it should all be clear:

Now a couple of words on the above. (more…)

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I posted the updated technology set in the last post, but how do we actually develop the Global Village Construction Set in a timely fashion? What is the elusive, scalable methodology for open product development? It’s obvious. It’s this;)

If you would really like to understand this very important but messy hairball, give yourself a half hour and read on. (more…)

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We organized a conference call for Friday, March 20, 10 AM GMT-5 (instead of 9 AM to accommodate West Coast USA), with Conference Dial-in Number: +1.218.339.3600 and Participant Access Code: 362126# . The conference can accommodate up to 96 people, and we hope to involve some of our European friends.

We will have the first serious discussion on global developer participation for the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). We have outlined the problem statement in the post on raising open development to a higher level, so please study that carefully before you join the call. The point is that we have a large number of technical development issues in the GVCS, and it is impossible to solve all these issues with a small team. We are proposing that the Open Source Design Rationale (OSDR), discussed in the mentioned post, could be an organizing point for a large number of developers. This is because a thorough OSDR leads directly to a design drawing, bill of materials and cost structure, fabrication procedure, and is the foundation for the review/bidding process, and leads directly to funding. One should be able to take a well-developed OSDR, the above derivatives, and convert that to a funding/support/deployment proposal. (more…)

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I  know I promised the True Fans group that I would work documenting Factor E in video (there will be some to come),  but I found more pressing needs on site- namely hygiene facilities.   Riding to the airport with Cat and Richard from U. Missouri Columbia and Lonny from Appropedia, Lonny helped me frame why hygiene is so fundamental.  He said that we cannot confuse that which is important from that which is fundamental; while physics may be fundamental, because you can’t have anything without atoms, he considers biology more important, because it explains the systems we live within.  While the vision of a new economy is the most important source of drive and energy at Factor E, hygiene and food are the fundamentals that sustain the project.

So most of my week was dedicated to making a shower.  I re-brazed and repaired an in-line heater that had been used in the Babington burner prototype, and added a thermal shut off so no one gets burned.  The shower is made entirely out of parts found at Factor E, plus a low flow shower with “soap up” valve to save water.  My design rationale for the shower was to create a comfortable and relaxed showering experience with only 10 gallons of water.  This is accomplished by fully enclosing the top of the shower to retain heat, and placing the shower in the greenhouse.  Trapping the heat and steam of the shower will keep  you comfortable even when the water is off, so that instead of a rushed, chore-like 5 minute shower,  you can take a relaxed 10 minute shower, using only 5 minutes of water.

I just barely had enough time to get the whole thing up before I had to leave, so I went to the airport dirty.  With messy hair and mud all over me I got an extra hassle going through security.  Stomping off the plane at my Denver transfer flight I left a little piece of Factor E, a 4″ medallion of caked mud and straw, ready to be ground permanently into the carpet.  It’s such a pleasure to bring the project to a wider audience.

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We have previously introduced an open collaborative product development process. Developing an effective open source product pipeline – as a worthy competitor to corporate research and development (R&D) – remains one of the hottest topics of the peer-to-peer economy. We know of no other comprehensive product development pipelines, with well-defined, applied methodology – outside of our own. That’s sad but true, and we welcome insight if we’re missing something here.

We have begun a process to get to world-class, open product R&D with the Global Village Construction Set – a set of infrastructure technologies for building the world’s first, replicable, off-grid, open source Global Village.

This process is in its infancy. The problem statement of reinventing the essence of civilization is not a light task. It’s a topic equivalent to hundreds of Ph.D. theses, combined with the hands-on work of thousands – nothing short of a social movement. It’s a social technology and process that massages existing technology into a more human-friendly form – also in harmony with natural life support systems. To us at Factor e Farm – developing an effective process for collaborative product development – is the most pressing issue that society faces today. That is because it is a tactical approach whereby people actually share. This concept has been discussed previously in scripture, pick your book. (more…)

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We’ve returned to the torch table after a long hiatus since the December 9 blog post
on the topic. CEB press digital fabrication is the goal. My goal is to spend noon to six PM every day until the thing is built. Here are some 3D pictures, which you can also see on the wiki torch table development page. The annotated description and the project log are on the wiki as well. 3D design is in open source Blender, by Jeremy. Comments on this are welcome. I’m sending this out for review now, and you can keep up with evolution at the wiki.

(more…)

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Today’s video is full of footage on all our building adventures – from earthbag, to cordwood, to compressed earth bricks – where you can see the progress of starting from bare land to making human habitat. This is cluster development – of course – which leaves minimum impact on the land.

This is a good video to pass around to your friends.

Help us build a village, so we can help you replicate it in whole or in part. Then watch all of us survive and thrive, with no compromise. To support this work, join the 1000 True Fans – 1000 Global Villages campaign – by committing to $10 per month for 24 months. Here is the PayPal subscription button, where you can use either PayPal, credit card, or bank account to commit to the subscription.

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As we have recently begun parallel development of several open source Global Village Construction Set technologies (CEB, Solar Turbine, LifeTrac, Sawmill, CNC XYZ table), it is useful to formalize the OSE product development process. It is called the OSE Open Engineering Cycle (OEC). Note that engineering refers not only to typical hardware with nuts-bolts-electronics, but also to the design of agroecology systems, as well as to civilization engineering. The focus is on modern infrastructures that promote human evolution to freedom and pursuit of happiness, and the foundation is ancient wisdom and proven techniques.

This is an initiative to generate high-quality, public interest research and development for products – as a route to a viable peer-to-peer economy based on distributive production. As centralism is cracking at the seams, we are busy producing a viable economic option that lives alongside the mainstream production system. Open engineering is based entirely on direct, widespread support by the people. Your chance to contribute is here. The open engineering method that we are using is described below. It is working quite well so far, and Wired Magazine just blogged about our work for the second time. (more…)

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Yesterday, LifeTrac rolled out of the shop under the power of its own engine. It purred like a cat, turning smoothly over the ground with its articulated steering. Brittany, Jessica, and I celebrated with elderberry champagne. Farm-fresh organic, of course.

That was a great moment for the Global Village Construction Set – as I am seeing each of the pieces come to life right under my eyes, getting us ever closer to an amazing, integrated ecology of living and working – fueled and fed by the sun, plants, and soil around us. (sorry, we’ll post some videos when our Canon SD750 digital camera arrives in a couple of days).

Theres’s more work to be done on LifeTrac – installing the loader and backhoe, building the rototiller/auger attachment, and mounting the CEB press as a tractor implement. With these pieces the infrastructure for building with the CEB will be complete.

I am completely delighted with LifeTrac because of its adaptability. Next year, we aim to build a flash steam engine for it – and power it by pyrolysis oil from our own trees. 100% local organic tractor power – how sweet indeed. With the CEB, and proposed swingblade sawmill, hay baler, agricultural combine (the top dog of all agricultural machinery), and well-drilling rig attachments – all open source – that will be one versatile, life-size erector set of appropriate modern technology. We hope that this will be no less than a significant contribution to the ecological evolution of humanity, similar to Gandhi’s vision of appropriate production as is also practiced by Tinytech Plants in India.

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