We are currently in the phase of fabrication optimization for the high performance, open source, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) press. This is our route to financial bootstrapping of the research and development efforts. We are looking for people interested in Dedicated Project Visits on flexible fabrication.

Flexible fabrication is a blend of a generally-equipped workshop with the hands of a multi-skilled fabricator. Flexible fabrication in the digital age implies the assist of digital fabrication. To take full advantage of available modern technology, the skilled digital craftsperson has to gain proficiency in the entire process chain from open source design and collaboration, CAD, build, electronics, programming, and other skills as needed.

From the standpoint of resilient communities and the neosubsistence lifestyle, the technology is not the end-all but merely a step to sustainable living. If one is to produce the material foundation for living, working, energy production, and other necessities of a modern lifestyle – without engaging in various forms of global foul play – then one’s immediate living community should include flexible fabrication skill. Many people may question why we should forego our reliance on centralized systems to engage in radical autonomy – but the answer is clear. Modern technology allows us to do so, so there is no necessity to remain in the paleotechnic age of centralized production – unless we are all psychopaths.

Subscribe to support this vision as we begin to bootstrap on our own.

Our present core strategy involves the contemporaneous efforts of:

• Financial bootstrapping with CEB press production
• Deploying the CEB press, as well as LifeTrac prototype II and supporting equipment, in construction
• Making further developments on the technology base to guarantee effective construction capacity
• Bringing new technologies to product release

If we did exceptionally well this year, we would have comfortable, year round accommodations for 4 people at the least, the induction furnace in operation to make our own metal parts, and haying equipment and agricultural combine open-sourced and ready for action to complete our goal of 100% localized food production. Add the sawmill and pellet-biomass fueled steam engine – and that essentially covers autonomy in food, energy, fuel, housing, and basic fabrication.

Regarding the Dedicated Project Visits (DPVs), we are looking for people who are interested in becoming flexible fabricators. We are looking especially for those people who are interested in building complete resilient communities in the future. In the present phase, we are looking for people with demonstrated fabrication and building skill, and we will train you to produce the CEB presses and ancillary electronics if you want to start an enterprise yourself. You would be expected to spend about ¼ time in training and ¾ time in other development work surrounding the greater context of resilient community creation. All the details are to be negotiated, so email us if you are interested.

What is the latest on the tactical approach to replicating the resilient community? We define a resilient community as that which is capable of autonomy on all physical needs, as a foundation for its members to pursue meaningful and fulfilling pursuits free from the need to hurt others. To do this, we believe that any resilient community replication is started most favorably with 4 people: an open source agroecologist, flexible fabricator, builder, and engineer. The open source agroecologist provides 100% year round food, including fruits and vegetables, grains, sprouts, root crops and nuts, and greens in winter, poultry and dairy, as the simplest manageable package. The agroecologist is supported by an equipment base produced by the digital fabricator, who has access to an induction furnace to make nails, screws, wire, cars and tractors. The construction person uses the equipment infrastructure to manage the building of structures and earthworks, including recycled glassworks for glazing, plus cement and rebar production. The engineer manages the energy production infrastructure, including pelletization for fueling modern steam engines and solar concentrator power for combined-heat-power systems.

The above sounds like it’s rather far out, but in reality, if one digital craftsperson had access to open source design, the entire equipment base could be produced in about 6 months of time. Then, feeding people with assist of mechanized technology – locally – is trivial. The mechanical infrastructure also allows rapid building with CEB and lumber, and there is no reason why cementitious material can not be baked from abundant limestone or why rebar can’t be produced with the furnace if needed. The engineer completes the package with fuel and energy production – with humble modern steam power – to provide the equivalent assist of hundreds of former slaves.

Drop these 4 people onto any parcel of land, even desert, and a mini paradise has a chance of unfolding. This core of 4 can then expand organically into a full community. For example, this Core Four can then manage the development of an entire 40 acre parcel – after successfully marketing to a number of prospective buyers – as an autonomous alternative to cookie-cutter housing developments. Or, the Core Four can build another kind of community – a post-scarcity research and development center like we’re working on now. We’re interested in both, plus many other applications of integrated living/working/neosubsistence lifestyles. The good part is that when the knowhow and equipment is open source, there are factors of 10 price reduction – so one can buy into an autonomous infrastructure for about $25k according to our results so far. We are getting additional data points on the feasibility as we speak, and we’re encouraged. This is the reality today, and that’s why we’re pursuing it so eagerly.

Codex Alimentarius and a host of other one world order snags of non-technological nature make most of the above ‘illegal’. These stand in the way of resilient community replication, but only if you believe in these fictions. The remedy is legal savvy on the part of the village builders – as one of the prerequisites for success.

We will be holding our annual Plant Propagation Workshop on March 20. See the documentation from last year’s workshop – blog post and announcement.

This year, our workshop will feature more raspberry propagation, plus grafting of apple, pear, peach, apricot, plum, and cherry. We will be using root stocks and scionwood from our nursery plantings. The workshop will take place at Factor e Farm from 1 to 4 PM on Saturday, March 20. We will start with a brief overview of the open source agroecology program that we’re pursuing, to set a context for our plant propagation efforts. The admission is free for True Fans, and $40 for others, and you may be able to take some plants home with you. We will also give a brief tour of our facilities. Email us or call to sign up or for more information, and if you are signing up, payment must be received by March 13. See other details from the announcement above.

Here we continue to document the fabrication ergonomics from where we left off on the Compressed Eearth Brick (CEB) press.

Transfer punch and drill holes for frame – 3 hours. Mount the arms – 1.5 hours. Build soil-loading drawer – 3 hours. Build hopper interface plate and hopper – 4 hours. Mount main cylinder – 2 hours, build hopper shaker – 1 hour. Install grate – 2 hours.  Mount shaker – 1 hour. That’s about all for the main parts of the CEB press, minus some details. Click on the images to enlarge. The metal cut list was shown here. Next come the automatic control electronics with the Arduino microcontroller and Hall effect sensors as described in this working paper.

OSE is teaming up with Gaia University to offer Ph.D. programs related to post-scarcity, resilient communities. As you may have read in a previous post, Gaia University is beginning its Ph.D. program offerings this year.

The OSE-Gaia program is geared at developing the rigorous theory and practice necessary to support the development of post-scarcity economics. The goal of the Ph.D. offerings is to set new ground in interdisiciplinary studies, by offering projects that combine academic rigor and hands-on experience. Factor e Farm is a working lab that can be used for this purpose.

Gaia University is not the only route for you to get involved if you are interested in charting new territory in applied studies. If you are considering post-graduate studies, and if you are savvy, you can arrange to define your own program even if you are at a traditional university. You would have to find a professor at that university willing to be your academic liaison, and you would have to convince your institution that your proposed undertaking merits an advanced degree. Details of these arrangements depend on the university – and if you are enterprising, you can definitely arrange a workable scenario. I don’t think schools typically advertise this option too much, but it certainly exists. I would have done that myself, if I were aware of the possibility.

Here are 5 Ph.D. program statements as immediate offerings – for those brave pioneers who want a real, interdisciplinary challenge. The topic areas are allied closely with the work of OSE, and Gaia University will be providing the organizational infrastructure and promotion of these programs to its prospective students.

1. Business Model for an Open Source, Resilient Community

This thesis aims to define a replicable economic model for a post-scarcity, resilient community. The context for this work is the creation of 40 acre, autonomous human settlements, as a ready alternative to unsustainble growth of ‘cookie-cutter’ developments. The basic community design should include autonomy in agriculture, energy, housing, fuel, and livelihood options. The foundation for this work is assessing ancient wisdom and modern technology – in order to arrive at a set of infrastructure tools and techniques sufficient for producing a high quality of life free of geopolitical compromise. The assumption is that this is feasible if one is able to use local resources  by means of advanced, small-scale production technology – as a foundation for the next phase in advanced civilization. This economic model involves clear specification of participants’ roles and accompanying economic analysis. The social contract must be consistent with participants’ desire for freedom and happiness – while addressing the needs of post-scarcity levels of on-site production via division of labor. This thesis should provide a rigorous analysis and development of the ongoing experiments with the Global Village Construction Set.  This work is interdisciplinary, and is based on applications of management, engineering, organizational theory, agroecology, industrial design, and psychology. If successful, the economic potential of this work is viral replication of such communities, and accompanying economic transformation of the human landscape.

2. Creating Advanced Civilization from Scrap Metal

This investigation builds upon the work of RepLab. Its goal is to define a business model for an integrated eco-industrial enterprise capable of producing all the tools of an open source Fab Lab. To achieve this, the program begins with induction furnace metal melting, followed by a vast array of hot metal processing, machining, and CNC operations. This machinery can then used to make just about anything – starting with the capacity to replicate the tool set as the initial proof-of-concept – included as part of this investigation. This thesis aims to define a business model and technical process whereby the entire set of flexible fabrication machinery can be produced starting with scrap metal, by bootstrapping itself to the production of increasingly complex tools. The student will design and build an integrated tool set, and determine the minimum possible size (square footage, capitalization cost) for such an operation. The chicken-and-egg dilemma inherent to such a project will be resolved by making choices based on practical considerations, while the eventual machine tool set will be capable of technological recursion to all necessary parts and components. As such, the promise of this work is promoting the closure of the industrial divide between the first and third worlds. This work will have access to the construction capacity, financing capacity, and existing RepLab experiments of Factor e Farm. The outcome of this thesis is a demonstrated, open source business model, including analysis of technical feasibility and economic viability. This thesis involves topics in business management, industrial design, automation, and engineering, and requires individuals with significant worshop experience or ability to learn hands-on skills rapidly.

3. Modern Steam Engines for Renewable Energy Applications

Steam power brought about the industrial revolution, and is currently responsible for 80% of global electricity production (steam turbines). For reasons of technological fate, diesel and gasoline internal combustion engines (ICEs) have displaced the piston steam engine about 100 years ago, and a modern (piston) steam engine has never been developed. While steam engines are about twice as inefficient as their ICE counterparts from the thermodynamic perspective, they are about twice as efficient as ICEs from the integrated systems perspective. This is due to their ability to burn any fuel, without need for distillation. In particular, a pelletized biomass-fueled steam engine is a potentially robust and economically significant route of choice towards a modern steam engine, with applications in the first and third worlds alike. This work aims to produce such a design, with careful selection of best design practices adjusted for ease of fabrication, modularity, scalability, and utilization of modern technology. Ample resources, including centuries of combined talent in the Steam Automobile Club of America, are available on the topic, and success of this task is the work of technological integration via a dedicated effort. This thesis aims to define not only the technology, but also a flexible production facility required to produce such engines – including flash steam generators, closed-loop water cycles, and pellet burners.  The end goal of this work is a replicable, open source business model for an enterprise that produces the above steam engines – with applications to stationary combined heat and power, motive power, and concentrator solar energy applications. In short, the goal is to introduce the modern steam engine. This work includes topics in engineering, business management, automation, and industrial design.

4. LifeTrac: Design and Fabrication of a Universal Utility Machine

This investigation builds upon the LifeTrac, open source, multipurpose tractor prototype. Initial results have shown promise of building a practical, low-cost, multipurpose tractor based on modular, flexible, and adaptable design. In particular, rapid interchangeability of power units, motors, and attachments, and other bolt-together parts has been shown. This indicates the practicality of building a life-size ‘Lego Set’ or ‘Erector Set’ for heavy equipment.  This thesis aims to explore this topic in further detail, culminating in the design, fabrication, and open business model for producing such tractors. The scope includes defining the necessary fabrication facility, and it includes production of various implements and add-ons. The economic significance of this undertaking is clear. This project links to the Modern Steam Engine work in that a modular steam power unit will be one of the LifeTrac power options. LifeTrac is also one of the key foundations for building resilient communities, especially when the transparent, open source design and design-for-disassembly (DfD) combine to an effective lifetime design, with minimal depreciation, operation, and maintenance costs. This thesis will involve opensourcing a comprehensive set of implements, ranging from construction, utility, and agriculture. Included in this set are the sawmill, CEB press (completed), well-drilling rig, stackability into a bulldozer function, haying equipment, and agricultural combine – just to name a few. Provisions for power generation using the LifeTrac infrastructure, as well as automated controls for repetitive tasks – will be addressed. Adaptability of the basic design to off-road vehicles and road vehicles will be covered, as will be the scalability of size based on stacking structural, power, and functional unit components. This investigation covers mechanical engineering, industrial design, and management topics.

5. Scalable, Open Source Product Development (OSPD) Pipeline

This investigation aims to define a rigorous procedure and organizational framework for open source product development. The scope is not only the technical development of a marketable product, but also the open source business model for its production. On top of this, the open business model should address capitalization assistance for reducing entry barriers to startups. This is consistent with the opensourcing of the entire essential economy – or  the ‘open everything’ movement. For purposes of OSE, this would be a fundamental tool for developing open source products and for funding such an effort. This process has been begun and has already been applied to the Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press, but scalability of the process is still lacking. To this end, a more formal procedure is required, and it needs to be managed by a dedicated developer. Once the technique is developed and demonstrated, it should be able to bootstrap itself financially, either by generating resources as part of the process, or by proceeds from product sales by collaborators. A particularly attractive result of a successful OSPD project would be the availability of product designs and open business models from a repository – available for the use of anybody – along the lines of fostering Jeffersonian democracy or post-scarcity economics. These developments have implications of closing the gap between the developing and developed worlds. The outcome of this investigation should be a concrete definition of a replicable, self-funding procedure for engaging open source economic development, including the testing of this method for developing 3 significant, open source products, in a period of 3 months, by the dedicated effort of one person. Students interested in this topic need a background in management, organizational development, or other generalist training.

The open source induction furnace project discussed previously is moving forward. We are currently evaluating bids, as you can see at the induction furnace project management site. This marks a point in our organizational history where we are beginning to outsource work, consistent with the proposed open source development pipeline process. Outsourcing is an industry standard for mainstream enterprise, but it can also be useful for scaling open source economic development. In particular, it appears that we found bidders fully capable of handling the project, including possibility of building the actual system. Read the bidding negotiations at the project management site for details.

In its limit, this type of outsourcing process can be an effective route towards open-sourcing the entire economy. All it takes is an organized and funded effort. The technical skill is available, but conversion of technology into open source form requires the nurturing hand of many technologically-literate generalists.

The concept for the OS induction furnace is:

The concept embodies a universal power source for induction melting and heating. The founding principle is scalable, modular design in the nature of the open source technology pattern language. Thus, you can use any power source, build a furnace of any size, and melt any metal of choice. The modularity allows you to understand the complex device, as functions are broken down into modules. Note that we’re considering the Arduino open source microcontroller in the concept, which would be an interesting addition to Arduino’s wide range of applications. Together, we can recast new civilization from scrap metal.

The wiki pages for the open source induction furnace project are here. Here is the latest communication from the bidding negotiations to illustrate the development process and the technical points being discussed.

Dear Smartknight,

More questions for you.

1. What melt rate in kg scrap steel/hour can we expect with a 20 kW system? 50 kW system? We need to decide and select the appropriate power level for the design.

2. Is the Arduino controller a workable option, from the practical perspective? Do we even need a microcontroller of some sort? I suggest using one with hopes that it can handle frequency and power selection, or any logic involved in melting.

3. Can the frequency be selected in such a system?

4. What is the approximate materials cost for building the 50 kW power module?

5. What is the approximate materials cost for building the coil with water cooling?

6. What is the approximate materials cost for building the furnace chamber (vessel, etc)?

7. How do you suggest controlling the power level for a given power source (assume a tractor-driven power generator like this – http://cgi.ebay.com/50KW-STC-3-Phase-12-Wire-generator-alternator_W0QQitemZ160357088416QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Generators?hash=item255606fca0 )

Please comment on the following suggested design. A picture is attached. The concept focuses on a modular design, such that it is easy to troubleshoot, fix, and modify. The concept focuses on the ability to insert additional power-handling modules (IGBT?) into the power module, as needed. This also means that one could insert additional power-handling module drivers, as needed.

Even though you will design a 20 or 50 kw system, the system should be designed with the above in mind – or that one can modify the power of the system readily by inserting additional power elements, if one wants to build a smaller or bigger system.

Here are some explicit details. Each intersection means that there is some kind of readily-disconnectable connector, such as screw-down terminals, USB plug, other standard plug, etc.

1. Control computer – use a laptop for running realtime or stored programs to the the controller. Suggested method of connection to Arduino is USB.
2. Control module – contains microcontroller and 3 key displays – current, voltage, and frequency. It also contains the drivers for the power-handling elements.
3. Power module – main feature is that it’s designed such that it can be adapted for higher power as discussed.
4. Power source – power generator, connect it with screw-down terminals.
5. Water connection – quick connect to water source

In summary, the concept is to design and build a universal power source for induction furnaces, consistent with OSE Specifications ( http://openfarmtech.org/index.php/OSE_Specifications ):

1. Frequency selection allows melting of different configurations and metals.
2. Plug-in induction coils allow the power source to be used in many different melt purposes and configurations, such as scrap melting or heat treatment for machining
3. Scalability in power allows the system to be used on many different scales, from desktop to industrial.
4. Computer control allows different heating logics to be applied.
5. The system is compatible with any power source.
6. If the parts are interchangeable, they are easy to maintain, fix, and modify.

These 6 conceptual points help to clarify the general direction of the project. Please let me know if you could do the above, how you suggest doing it, or what parts are impractical.

Sincerely,
Marcin

We’re now in production of the open source, Compressed Earth Block (CEB) press. Here we document the fabrication ergonomics for the first steps in the build. This is for those of you considering replication.

It took 11.5 hours to cut the steel for The Liberator Beta v2.0 CEB press according to this cut list. This involved punching some of the holes, shearing, and bending – care of the local fab shop.

It took me 2 hours to build the press foot:

It took 2 hours to build the grate. Here is the grate with spacers between rebar prior to welding:

So far, the total is 15.5 hours of fabrication. If we had a hole puncher, we could probably save ourselves 2 hours of outsourced labor. So here’s our design of the hole puncher, to be built – as part of an ironworker machine:

The dxf files are here, so you can download them and continue the design if you want to get involved. This is an invitation to collaboration, starting with the wiki. First part of the ironworker is a hole puncher, and second step is metal shears for up to 12 inch wide metal, 1″ thick. The shears could save us a few more hours of outsourced labor.

There are holes on the u-channel that don’t lend themselves to hole punching, so these will be drilled using the FeF Multimachine in-the-making.

Hey, look, I found two, scrap six cylinder, in-line, 300 cubic inch Ford engine blocks in the back of the pickup.

That will be the start of the next version of the Multimachine.

Cutting out the hopper took about an hour.

If we had RepTab, the open source torch table up and running already – we could cut the 1/8″ sheet in about 5 minutes at the rated cutting speed of our 60 amp plasma cutter. So here’s a case for spending 2 dedicated weeks to get RepTab shaken down into full running condition.

In the meantime, William has been learning MIG welding in preparation for his arrival in May. Here’s a video:

He is also learning QCad, so we’ll hit the ground running on design and build of a new civilization.

One perk of life at Factor e Farm is that you run into some really interesting people. Liora and Andrew Langford, co-founders of Gaia University and also True Fans, visited yesterday.

We covered lots of ground on collaboration between OSE and Gaia U. First, I should explain what Gaia University is about, because its uniqueness is not evident from the website.

Gaia University is an international school-without-walls with about 100 students. This means that education occurs not on a physical campus, but wherever the student chooses. There are mentors and the school is accredited. Gaia offers Bachelor’s and Master’s programs, and it is also introducing their Ph.D. program this year. Gaia has the capacity to provide credit for applied work and studies. There are other low-residency programs, such as Goddard College and Union Institute in the USA.

The unique features are threefold. First, the focus is on integrated education, and the approach is that of action learning. Andy’s initial design of the University was based on extending applications of permaculture to real societal change. Gaia is also a strong proponent of open source development.

Part of the integrated education program involves a feature that, to our knowledge, has no other precedent. This feature is that the students are explicitly instructed to spend the first part of their studies in designing their own direction. Other schools, if they offer an independent study major, require approval of the study program before it’s accepted. In the Gaia U. formula, the process of formulating your studies and problem statements is an integral part of your education. This allows you to take responsibility for a natural evolution of your eduction – consistent with the fact that most people don’t really have a clue about what they want to study until they begin to explore it deeply, and at that point, they make many mid-course corrections. This kind of approach is for those people interested in gaining a kind of responsibility that cannot be taught when your program is laid out by someone else for you.

The third point is also without precedent in any other institution of higher learning. This part is integrating process work of eliminating psychological blocks as part of the essential training program. This part is brilliant – as anyone who recognizes that we have both a conscious and subconscious mind knows that there are misconceptions, pains, and other garbage that prevents us from reaching our potential – and such blocks should be addressed and not carried until they turn to sickness. This clearing process is accomplished at Gaia University by Re-evaluation Counseling. From the rc.org website,

The theory assumes that everyone is born with tremendous intellectual potential, natural zest, and lovingness, but that these qualities have become blocked and obscured in adults as the result of accumulated distress experiences (fear, hurt, loss, pain, anger, embarrassment, etc.) which begin early in our lives.

This perspective is much aligned with the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bruce Lipton on the Biology of Perception, and the work of  Robert Williams on the Psychology of Change. These works represent clear thought leadership on how we can seize our true powers in personal and political transformation, and the Re-evaluation Counseling process appears to be in tune with these practices. Inserting some measures of insight about the workings of one’s mind – and especially its blocks and misperceptions – is critical to any effective education program. Otherwise, we continue to manifest inner pains as outward destruction, or we continue to replace broken institutions with new broken institutions. Gaia Universtity appears to be a leader on the front of addressing this issue.

Interestingly, Gaia University and OSE face similar issues on recruiting, organizational development,  fund raising, and other practical topics. Thus, the conversation was fruitful, and I have great hopes for major long-term collaboration. Whether it will be through setting up a Regional Organizing Group of Gaia U. at Factor e Farm, or setting up OSE’s proposed K Through Ph.D. Renaissance Freeholder’s Education for Evolution to Freedom as in this older draft – our goals are aligned towards creating powerful, integrated humans. We both know what it is like to be pioneers, and we also respect the fact that The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Thus, the bottom line is generating economic power from the ground up. The simple problem statement is to seize global domination – with love.

On the practical front, my task is to line up a few Ph.D. study program descriptions for essential research  to move OSE forward. Gaia University can then promote these topics as research material for its Ph.D. candidates. Off the top of my head, there is a dozen or so significant topics that deserve the caliber of Ph.D. research. This is my present task.

As for any of you who want to take on a different course to your education, Gaia University is a great option. The founders are great people, and their intent is right on the human empowerment game towards tranformation. So if you ever questioned the value of your education, you can rest assured that Gaia University provides you with an option to take charge of that process. You can get credit for your past work, and you can choose to do what you really like. In this respect, Gaia U. can’t be beat.

The PowerBook G4 Mac in the house finally quit working. We splurged $300 on a brand new laptop recently. We got a 3 year old Dell Latitude D820 from Craigslist. With 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo, and 1920×1200 screen resolution – that makes for an impressive system with Ubuntu 9.10 installed.

The install was straightforward. You just download Ubuntu 9.10, burn the download onto a single CD. You then install from the disk – in our case by pressing F12 to enter the boot menu and select boot from disk. You just follow instructions on the screen to get it going, and that’s all.

The laptop came with Windows Vista. I considered dual boot, but decided not to waste otherwise perfectly good disk space. So 45 minutes later Ubuntu was finished installing. Performance is rather amazing. Boot time is 35 seconds, shutdown takes 7 seconds, and applications start up pretty much instantaneously. It amazes me why so many people prefer Windows when you can run so much faster on the same computer by installing Linux. In this instance of Dell D820 with Vista compared to Ubuntu 9.10 – the boot time and startup time of programs was about 2x faster on Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu install was turnkey. Wireless worked right after I put in the ID for the wireless network. Skype installed without a glitch. So did QCad, and of course Blender. There was a trick to Kdenlive, the movie editor, which I hope is fixed by the next Ubuntu upgrade. There was the broken sound problem when viewing videos in the project monitor. To fix this, I un-installed Pulseaudio, simply by using Synaptic Package Manager. I also had to go into the Kdenlive settings and choose Alsa as the audio device and the restart Kdenlive. That fixed the problem. Sound works now, and I have not had Kdenlive crash once yet.

Kdenlive in itself is impressive. Inserting video into it is instantaneous. Back on the Mac, it would take an hour or more just to insert video clips into iMovie to begin editing. Rendering is also impressive – about a minute of time for every minute of video produced, as opposed to 5-10 times slower than this on the Mac.

The sound is a little bit of a problem now that Pulseaudio was unistalled in Ubuntu 9.10. Now sound in Movie Player – a sound and video player – disappeared on me. So when I need to play videos, I just use Kdenlive to view them. This works well. I now use Rhythmbox Audio Player for audio.

For those of you who don’t know about Linux, there’s the powerful command line terminal – where you can start applications, manipulate the system, even surf the web in text mode – and do much more than you can do in the GUI. The fact that you can type in commands at the command line sounded geeky or unimpressive to me, until I tried it and found out for myself how useful it could really be. There are certainly situations where you want to go through the command line instead of the graphical user interface.

All in all, I am very pleased with the clean look and speedy performance of Ubuntu 9.10 on the Dell D820. Linux has come a long way, and now looks totally professional, especially on a high resolution screen. It certainly feels like I’m using serious computing power, and the fact that it’s open source, free, and so adaptable – is just inspiring. Thanks to the leagues of open source developers out there who created an amazing system, which in my opinion is clearly superior to Windows on the basis of speed, flexibility, and cost. I’d like to hear from others if they also have similar opinions on the speed issues – and if so – why isn’t everyone switching to Linux on the basis of that metric alone.

This winter, we had 1-2 feet of snow, and the cover  lasted for about a month. This was harsh on the orchard – because an army of rabbits thus had a 1-2 foot pedestal and could reach above the existing tree guards. There was significant damage, but the trees will grow back – from below the damage at the very worst. Here is an example, which I covered with chicken wire after the damage was done already:

The rabbits, which for some reason exploded in population this year and kept the crockpots busy – were not the only issue. Subterranean creatures exploded, too. Look at these tracks, which to my guess, are voles or moles:

How could this happen if the ground is supposedly frozen during this colder-than-normal winter? The snow cover made for perfect habitat, by insulating the ground from the -20F temperatures this winter. This is not pleasant, because these critters have killed a few trees, maybe 5% of the orchard of 400 trees. Here is an apple tree that I pulled out after I noticed it was no longer anchored:

One doesn’t even see that the tree is dead – it it literally eaten underground, and pulls right out of the soil. The damage in this case was totally underground, and you notice only when you touch the tree. The description of vole damage described here matches what we see in our orchard.

Some trees were eaten by voles above ground, those which were too branched and difficult to protect effectively with covers:

This picture shows why you need to go 6″ or so below ground with metal mesh if you want good protection from voles. This one is eaten right under where the 1/4″ mesh ends:

One thing I learned – there’s a reason why people keep a close mow on their orchards and lawns. I thought most people go through painstaking care of their lawns just because they are insecure, but this vole episode showed me other reasons. It’s time to get the brushhog mounted on LifeTrac and do some major cleaning.

All in all, I estimate we will lose about 5% of the orchard to this damage, while the rest will grow back. Most of this damage happened on apple trees, as opposed to many of the other fruit we have. The rabbit issue has been stabilized, but the voles are still a danger.  I am still seeing new vole activity. I guess the best solution is clear ground – for various predators like cats, dogs, hawks, owls, coyotes, snakes and shrews. By the way, coyotes rarely visited FeF this year, while last year they were visiting and howling almost nightly. This is the first time we’ve had significant rodent damage to the orchard in our 3 years here.

If anyone in the audience knows about an effective vole solution, we would appreciate any insight.

To end this on a good note, the lemon tree – rooted in water from a cutting this year -  is doing very well indoors. We got it from our postmaster:

We are now officially using Open+Pario as our project management and design repository for Open Source Ecology. The most active project at present is the CEB press, and we are beginning project management of the Open Source Induction Furnace. Anybody can view any of the projects – including design files, technical discussions, etc. The content is entirely transparent and open to the greater community.

If you want to get involved in any of the projects,  you can  sign up  as a Project Member by registering and joining  a given project. This allows you to post comments on any of the content, start discussions in existing forums, and begin tasks (New Issue tab). Note that if you join one of the projects of OSE, you are not automatically joining other projects.

The next level of participation is a Project Developer. The requirement for Project Developer is regular, ongoing, and substantial participation in technical development of OSE projects, whether in technology or organizational issues. This means that the Developer has some form of  a track record with the project. Project Developers are additionally allowed to start Forums and to commit Files and to add News.

The highest level of participation is Project Manager, who sets project permissions, commits Documents and Files, and starts Forums. We are looking for a project manager for each of the 40 technologies of the Global Village Construction Set, plus a number of others in support tasks such as organizational development, resource development, land stewardship, physical site design, public relations, architecture, civil engineering, marketing, visualization and modeling, ICT support, library development, rapid learning material development, documentation, documentary production, and others. It takes a village to build a village.

So if you want to get involved, first join as a Member, and then let us know if you are interested in moving up to Project Manager. Right now, we have only one project manager, so we have yet a long way to go towards nurturing the project on its way completely.

We are taking a solid step towards scaling the project. Combined with initial outsourcing of design work on the Induction Furnace, we’re moving slowly but surely towards the scalabe, open source economic development method.

By the way, one of our collaborators, the CubeSpawn project for developing an open source universal constructor system – is also at Open+Pario. James Jones, project leader, invites you to vote for CubeSpawn at the Pepsi grant program.  If it makes it into the top ten it’ll receive $25,000 in funding. Kindly vote for the project, but more importantly, invite others to do the same. James also has the project up at the Kickstarter funding effort, and is seeking crowd funding just like we are. Support him.

Kevin Carson, Research Asociate at the Center for a Stateless Society, just published a book called The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low Overhead Manifesto. This is a progressive review of industrial history, culminating in the present option of post-scarcity economics. Open Source Ecology is featured as one of the Case Studies in the Coordination of Networked Fabrication and Open Design in the Appendix of Chapter 5. If you are interested in a comprehensive overview and of the technological ecology that we’re pursuing at Factor e Farm, this is a worthwhile read. It’s an insightful and quite accurate third-party analysis of our work, and the chapter provides a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between access to cheap, modern tools and collaborative design repositories – and how these combine for radical democratization of industry. Thumbs up for this important work. It is one of the cultural creative writings of the times, aimed at breaking through society’s limited consciousness on technology and  production as a means of evolving to freedom. Read more about it on Kevin’s blog.

I’d also like to bring up a seminal book on the psychological basis of  anthropogenic, societal ills suffered in the world today - Political Ponerology: a Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes, by Andrew Lobaczewski.

This book is noteworthy in that it documents the scientific studies conducted by the author and many others in the aftermath of WWII during the Stalinist regime in Poland – on the nature of the evil and terror that has just left its mark on history in the tragedies of WWII.  The book is important because the underlying dynamics are not specific to WWII, but are general human features that need to be understood because of their profound, often undetected, effects on society. The author produced hard evidence regarding the nature of this evil. His conclusions on the underlying psychosis are sobering. This book is not for the fainthearted, but it is an honest analysis on the self-selection and rise to power of forces in society that lack a critical component – a working conscience. This author is also absolutely optimistic – in that he provides clues of how society could develop immunity to the macrosocial phenomena addressed.  Thus, it is also a survival guide for those daring to question the world. As stated in the preface, “…this book is the most important book you will ever read. Unless, of course, you are a psychopath.”

Next in line is Kymatica, a full length movie on  evolving to freedom, the human spirit, the heart, and individual responsibility in shaping the world around us.  These are challenging topics even for most people today – because as Carl Jung proposed,

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.

The movie includes a synthesis of all that is known about human evolution to date, from the beginning of time to modern genetics. If you think you know all you need to know about this, this film will likely throw in some twists – twists proven even in mainstream science. This movie is noteworthy in that it also tries to address the nature of macrosocial phenomena – just like Lobaczewski – but from the perspective of human evolution.  This movie is quite comprehensive in terms of societal topics covered. It is also fast-paced, and it provides critical background for any student of the system or lover of freedom.

PS. Note that Lobaczewski’s work builds a  message slightly in contrast to the ‘we are all in this together because we could be good or evil’ portrayed in Kymatica – as his medical studies show the cases of psychopathy in the most notorious of world leaders.

William Cleaver will be joining us at Factor e Farm on May 1 for a Dedicated Project Visit. He’s coming from across the big pond – from the United Kingdom – and we are planning for a 3 month stay.

William is not a novice to creative dexterity – he’s involved in repair and demolition of industrial chimney stacks and natural draught cooling towers – at heights. See for yourself:

He has experience with various tools, welding brickwork, ropework, woodwork, and general shop.  He’s traveled the world, studied Romance languages, taught English in Chile, and is certified to teach high ropes courses. He is now showing great interest in the deeper message of post-scarcity, resilient community creation.

We discussed the following tentative plan, with both of us working in the shop and as needed:

May – Work on finishing or building Sawmill/LifeTrac II/MicroTrac II/ anciliary implements for construction – all in preparation for building.

June – begin building autonomous, zero energy housing with solar space. Experiment with CEB floors, CEB masonry stove and chimney, stabilized bricks, stabilized reject lime bricks, stabilized brick walkway and driveway, stabilized retaining walls, and others. We plan on winter food garden and sprouting in the solar space. If progress on the steam engine goes well, we’ll aim to install combined heat and power on the masonry stove.

July – continue building until comfortable accommodations for the winter are ready for several people.

We’re looking at building zero energy homes that look tentatively like this:

(Credits: Aigars Bruvelis in Blender)

Here is a CEB floor example from Abe at Vela Creations:

See more of his photos here.

Other than this, William is learning Kdenlive on Linux for movie editing, as well as and QCad for CAD work. These are staple tools now at Factor e Farm. William will begin preparing some of the technical drawings for the sawmill, so we can collaborate on making that happen over distance until his arrival.

We do want to consider bringing in additional help from the CEB general contractor, Floyd (see last blog post). We will consider hosting a CEB workshop if progress is good. If the CEB fabrication is going well – there could be resources generated to really get things moving forward, and continue to build more structures. I think now is the beginning of really settling into the land – and getting the place to look half-way presentable. We’re open to all kinds of ideas, such as the proposed CEB vault construction and others – but we’d need other people to get involved to push those projects forward. Otherwise, we’re sticking to basics and all types of experiments in the process.

It turns out that there’s a CEB contractor by Lathrop, Missouri – which is  within 30 miles from us. Meet Floyd Hagerman, who has built a couple of very interesting CEB houses. The first one shown here is a hybrid – or a combination of CEB and standard construction. It has a Trombe wall – meaning a South-facing CEB wall, painted black, and glazed over. The wall serves as a thermal collector – and its performance is impressive. Last winter, before anyone moved in, the house remained above 40 degrees Fahrenheit all winter – Zone 5 continental climate – with no supplemental heating! Here’s a look.

Here is an example of DIY concrete blocks that Floyd pressed with his machine, by adding about 2% cement. Floyd used reject lime from the quarry, mixed in the stabilizer – and made an external retaining wall:

This was only 3 shovels of cement for over 1000 pounds of reject lime. So we are seeing the feasibility of stabilized blocks for outside use, especially if we add more stabilizer. Sealing the surface with stone sealer or similar cover would finish the job for complete stabilization from the elements.

With LifeTrac, we could throw a bag of cement in front of the soil pulverizer as we work the soil (80 lb for a 1000 lb load of soil, for 8% stabilization), and we would mix and load the soil in one step – ready to be used in The Liberator. We plan on using stabilized brick for walkways, base courses in buildings, and we are considering the possibility for building a driveway paved with brick.

Here is Floyd’s machine – a Powell and Sons version at $15k for up to 6 brick per minute pressing rates:

Here Floyd discusses the feasibility of building with CEB as a contractor – based on his experience. The big question is, does it work? How much would a CEB house end up costing? Here are some interesting insights:

On the open enterprise front, the field is rich for incubating a number of open source CEB entrepreneurs. Anybody out there considering CEB contracting?

Hats off to our collaborators from Poland for open-sourcing a manual, dual-block CEB press. It is in the pre-alpha v0.1 release stage.

Open Source MANUAL CEB PRESS beta I from Cohabitat Platform on Vimeo.

You can download the existing CAD files here. The files are in Polish, so they still need to be translated for the broader audience.

Meet your developers from the Co-Habitat Platform: Pawel Sroczynski and Remik Karbowiak. These guys are pretty good. They also developed a model open source, prefab, straw-bale house design, and they will be buildng it this year at a budget of $7k. I always thought that straw bale is too exotic in practice because of the huge labor requirements, but these guys are showing otherwise with OpenSTRAW:

Here is the building sequence. Click on the following images to enlarge:

Both the manual CEB press and the straw bale work are a major contribution to open source economic development – and to humanity. See their website for more information.  Congratulations to the Co-Habitat team. We’d like to add the manual CEB press to the Factor e Farm product line as soon as the machine is tested in the field, and we may end up building some straw bale here after all.

Here are the initial CAD drawings for the CEB press, The Liberator Beta v2.0. You can download these drawing interchange format (dxf) files at the Open+Pario project repository. You can view dxf files with QCad, AutoCAD, Lx-Viewer, or many other applications. Note that this is work in progress, and the drawings will be updated as time goes on. New files will appear at the repository as soon as they are available.

Currently, we are still working on getting our first order of The Liberator high performance, open source, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) press out the door. We are now upgrading the automatic controls.

We have published a technical paper on the automation problem statement. We are managing the project at the Open+Pario project management site, where you can download a copy of this paper under the Documents tab. The paper outlines the technical issues surrounding effective automation, based on our previous results. It provides the necessary background if you want to collaborate on the project or build upon it – in the name of open source development. Here is the abstract:

Abstract: There are several considerations for the successful implementation of automatic controls on The Liberator*, the world’s first, high performance, open source, Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) press. Considerations include: (1), brick production work flow design; (2), simplicity of control logic; (3), brick thickness adjustability and uniformity; (4), modular, lifetime design; (5), performance optimization; (6), cost, (7), interchangeability of hydraulic power units1; (8) open source standards; and (9), simple user interface. This technical paper documents these issues for the development team and the greater community as part of the open source process. The greater context for this work is promoting the creation of post-scarcity, resilient communities. This paper promotes the greater context by contributing to the solution of one of the most basic needs of humanity – housing – under the assumption that earth construction is the most robust and most widely-used method of housing worldwide2. Revisions of this work are found at Open+Pario3.

1The Liberator is designed to be powered by any external, hydraulic power source, such as Power Cube* or another tractor or skid loader*. This is part of the modular design strategy of OSE and the Global Village Construction Set* (GVCS).

2See Earth Construction*. Regarding the extent of use of earth construction, the industrialized world is presently lagging behind the developing world.

*Footnotes labeled with an asterisk (*) refer to pages on the OSE wiki (http://openfarmtech.org/index.php/) with the corresponding title. For example, this particular link for The Liberator is http://openfarmtech.org/index.php/The_Liberator. Subsequent words marked with an asterisk are documented at a wiki page with the corresponding name.

3http://openpario.mime.oregonstate.edu:3000/documents/100

RepTab, our open source torch table – was featured in the January edition of MAKE Zine. Read the full article online at MAKE. You can follow the history of this development in former blog posts.

You may have read the proposition of turning the LifeTrac tractor auger to a lathe in this post. Here are the initial results of putting together an open source lathe, plus drill and mill combination.

The bill of materials is:

Total – $800 for lathe, mill, and drill function – for 20 horsepower, and 5000 inch-pounds of torque, driven by Power Cube. See lathe build for other details. The total weight of the assembly is about 600 lb.

We start with a 5000 inch-pound hydraulic motor from the LifeTrac infrastructure, and connect it to a 12 inch chuck. We then add an xy table and a toolpost, and that constitutes a lathe. The entire assembly is mounted on our new 1/2″ thick steel welding table, supported by compressed earth blocks (CEBs). This is what you get:

Add another xy table on top of the first one, and you have x, y, and z motion. This suffices to turn the lathe into a milling machine.

If you use a milling-drilling vise, you can drill holes. If you use the lathe with a drill bit, to function as a heavy duty drill press.

Indeed, we are able to drill 1″ holes, without any predrilling! That’s encouraging. This is done by moving the workpiece into the drill bit. Here are the cuttings from 1/2″ and 1″ holes.

Here is a video of the drilling and lathing. We’re drilling 1″ plate with a 1″ drill bit. In the lathe test, you can hear what chatter sounds like at the end of the video, as the welding table starts to vibrate.

Overall, we have major success on the drilling function. Plus, we have major success in achieving uncontrollable chatter in the lathe function.

We have not done any milling yet for lack of mill bits and bit holders.

It turns out that the 1/2 inch welding table – the base for attaching the setup with 1″ bolts – starts to vibrate readily under lathing operations. This is absolutely insufficient for any kind of performance outside of drilling operations. This can be addressed readily by using the Multimachine strategy. Therefore, the next step is using gutted engine blocks for mass and accuracy. Welcome back to the Multimachine. I called up an engine shop, and they sell scrap engine blocks for $30 – so this is considerably cheaper than any other option of adding stiffness to our machine.

There are significant learnings relevant to post-scarcity community creation:

• 1. LifeTrac infrastructure can be adapted readily to machining. In particular, we used the LifeTrac auger motor, which is typically used for post-hole augering. We used the Power Cube power source. This brings the price down drastically for the multimachine functions.
• The available power of 20 hp and 5000 inch pounds of torque is more than sufficient for most heavy duty, industrial applications. It is obtained at zero additional infrastructure cost by piggybacking on existing infrastructure of LifeTrac.
• No skill outside of basic custom fabrication is required to put together a heavy-duty drill as demonstrated.
• Significantly more stiffness and accuracy is required for milling and drilling.
• The stiffness and accuracy can be obtained readily by using The Open Source Multimachine techniques.
• All together, we are observing the feasibility of a low-cost, unskilled-labor route of putting together high-performance, precision tooling. This assumes the availability of off-shelf components which embody the necessary precision (engine blocks, bushings, chuck, xy tables, quick-change toolpost, vise).
• The precision components can be made in-house in the future from scrap at the cost of one’s skill – assuming availability of casting, surface grinding, and other bootstrapping equipment.

In short, now we’ve proved to ourselves that extremely stiff mass is required for machining operations – on the order of thousands of pounds for handling multiple horsepower turning operations.  The heavy mass of engine blocks, as proposed by the Multimachine, is a cheap and effective way to go for the accuracy and precision.

We should explain why used engine blocks are reportedly such a desirable choice for making precision machines. The basic point is that engine blocks already embody a high level of precision. The surface of the engine block is absolutely flat down to fractions of 1/1000 inch, the cylinders are at a perfect 90 degree angle to the surface, and the bell housing (if it exists on the engine block) is at a perfect right angle to the surface as well. This means that you can use the cylinder holes for mounting rotors, and they will be at a perfect right angle to the surface. You can attach a second engine block to the first by mounting the bell housing of one engine block on the surface of a second engine block. This mean that there are ways to create perfect right angles and parallels by using engine blocks. This constitutes the ready and low-cost ability to obtain precision. The engine blocks already have the precision, and by using basic techniques, one can use that to the advantage of building high performance tools.

The only difficulty with the engine blocks is that they will have to be adapted to the particular use. This could be time-consuming, since it is not easy to get a steady or uniform supply of scrap engine blocks. This is not welcome news from the standpoint of open source replicability, but we’ll have to bite the bullet on this one for now. I have talked to the lead developer of the Multimachine over a year ago, asking how many different Multimachines have been replicated after he built and published his concept. He told me that he was afraid to ask that of his audience, doubting that any have been made. The point is that time-consuming adaptation stands in the way of rapid replication. I think there are ways to go around that with engine blocks, and I suspect we’ll make significant contributions on this point.

What is the next step after or alternative to used engine blocks if one requires low-cost replicability? Yes, it is recursion down to starting from scratch by melting metal. This point needs further explanation, since it’s highly relevant to post-scarcity economies. The multimachine has brought us to a deeper discussion on metal. Metal is one of the keys to advanced civilization, and it is also critical to a post-scarcity civilization.

Open Source Machining and Implications for Creating a New Civilizaton from Scratch

It is unlikely that scrap engine blocks will be available for ever. At the very least, their supply is not consistent. Thus, we believe that a post-scarcity economy requires the ability to generate the capacity for precision machining from scratch.

This fits in to our general formula of recasting a new civilization from scrap metal. This builds upon the general notions on metalwork presented already in last year’s Factor e Live Distillation Part 6, Personal Fabrication. One year later, we’re reporting some details of what constitutes the ability to recast a new civilization at the cost of scrap matal. (To put this into perspective of open source ecotechnology, scrap metal is the interim step, prior to the ability to smelt rock into metal in a resource-based economy.)

First, why do we talk of metal here in particular? This is because metal is a critical component of advanced civilization. There are no alternatives known yet for producing engines and airplanes, or for transfering electricity from one point to another. Steel is critical for today’s agriculture – for tractors and combines. Steel is critical for today’s energy production – whether solar turbines, windmills, or coal-fired turbines, or generator engines. Steel is critical for transportation – from cars, trains, to tractors and trailers.

Metal is the foundation of modern civilization – so emphasis on absolute mastery of extracting, producing, using, and transforming, and recycling metal should be the foundation of any post-scarcity civilization-building program. We need to master metal in our work on the global village construction set. We need an integrated program for processing metal into useful form.

The general, comprehensive process of mastery over metal that we propose immediately consists of induction furnace-hot processing-surface grinding-machining and cutting-CNC operations. That’s it. We are not considering the smelting of metal from rocks because, strategically speaking, metal is to be remelted readily from existing supplies mined in junkyards.

If we can master these above processes – then we have the ability to build anything from scratch – including the precision Multimachine, without relying on industrial detritus engine blocks. If we master the above processes, we can not only make raw feedstock metal, but also all types of machines and devices from that metal – including the machine tools to build other machines. With the addition of automation, we have the capacity for self-replication of the products and toolchains.

Here is further explanation of the above metalworking processes.

The induction furnace is our preferred route to metal melting. It is efficient and clean, as it runs on electricity. We have also secured seed funding to opensource the process, for which we are currently soliciting bids. If we can succeed in building an open source induction furnace, than we have created a low-cost way to produce feedstock metal from abundant (s)crap. One can literally scour fencerows and junkyards, and create virgin metal – for building the substance of post-scarcity. Critical details needed to be acknowledged here include: (1), how to alloy metals; (2), how to purify metals if the scrap is corroded or unclean; (3) how to transport, shred or acquire shredded feedstock for the furnace; and others.

Hot processing includes hot rolling, casting, forging, surface treating, hardening, alloying, wire drawing, extruding, welding and others. From this point, we have usable wire, sheet, shape, bar, rod, ball, or other form necessary to build things. Regarding feasibility, we know that most of these processes occur on the scale of large factories. Consistent with the trends of technological miniaturization, we don’t see why the above processes can’t occur on the scale of small Factor e’s. In particular, take hot rolling, with powerful rollers powered by LifeTrac hydraulic motors. I could foresee that a 1000 square foot lab would be sufficient to rock and roll many useful metal profiles, like bars 1/2″ thick by 12″ wide.

Next, we have to put special emphasis on surface grinding. This is the critical link to precision machining. Surface grinding is the method of obtaining high precision surface finish on metal. Thus, we can make the perfect flat surface finishes and 90 degree surfaces by rotating the workpiece. This is the key to any precision device, xy table, machining table, machine motion system, etc. The flat surface is the foundation of any discussion on precision. In particular, we can cast a cube-like block – then finish it with a surface grinder – and we have the basis for building a precision Multimachine.

Next we have cutting and machining. This includes acetylene torch, plasma cutter, cold cutting, metal shearing, hole punching, milling, drilling, lathing, and others. With this we can turn metal stock into parts, engines, threaded parts, and precision motion parts like rack, threaded rod, or ball screw. If we add CNC to the above by using electronics, then we have the capacity to produce automation.

This is recasting civilization at the cost of scrap in a nutshell. Next in line for us at Factor e are the engine block-based Multimachine, CNC torch table finshing, CNC RepRap building, ironworker building, cold cut saw building, induction furnace opensourcing, and so froth. Jump in and help out.

This winter has been colder and more snowy than normal.

From post-scarcity communities, open business models, open source tractors, land stewardship, to starting some serious building this year – here’s the latest:

If you are liking what you heard in the video, don’t forget to subscribe to the True Fans to help make the work happen sooner rather than later.

Remember that we’re not there yet – the village still needs to be built. One year after initiating the True Fans campaign, we are at 60 subscribers, and you can read some of their comments here.

We used Kdenlive for the video edit above, which is the open source industry standard for video editing on Linux. I heard rumors that Kdenlive is better than iMovie on the Mac, and we’re migrating to Ubuntu Linux around here. This Kdenlive adventure was plagued with errors at every step, so here’s a transcript while we upgrade to the latest Ubuntu and Kdenlive:

Happy New Year, dear True Fans and all our supporters. What is the single most important highlight from 2009? The world’s first high performance, open source Compressed Earth Brick Press is now in production. Orders have already started, and we are currently working on streamlining production.

I think we’re just getting started here. Our immediate goal is a $10k/month budget. One route to that could be with CEB press production – 50 presses over the next year would do that.

This year we’ll be doing lots of building. We are currently modeling and designing the autonomous house prototypes for the village, and our goal is to build 4 CEB modules this year. We’ll be taking LifeTrac, the open source tractor to production, and we hope to do the first prototype of the combined heat power system based on pellet biomass, at the same time that we continue on the digital fabrication.

The visions of post scarcity communities are clarifying, and we’ll be putting together another proposal. This will turn to about a 100 page book, filled with essential post-scarcity substance. We’re including the technology work, community building, and land stewardhip. We’re also putting our land in a trust as a site of human heritage. I think we’ve got substance for generating significant support, plus the beginning of viral replication, and taking over the world – namely, with transition to post-scarcity, open source, resilient communities. Stay tuned, and evolve to freedom.