Hi Jeremy,

Your project seems to bring all the aspects of Will's dreams into play and that is why I was so excited to hear about it from Steve Mann and learn of all the brilliant people you have gathered together creating applications for a sustainable village.

If you would be interested in building his dome idea, he would be more than happy to share all the aspects of it with you. He just wants it to be built and he wants to have an opportunity to build one for his own use one day and to have it available for communities to thrive and collaborate so they could have healthy food year round with perpetual harvesting.

Since junior high he's studied Hegel, Kant, Hume and Marx thoroughly and took their collaboration ideas to heart along with the great writers like Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyeveky, Diogenes, James Joyce, Steinbeck and Maxwell, Faraday, Newton and Tesla.

He fell upon this structure first in studying patterns like Penrose tiles and Fullers geodesic domes and the Eden Project (what a waste of a magnificent structure that is not growing food) along with Kenneth Snelson's tensegrity structures when he got into 3D geometric forms.

He is still experimenting with the collapsable struts and has a good idea for the hubs but all the ideas could still be experimented and perfected. What's really interesting to him about this structure is that you could literally use materials available at any Home Depot to create a mile wide structure that would be sound.

Will's goal is not to copyright the dome design and make money on it as much as I'd like him to, he'd just like to be able to build it and use it for growing food. It's just that the design lends itself to a community because the larger the size the more efficient it becomes. It's just the nature of the design.

Will is more interested in using the dome in a community greenhouse setting to study the chromatograph readings or whatever method of determining the nutritional values of each plant along with a method of using a interactive data base which he has started with a graphing calculator where classic recipes of ingredients could be used to create healthy and delicious daily meals for optimum health. He also wants to document the growing habits and needs of different plants and automate the systems with robotics and sensors.

It's most effective for a large space to meet the needs of a large community. The advantage of the design is that for a large space it has a higher resource and labor efficiency and strength to weight ratio than most greenhouses. It is a double layer continuous tension, continuous compression tensegrity structure which is an new innovation. The double layer allows for a wide variety of uses while still having a large area inside that is usable where most tensegrity structures don't.

The double layer could even be used for a dwelling where the structure could be built and covered with cement and then disassembled and taken to the next site to create another dome and a weave of rebar could be used in the cement to keep the cement from cracking with a layer of bentonite clay on the outside. In fact, the larger it is the more efficient it becomes.

72' across is about the smallest it should be for maximum efficiency where four people could manage the operations with automated heating, fertilization and irrigation systems and a cooling system if it was not taken apart in the summer. It could have collapsable struts for dismanteling or the covering could be taken off in the summer as long as it didn't rust. It would function on a smaller scale but it's efficiency increases as the size increases.

The structure could be made of a variety of materials from electrical conduit galvanized metal tubing and stainless steal or aluminum wire to bamboo or wood. Tefcel which could last the longest would be wonderful but UV treated polyetheline could be used and taken off in the summer or replaced every 6-8 years.He's more interested in building it and testing it and using it to see just how strong it is because he sees the potential because it uses geometric shapes that have been proven to be very strong. The tensegrity adds to the strength and the effective use of resources. I can't express it as he does but I was trained as an animator to teach complicated ideas and I feel I can at least begin the process and find like minded people who are intelligent enough to see the potential where he is more interested in thinking of more ways to make the construction more efficient and all the options and applications.

He's even invented building the lazer welding devices and electromagnetic devices to alter the metal to make manufacturing more efficient. Again, I'm not clarifying the terms well but he can share that with you all. I think I'm most interested in getting him hooked up with you since I don't have the space for the lab he wants to make to do all the construction and he's determined to build it one way or another. Since we don't have the money to do it all, he's designing all the equipment he'll need from scratch.

It would be very effective underground and covered with cement to create a secure space since it is not hampered by sheering force problem with most rectangular basements. He's designed it as having many cells underground for growing mushrooms as well as laminar flow hood or cabinet from scratch or with artificially lit greenhouses which he has calculated all the lighting and electrical needs and specification and a large dome on top as a restaurant culinary teaching center complete with elevators in the middle of each cell throughout. The vegetative cells have rotating circular pads with plants to mimic nature and patterns for efficient use of space.

The geometric patterns are quite beautiful and separate elements of the design are also nice as shade shelters where parts of the pattern are taken out to resemble petals falling to the ground to allow for a breeze to move through it for comfort in sitting under it. Hope Will can get together with you all,Sylvia

Will you be holding any workshops in the near future? I would like to visit. Sylvia

Dan,

Thanks for your help. It appears that publication allows one to show that they thought of the idea and keeps someone else from patenting the idea in the future. It also keeps you from patenting it in the future. Is that your understanding?

Sylvia