Tuesday, October 25, 2011

global village construction set




Marcin Jakubowski is living in the heartland of the United States and wants to help the world live better. To that end, he founded Open Source Ecology, a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters. Together, they have designed equipment that can be easily built on-site anywhere in the world, with the versatile pieces in a kit.
That's right: build you own tractor, using parts from a kit. Build your own brick press - to construct houses - with the pieces from that same kit. And the list of industrial machines goes on and on, to fifty total.
That's right: fifty machines to build a village, from one kit.
The Global Village Construction Set.
Much cheaper than having to buy something premade and then having it shipped.
Much easier means of turning subsistence into a livable life.
From bakery ovens and bulldozers to well-drilling rigs and wind turbines - the instructions will be available to all, as well as any pieces which cannot be easily manufactured.
I want to see Factor e Farm, the place where it all comes to life.
That's the funding level I chose.
The privilege of visiting the site in Missouri. The GVCS deluxe dvd with the instructions to build the Tractor, the Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) Press, the Power Cube, and the Soil Pulverizer. The punch-out magnet, formed by the fabrication of the CEB Press and Tractor. The video thank-you.
I want to truly be part of this worthy and needed endeavor.
Maybe they'll even let me help build something when I visit.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Update #3
Nov 4, 2011
Update #3: The Context

Dear Backers,

Thanks for your explosive support, we have reached our goal with 15 days left. There is also no sign of slowing down, pass this on to your friends:

I have been asked several times now regarding the greater context of the GVCS, in terms of the resources required to complete the 50 GVCS tools. I am now a Senior TED Fellow, and combined with my present application for the Shuttleworth Fellowship, I aim to propel this project to completion on schedule by year-end 2012. That is, with support of many caring people like yourselves, who continue to pour their energy into the project through all of its trials.

Thanks for your support, and today we aim to press 10,000 bricks. Gotta run.

Marcin

Anonymous said...

Update #6
Nov 22, 2011
Kickstarter Success

Dear Backers,

Thanks so much to all of you - we have major success in funding, with $63,574 collected of our $40k goal.

We are currently at over 15,000 bricks pressed for construction, with about 10,000 left to go as we fight the rainy weather. To get to the required numbers as soon as possible, we are setting up our second CEB press to double production, hoping that the soil is dry enough soon to provide the huge soil throughput that is necessary.

Floyd Hagerman is now our construction manager - see his report on mid-course correction to get a roof on first, before doing any CEB work underneath.

Today it's raining, so I have time for this brief update. I will write a more complete update in the next day or two. Thanks again - and we look forward to completion.

Marcin

Anonymous said...

Update #8
Dec 5, 2011
OSE Christmas Gift to the World

Dear Backers -

The Gift of OSE to the World in 2011 is the closure of the basic agriculture/construction prototyping cycle:

Beta release of CEB Press (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/CEB_Press), Tractor (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Tractor), Power Cube (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Power_Cube), and Soil Pulverizer (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Soil_Pulverizer)by December 24, 2011.
Complete documentation - 3D CAD, 2D fabrication drawings, exploded part diagrams; some CAM files for open source torch table (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Torch_table)
Demonstration of natural housing using CEB - see HabLab (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/HabLab)

See also the GVCS Rollout Plan (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/GVCS_Rollout_Plan)and Kickstarter and Civilization_Starter_Kit_DVD_v0.01 (http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_DVD_v0.01)

Thanks,

Marcin