Open Source Ecology - Resilient Communities

[Pete Russell]

I came across Marcin recently via a talk given by Juliet Schor.

Below is his description of the work he and his cohorts have been doing.

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We are growing much more than food. We are growing ideas, and testing them with practice.

We've been making good progress on the Economy in a Box - the Resilient Community Construction Set - or replicable, open source, infrastructure tools for post-scarcity, resilient communities. Our work focuses on the integration of flexible fabrication with resilient communities. Subsilience is the result: the combination of resilience with modern day subsistence - a high quality of life free of compromise, which is feasible with modern technology. Our open source tractor, LifeTrac - is one example of the tools we develop.

Over the last 3 months, we have managed to scale our progress twofold. 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 . These are two additions to the open source, self-replicating Fab Lab, or RepLab. We also got the first working prototype of Hexahatch, the automated chicken incubator, in operation. 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. People are beginning to talk about us in mainstream books.

Please view this blog post if you haven't seen it already - for more details on the above. We have 2.5 people here now, so we're far from a division-of-labor resilient community of individuals specializing as generalists. We are certainly are looking for more people for Dedicated Project Visits and remote collaboration. You can see how additional people can contribute to rapid progress, so finding more people is a priority. Our two priorities are an designer/fabricator, and an agroecologist - see our simple concept of local food systems. If you would like to see this work increase pace, consider subscribing to the True Fans. We are 100% crowd-supported, and unlike other organizations - all of our resources go to generating results - as we're off-grid and our overhead is minimal.

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You can support Marcin by clicking on this link. I did. $10/month for people to be working on this sort of stuff? An absolute bargain.

How to Build a Post-Scarcity Village from Marcin Jakubowski on Vimeo.

[Pete Russell]

I wish!

[Denise]

This must be what is in the box!

[David T van der Leden]

real kiwi ingenuity great stuff

[James Samuel]

I love this open source style of sharing information, AND the clever re use of existing resources, such as this, which I read in the section on building an open source drill press...


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.