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Great news! We're 120% funded on the Open Building Institute Kickstarter, and have a couple days left. Support modular open source eco-housing and follow progress updates at http://kck.st/293ISTN.

Press Kit - http://bit.ly/2901chI

Kickstarter - http://kck.st/293ISTN

http://www.alastairparvin.com/

Thanks for sharing our first FB Live:) Can you be our Kickstarter evangelist? http://kck.st/293ISTN


Please send this to your favorate publication or news outlet that may be interested in OBI - "An open source group just launched a project to make affordable eco-housing widely accessible - http://openbuildinginstitute.org. Are you interested in covering this? The founder is available for interviews, and the press kit is here - http://bit.ly/2901chI."


We just launched a project to make affordable eco-housing widely accessible - http://openbuildinginstitute.org. Are you interested in covering this? We are open for interviews, and our press kit is here - http://bit.ly/2901chI. - Marcin



What if it were possible to purchase a 750 square foot expandable starter home that could be built from scratch in 5 days for under $25k in materials? No debt and your home can grow according to your needs!

And not just any home - but a beautiful and ecological home - made from local and recycled materials?


By using our unique compressed earth brick press, the walls in our micro-homes are one foot thick making the home robust and energy efficient by creating a high thermal mass which will save energy for the life of the home.

That's exactly what we are working on - a modular, open source, construction set for eco-housing. Our system allows you to download and design a house you can build yourself or hire a professional. To make this possibility an incredible reality please Support Open Building Institute today!


Hi Robert,

The idea for the Diehard package is that you have a choice of a large number of workshops over the next 2 years. These are experiential builds, lasting anywhere between 1-5 days. We will clump them back to back to make travel easier - selection a specific month where there are 2 or more weeks of back-to-back workshops. This is tentatively scheduled for June 2017, and similar for 2018.

The highlight of the workshops is OSE's Extreme Manufacturing process. This is a process that allows building a complex or heavy machine in a single day - by utilizing modular design and a large team of people. This team builds many modules in parallel and then assembles them rapidly into a completed product. It's a fun and productive experience, where people wow themselves with their new-found build skills. We are adamant about 1 day builds - as that allows for industrial productivity on a small scale - thus enabling an economically sustainable process. Most workshops are more than 1 day to allow for other learning to take place.

Some workshops, like the 3D printer, involve the possibility of taking a built machine home with you - in which case, the materials cost is extra. The Diehard package includes admission, and lunch and dinner are covered. We can pick people up from the airport, and offer camping on site at our facility - but otherwise people can get a motel/hotel 15 minutes away, which is not covered by the Diehard pledge. If people stay in the nearby town, we encourage carpooling together.

We have the schedule for these workshops so far (all in Maysville, MO, USA - unless otherwise noted)

1. 3D Printer Workshop - Sep 8-9 - in Belgium. 2 day build of a scalable 3D printer which will be convertible to a CNC torch table, laser cutter, and router.

2. CEB Press Build - late September. 2 day

3. Seed Home Build - Nov. 4-8, 2016.

4. Aquaponic Greenhouse Build - Nov. 11-15

5. 3D Printer Workshop - Berlin, Germany - Dec. 16

6. March 2017 - 600W Home Scale Wind Turbine build

7. June 2017 - Solar Power Cube, Power Cube, Gasifier, 360 Degree Backhoe, Tractor

8. August 2017 - Eco-Tractor Build

9. Sept. 2017 - Power Cube Production Run - where you can build a Power Cube to take with you

10. Fall 2017 - 2 more house builds and 2 more aquaponic greenhouse builds

11. Living Building Challenge home build - June 2018

Still unscheduled:

1. Hydronic pellet stove build 2. Thermoelectric generator build 3. Temperate Climate Biogas digester build 4. Bulldozer build 5. Continuous charcoal maker 6. Pelletizer 7. Soil mixer 8. Hammermill 9. Cement mixer 10. Continuous lime burner 11. Sawmill 12. 16 kW wind turbine 13. Open source power inverter 14. Micro Hydro pumped hydroelectric storage system 15. Solar hydrogen production 17. Trencher 18. CNC torch table 19. CNC router 20. CNC laser cutter 21. Oxyhydrogen cutting torch 22. PV system install 23. Water purification system build from roof/groundwater to potable


In summary, the machine builds include all those machines that will constitute the Open Source Materials Production Facility. Other machines are utilities that go into the Seed Home, as well as additional construction machines. There are also critical CNC manufacturing machines, which are used to produce building materials and other machines.

So in summary, there will be one big month each year where we clump many workshops together.

Did that answer your question?

Thanks, Marcin



Thanks so much for subscribing to the True Fans. One benefit is getting 25% discount to our upcoming workshops. Please tell me more about yourself. How did you find out about us, and what would you like to see come out of our work?

Marcin


Eric,

We're gaining major traction on the Kickstarter for the Open Building Institute - over 50% raised at about 1/3 of the way into the campaign.

Can you cover this on Off Grid World? What else would you need from me?

Marcin


Here's a few nice articles on us:

Opensource.com - https://opensource.com/life/16/7/getting-serious-about-open-source-homes

Wired UK - http://www.wired.co.uk/article/build-own-home-modular-house

Fast Co Design http://www.fastcodesign.com/3061426/build-a-25k-home-in-five-days-with-the-github-for-eco-housing

Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-pearce/building-your-own-home-fr_b_10737124.html

Shareable http://www.shareable.net/blog/open-source-toolkit-aims-to-make-home-building-cheap-easy-and-green

Treehugger http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/open-building-institute-offer-free-eco-building-toolkit.html



We just launched a project to make affordable eco-housing widely accessible - http://openbuildinginstitute.org. Please post this - I am available for interviews and questions.

Hello

First of all, thank you so much for all your support and advice with the launch of the Open Building Institute.

We have good news and not so good news.

The not so good news is that, one week into the kickstarter campaign, we were only able to raise 16% of the funding goal. Based on all the statistics available - and on feedback from our contact at kickstarter - this means that the odds of reaching the end goal are pretty low.

From the feedback we've been getting - as well as all the insights you shared with us - this is most likely due to a number of things:

- The scope of the campaign being too broad and our failure to package and communicate it in an effective way.

- An unclear/unappealing offering, both in terms of the rewards and the goals of the campaign

- Just bad timing (summer, holidays, etc.)

In light of this, we decided to halt the current kickstarter campaign, reformulate the offering, put more time and energy into prep, and try again in a few months (probably January).

The good news is that we learned a lot and are now in a much better position to move the project forward in the right direction.

So... this time we want to do all the due diligence - starting with asking you to please help us find and refine that focus we're missing. You know the project almost as well as we do and we truly value your insights.

We already have a new idea for what this focus could be and would love your feedback on it. But we're not too attached to this idea and would mostly like to hear what routes you think we should explore.

FMI: The critical statistic is this: https://www.facebook.com/Kickstarter/videos/10154382008294885/

36k views on July 4. And we were featured on the KS FRONT PAGE on July 5. And we picked up about 75 donors via kickstarter.

So from 1.4M viewers - 36k video views - conversion of about 0.2% if you base this on video views, or 1/10000 based on audience size of Kickstarter. This indicates that we need publicity on the level of a Wired article every single day, and still get about 1/2 the required donations per day.

The conversion is really low - it appears that no matter how much publicity we get, people are just not donating.

Lots of the people on the first day were our existing audience. Results were good. The critical factor is the conversion. It's just not adding up - people are confused about our message, just not buying it. For reference - we had 2 spikes in contributions last time in 2011: Tim O'Reilly tweeted, and we got $12k in one day. Then we got featured on Kickstarter, and we got $16k (that was when Kickstarter was much smaller). If Kickstarter is 10x larger today, we should have gotten $160k on that one single day.

When we got featured on Kickstarter righ now, we got $2k. Less than we made on the first day of the campaign. So once we reach normal people, they're not buying it.



We’re developing an open source eco-building toolkit to put the construction of ecological housing within the reach of everyone—by making it easier, cheaper, and faster.

With this toolkit anyone can:

  • Design a home or greenhouse—of any size—using a library of modules that fit together like building blocks
  • Learn how to build with instructionals and training programs
  • Organize the rapid-build of a house loaded with ecological features.

The OBI toolkit is entirely open source and free to use.

an open source effort to make affordable, ecological housing widely accessible.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/622508883/open-building-institute-eco-building-toolkit/

Day 1: We are developing an open source project to build replicable 700 square foot expandable Starter Homes - loaded with ecological features - that can be built in 5 days - for under $25k in materials.

Day 2: We are developing an open source house model that costs 1/10th of the average new home while supporting a long list of high tech ecological features. The idea is to be able to buy a small incremental home that is designed for expansion - as a viable alternative to either a too large McMansion or a too small microhouse. Please see News Release - http://bit.ly/2901chI

Daily Kickstarter Rhythm - https://www.google.com/search?q=daytime+graph+kickstarter&client=ubuntu&espv=2&biw=1246&bih=875&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOrZHbwc7NAhVD5WMKHdFNAxsQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=what+time+in+the+day+graph+kickstarter&imgrc=48I-X101VOPVSM%3A


Open Building Institute: Eco-Building Toolkit -- Kicktraq Mini


Ladies and Gentlemen -

Our new initiative, Open Building Institute - is officially live. It's an open source effort to make affordable, ecological housing widely accessible, by providing a toolkit for design and builds.

Press kit with pictures is here - http://bit.ly/2901chI

You can a support our Kickstarter here - http://kck.st/293ISTN


Please let me know any feedback on the campaign, such as the reward structure - and pass this on to your friends.

Thanks, Marcin


Dear True Fans,

Our new initiative, Open Building Institute - is officially live.

Press kit with pictures is here - http://bit.ly/2901chI

You can a support our Kickstarter here - http://kck.st/293ISTN

Please let me know any feedback - and pass this on to your friends.

Thanks, Marcin

Dear Backers,

We've come a long way since our Global Village Construction Set - and we are coming back to Kickstarter. We have just launched a new initiative - the Open Building Institute. It builds upon oue construction set machines - to make affordable eco-housing accessible to everyone. Please see our Kickstarter: http://kck.st/293ISTN and support us. The goal is to develop turnkey, affordable, 700 square foot starter homes - loaded with ecological features - that can be built in 5 days for under $25k in materials. We'd like to make this a viable option so that instead of buying a standard home with a mortgage, you can get a smaller home that can be expanded as needed - at 1/10th the cost.

Marcin