Civilization Starter Kit DVD – Table of Contents

Dear collaborators – I am proud to announce the table of contents (ToC) of the Civilization Starter Kit DVD v0.01 – the 2011 Christmas Gift to the World from Open Source Ecology. This is the Civilization Starter Kit DVD that I mentioned first in my my TED Talk on the Global Village Construction Set. It will be published in its initial version (documenting 4 of the 50 machines) and locked down on the wiki by 8 PM GMT-6 on December 24, 2011. Ladies and gentlemen, on Dec. 24 – we will be 1% there. Burned DVDs will be made available for shipping the day after or as soon as possible, and will be shipped to respective Kickstarter supporters. The entire contents will be downloadable freely under the OSE License for Distributive Economics (to be updated and published), and we will also make copies available for sale as a fundraiser.

I’d like to express the intentions of publishing what is meant to become one of the most important publications of this decade – and I am inviting as many of you to participate in this creation as possible. We have 2 weeks left. We are calling out for the Factor e Farm Winter Farm-Out:  crowd sourcing assistance from all over the world on the numerous tasks left.

The core deliverable is the 4 core machines as described in the Kickstarter – plans, instructionals, and construction results. The Factor e Team is working on this – from CAD to builds to instructionals. We will provide as many supporting extras as possible – analyses, modeling, videos, econbomic analysis, enterprise models, house plans, additional prototype designs, and more – depending  upon the results of the Factor e Farm-Out.

The ToC shows the extent of the first DVD release – at least 1000 human hours of work still needed to be compiled the wealth of designs, instructionals, and techniques. We currently have 5 people on site at Factor e Farm working on it, with 3 additional people doing construction. This is an active call to recruit at least 6 more for the next 2 weeks. We rented a house in town to assist in this process, as our housing is still missing a roof. If you are in the Kansas City area, please come on down to help us lay brick for a day or more – we are doing so under the roof of the workshop – rain, snow, or shine. Interestingly – one can still lay brick in subzero weather – if you use antifreeze to bond bricks. Next week, it will be highs in the 40s, so it’s relatively comfortable.

The scope of the DVD is not only a report of the 4 machines in the construction part of the tool kit – tractor, CEB press, soil pulverizer, and Power Cube – but also to collate all prototype results to date. This is intended to be a comprehensive report of up-to-date results. This includes construction techniques and results.

To help, please review the ToC for perspective, or go straight to the priority Task List. This is a dynamic list that will be updated constantly until Dec. 24.  The task list shows status and further details. Please review the tasks, offer your assistance, or pass this on to capable friends. Please tweet and blog this. We have funding that will be allocated if we can not find qualified volunteers. The tasks are varied – from further prototyping, documentation, architecture,  video, graphics, technical writing, organizing, planning, engineering, analysis, calculations, simulations, diagrams, refactoring, publishing, editing – you name it.

The DVD will be as good as the generosity of all the contributors in this mini Apollo program for the GVCS. If you contribute, you will be one of the Civilization Starter Kit DVD authors, acknowledged in the credits. History unfolds.

Here are the top 11 tasks that we need help with. Contact me at opensourceecology at gmail dot com to help.

1. Mike Apostol is working on the full professional CAD of the 4 machines.  See status, and then check out the needs and requests. Approximately 100 hours of assemblies and parts need to be turned into technical drawings on the CEB and Pulverizer. There are more for the tractor and Power Cube. Contact Mike Apostol to take on some of these drawings – mike.apostol at gmail dot com
   1. CEB has 28 assembly/weldment drawings and about 75 piece part drawings
   2. Pulverizer – 5 assemblies/weldments and 30 piece parts
2. SnapLock CNC Circuit Mill – We have etched improved solenoid controller boards for the CEB press with hit-and-miss success. We want to build the CNC Circuit Mill to help us mill these reliably, where the circuit mill does both the paths and through-holes. The only proven and reliable open source CNC circuit mill that we know of is SnapLock. If you have built one or know someone that has – we are interested in visiting with that person for a dedicated visit where we prepare everything beforehand, and do a build-out in a weekend. This could be me traveling for a visit, or someone coming to Factor e Farm for a brief Dedicated Project Visit. Email me if you can help on this.
3. Lead Editor for DVD – compiling content, editing, managing contributors. Managing fabrication procedure writing.
4. DVD production – interface design and DVD burn
5. Indexing of YouTube videos on my channel. Remote video editing can be done – CEB Construction, CEB fabrication, Power Cube fabrication, tractor fabrication, solenoid driver fabrication, soil pulverizer fabrication, and others. Contact me if you can write a script from existing documentation.
6. Product Ecology model animation explaining entire set
7. Product Ecology model animation explaining construction part of tool set
8. Architectural drawings for workshop and living unit, and model 40 square meter microhouse
9. Embodied energy calculations of construction process
10. CAE analysis on critical components of the 4 machines
11. Product manual production for 4 machines. Techical writing. Includes repair and troubleshooting, disassembly videos.

This is a start – let’s get going.