Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). As described by Open Source Ecology "the GVCS is an open technological platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 types of industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts". Groups in Oberlin,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

are developing blueprints, and building prototypes in order to test them on the ''Factor e Farm'' in rural

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. 3D-Print.com reports that OSE has been experimenting with

RepRap The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''lic ...

3-D printers 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

, as suggested by academics for

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...

History

Marcin Jakubowski Marcin Jakubowski founded Open Source Ecology (OSE) in 2003. Jakubowski is an advocate of open source hardware as a foundation for the open source economy - particularly distributed manufacturing, open source agriculture, and open source produ ...

founded the group in 2003. In the final year of his doctoral thesis at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, he felt that his work was too closed off from the world's problems, and he wanted to go a different way. After graduation, he devoted himself entirely to OSE. OSE made it to the world stage in 2011 when Jakubowski presented his Global Village Construction Set

TED Talk TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

. Soon, the GVCS won Make magazine's Green Project Contest. The Internet blogs Gizmodo and Grist produced detailed features on OSE. Jakubowski has since become a

Shuttleworth Foundation The Shuttleworth Foundation was established in January 2001 by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth as an experiment with the purpose of providing funding for people engaged in social change. While there have been various iterations of th ...

Fellow (2012) and TED Senior Fellow (2012). Open Source Ecology is also developing in Europe as OSE Germany. This is an independent effort based on OSE's principles. In 2016, OSE and the Open Building Institute joined forces to make affordable, ecological housing widely accessible. The initiative has prototyped the Seed Eco-Home – a 1400 square foot home with the help of 50 people in a 5-day period – demonstrating that OSE's

Extreme Manufacturing eXtreme Manufacturing (XM) is an iterative and incremental framework for manufacturing improvement and new product development that was inspired by the software development methodology Scrum (development), Scrum and the systematic waste-eliminati ...

techniques can be apply to rapid swarm builds of large structures. Materials for the Seed Eco-Home cost around US$30,000 in 2016, though the cost went up to approximately US$50,000 in 2022 due to rising lumber prices. Further, OBI has prototyped the Aquaponic Greenhouse – which was also built in 5 days with 50 people.

Factor e Farm

The Factor e Farm is the headquarters where the machines are prototyped and tested. The farm also serves as a prototype. Using the Open Source Ecology principles, Four prototype modules have been built as a home. An added greenhouse demonstrates how a family can grow vegetables and fish. Outside, there is also a large garden including fruit trees.

Current progress

For 2020, OSE was planning its most ambitious collaborative design effort by hosting a
Incentive Challenge on the HeroX platform
– to produce a professional grade, open source, 3D printed cordless drill that can be manufactured in distributed locations around the world. This project is intended to provide a proof-of-concept for the efficiency of open source development applied to hardware – in addition to its proven success with software. This effort was postponed due to COVID-19, and OSE has pivoted to a product release of the Seed Eco-Home in 2021 to address the need for affordable, ecological housing. In 2019, OSE updated its vision to ''collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance.'' This reflects a shift from ''open source'' to ''open source and collaborative design''. OSE began running it
Open Source Microfactory STEAM Camps
to emphasize the vision of collaborative design of real products. In 2018, the project achieve
33% completion
In 2014, 12 of the 50 machines were designed, blueprinted, and prototyped, with four of those reaching the documentation stage. In October 2011 a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

fundraising campaign collected US$63,573 for project expenses and the construction of a training facility. The project has been funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation and is a semifinalist in the Focus Forward Film Festival. File:Powercube v7 Assembly.ogv, Powercube v7 Assembly video File:Liberator Compressed Earth Brick Press v4 Assembly.ogv, Liberator Compressed Earth Brick Press v4 Assembly video File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Design Rationale.pdf, LifeTrac tractor – Design Rationale File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Fabricaion Manual.pdf, LifeTrac tractor – Fabrication Report File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Fabrication Drawings.pdf, LifeTrac tractor- Fabrication Drawings

Awards and recognition

* From 2012 to 2014, Dr. Jakubowski was awarded
Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship
* In 2011, the project won the Green Project Contest organized by ''Make'' magazine. * It was one of the 21 semi-finalists for the

Buckminster Fuller Challenge The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design competition that awards $100,000 to the most comprehensive solution to a pressing global problem. The Challenge was launched in 2007 and is a program oThe Buckminster Fuller Instit ...

, among 162 participants. * ''TIME'' magazine rated OSE's Civilization Starter Kit as a top invention of the year 2012.

List of machines

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) comprises 50 industrial machines:

GVCS replication

The first time a Global Village Construction Set product was created by another group was in October, 2011; Jason Smith with James Slade and his organization Creation Flame developed a functioning open source CEB press.Creation Flame progress
Accessed: 11/22/2011

References

External links

TED Talk on the Global Village Construction Set
*
Open Source Ecology: Wiki

Open Source Ecology: Blog

Open Source Ecology (OSE) Europe

NPR: Building A Village Starts With Building The Tractor

Bloomberg Businessweek:The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm
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