Visit the forum instructions to learn how to post to the forum, enable email notifications, subscribe to a category to receive emails when there are new discussions (like a mailing list), bookmark discussions and to see other tips to get the most out of our forum!
A way of getting means to help OSE
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Howard_V_Agnew
     
    September 2011
    I am slow sometimes, and this suddenly struck me as a "Duh!" notion that probably most other OSE followers have already realized, but on the off chance there are at least a few others like me who sometimes take awhile to realize things ...

    I could seriously help OSE, especially with its funding needs, by talking to a mechanically inclined friend and seeing if they would be interested in trying to build one of OSE's already prototyped machines, such as the LifeTrac.  We could then sell it, and use the money to buy more materials and to send some money to OSE to help develop the rest of the GVCS!
     
  • 5 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    mjnmjn
     
    September 2011
    This is a good idea, Howard, and OSE intends to explore this in greater depth in the future.  However, the plans for actually building a LifeTrac (as well as the other prototyped GVCS tools) are in final development right now.  Marcin has promised these by Christmas and progress has been quite good on them.  When people have made suggestions like this one, the response has been to schedule some time out at Factor e Farm to learn how to build these machines.  FeF has been building tractors, power cubes, and compressed earth brick machines for sale this year.  Helping to build them is the best way to learn how to build them.  Once the documentation on the tractor (etc) is complete, then people should be able to build these on their own - for sale or for their own use.

    - Mark

     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Howard_V_Agnew
     
    September 2011
    Ah, thanks.  I went hunting for the how-to-build instructions and realized they aren't really there yet for the tractor.  I do have friends who recently bought a plot, one of which is a really good "Mr. Fix-It" and I think he could do a good job, with his knowledge, getting a working tractor from written instructions.

    Of course, I would love to be on the farm helping out with documentation (I do have some experience with technical writing), but I've noticed a lot of other technical writing-experienced folks with more experience on their Team Culturing responses listed on the Documentation Team.  Its probably my own personal strongest area, though.
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    UtopianPragmatistUtopianPragmatist
     
    January 2012
    That's similar to my idea, i was thinking of making a spin-off GVCS with most of the same tools but on a miniature scale; the working models would mostly be printed on a RepRap and assembled from simple parts but would function under the same principles, a child (or me) could then remote control (or computer program) his little tractor to collect soil and fill the hopper of his tiny brick press - what kid wouldn't want to make a mini castle out of pressed bricks?!?!?  
      
    Kits and assembled models could be sold with 33% each going to reprap, ose and me (or whoever sold it) - personally i think it'd be a great project because it'd get people interested in the OSE and help them understand it; obviously i don't think kids should really have a micro-blast furnace (said as someone that's spilled molten alu on my shoe...) and even the brick press is by it's nature a very dangerous thing but i'm certain it could be made as safe as most of the toys i played with as a supervised child (lol mainly fire in my case but others had RC helicopters, etc).  The only real issue i foresee with a miniCEB is making a micro-brick from top soil which is robust enough to last through-out the 'game life' - i've got a few bits or iron and i'm going to play around with a vice and hammer see what happens :)
      
    If a fairly complete mini-set could be made it might even become a useful teaching and learning tool, maybe even allowing people to study and write controlling software and automated logic in situations what wouldn't have been possible before.  
     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    mjnmjn
     
    January 2012
    My idea was to replicate the GVCS tools in scaled LEGO models.  The CEB becomes simple then:  fill the hopper with 2x8 bricks and it outputs 2x8 bricks.  :)

    - Mark

     
  • Vote Up0Vote Down
    Matt_Maier
     
    January 2012
    You could make scale models of the power cube(s) so that scale RC car parts could be used to model the open source car, since the power cube(s) needs to fit inside of it somewhere.
     
Add a Comment

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Login with Facebook Sign In with Google Sign In with OpenID Sign In with Twitter
Sign In Apply for Membership

Categories

In this Discussion

Tagged

Loading