Spring Break Operations Manual

About

Design of a spring break program for 24 participants. \

Staff

• 4 hour staff training required beforehand for site staff.
• Admin - admissions and questions, coordination. Handles registration process and onboarding emails.
• Hospitality and Logistics - admissions admin, cooking and living space, signage, waste, garden, store runs. Prepares site for arrival.
• Co-teachers - 2 assistants required for teaching build process. 1 teacher allocated to PV on Hangar, and 2 allocated to cabin builds.
• Logistics - materials moving and handling with skid steer.

24 Unit Program

• Prototypes

Program

Narrative

Join an intensive, skill-building, one-week build sprint focused on designing and constructing an eco-friendly cabin with rooftop photovoltaics.

Each day includes roughly 2–4 hours of structured instruction and 4–6 hours of hands-on building. The class sessions cover practical design fundamentals for structure, photovoltaics, basic electrical, plumbing concepts, interior finishing, and heat pump integration, so participants understand how the full building system fits together.

Participants will learn to use a modular, human-scale building system to design and construct small structures using standardized modules, part libraries, and AI-assisted CAD workflows. The goal is to make it practical for anyone motivated to learn to design and build a cabin, small home, or ADU, and to understand the technical pathway to doing this repeatably.

During the week, the group will also participate in the installation of a large photovoltaic array (on the order of ~100 kW) on a workshop roof, providing real-world exposure to commercial-scale solar deployment and system integration.

A core learning objective is developing a human-language-to-CAD workflow: participants will learn how to instruct AI to generate technically grounded design artifacts in FreeCAD (open-source CAD), and how to review, modify, and iterate those designs. This workflow is intended to support code-aware, buildable designs that can be adapted for personal projects (cabins, homes, ADUs) or as the foundation for a small design/build business.

Schedule

Each day, breakfast goes from 8-9, program starts at 9, lunch is 1-2 - and goes to 6 pm each day. Dinner is served 6-7 PM.

• Prep webinar - watch at your leisure. 1 hour describing the week.
• Day 1 - Welcome presentation, half hour, and half hour intros. 2 Hour Construction Boot Camp + practice wall module build - total 4 hours morning.
  • Afternoon: 2 hour production - Cabin 1. Then a 2 hour AI Assisted FreeCAD design intro: how to design just about anything. Part Library work - process overview, sample part generation.
• Day 2 - 2 Hour House Design Boot Camp. Starting Cabin 1 interior.
  • Afternoon - PV installation - Hangar. 2 hr CAD design - Part library work - designing plumbing.

• Day 3 - 2 Hour PV System + Roofless Roof Design Bootcamp and Design Session. Finishing Cabin 1.
  • Afternoon - PV installation - Hangar. 2 hr CAD design -Part library work - designing electrical.

• Day 4 - 2 Hour Heat Pump and Thermal Battery Design Boot Campand Design Session. Starting Cabin 2.
  • Afternoon - PV installation - Hangar. 2 hr CAD design - Part library work - designing power center.

• Day 5 - House Design Finalization Session Starting interior of Cabin 2.
  • Afternoon - PV installation - Hangar. 2 hr CAD design - Part library work - designing heat pump module.

• Day 6 - Village Design Boot camp and Design Session. Building Cabin 5.
  • Afternoon - PV installation - Hangar. 2 hr CAD design - Part library work - designing PV system in detail.

• Day 7 - project day: we build a new cabin model that we designed collaboratively in the last 5 days. Depending on the number and ambition of team - we will buils something from 120 to 240 square feet in size - either 1 or 2 modules. We will debrief and review progress at the end.

Cost

About 50/50

• Admin - $1450 - coordinates with Hospitality
• Hospitality - food, dorm prep, trash - $1450. Comes in 2 days early to prepare site for arrival.
• Food Budget for 24 - $2688
• Support Staff - 3 instructors at $1450 each, $4350 total. Come in 1 day early for training and airport pickups.
• Materials - 2 cabins - $6k. Cabin Cost

Total cost - $7250 people, $2688 food, $6000 materials

• Tuition - $415 to $664 per student for 7 days. 4 scholarships available based on need.
• Marketing - $650 early bird, $750 regular (2 weeks)

Application

To keep the cohort productive in a fast-paced build + design environment, we ask for one quick example of something you’ve made, built, or shipped. This can be CAD, code, a physical build, documentation, or any small project that shows follow-through and agency.

No prior construction or CAD experience is required. Beginners are welcome. This is a class setting with hands-on work, and participants should be prepared to learn by doing and operate in a full-day, real-world build environment.

To keep the cohort productive, we ask for one quick example of something you’ve completed (any domain) that shows follow-through. This is a full-day, hands-on build + design class.

State in 1–2 sentences on what they want to learn by producing during the 1 week. This is a full-day, physically demanding build sprint. Are you able to participate for full days for all 7 days?

Future Infrastructure Upgrades

• Production aquaponic greenhouse
• Pervious paver driveways, with 3D printed block