Howard Log
This is a work log for keeping track of tasks by Howard Agnew, whom should arrive at Factor e Farm to start his dedicated project visit.
Dedicated Project Visit Pre-planning
I will be focusing on documentation, helping Santa Claus bring the promised gifts of completed documentation sets for a couple of machines by Christmas. Collaboration over the Internet with CADders and other documenters will be required to ensure this goal is obtained, so obtaining full, complete and current specifications for all parts of the machines being built are the highest priorities. Once I have a full set of specifications, I can delegate out development of the CAD models to active volunteers over the Internet and develop the 20+ models required for the CEB Press in parallel with other teams, as well as related information (such as the Bill of Materials) which will also be incorporated into the final, complete draft of manufacturing blueprints/diagrams and instructions.
The fabricators will tend to be very busy, however, and I must not get in their way when it is crunch time on building and prototyping. I will need to really be sharp when it comes to seeing and finding opportunities when work has slowed down.
I will need to also contribute efforts to help with things like building the facilities, which will probably be a temporary focus early on until the current facility expansion is complete. I do not have any carpentry experience, but hopefully my landscaping experience laying a brick retaining wall will be of use in building the Compressed Earth Brick walls that will be part of the construction. I expect I'll be a bit sore, being out of shape for so many years, but no pain, no gain. :)
I expect to arrive sometime Wednesday or Thursday. I am very excited and honored at this opportunity, and hope my plans and intentions bear fruit and I can help bridge the work being done at Factor e Farm with the greater Open Source Ecology community, enabling other teams in other locations to start taking advantage of the work already done by completing integrated manufacturing instructions, diagrams, bills of material and all the other information needed to enable a group to identify every machine and all materials they need to start work, and clear, concise and accurate instructions complete with diagrams to actually build the machines.
I will be driving, leaving Monday or Tuesday and I expect to arrive three days later. I used to take long distance road trips and do so stupidly 10-15 years ago; I will be pacing myself to maximize my safety. I am preparing what I have (for instance doing what I can with my laptop since it will be my only usable computer on-site, as my desktop would hog too much precious power needed for machining), getting ready to buy things I need (steel toed boots and hearing protection, for instance) before going.
Final Shutdown
As of noon PST on Sept. 26, 2011, I am shutting my computer down for the last time to pack it up and haul out.
I expect to arrive at FeF sometime tomorrow or Wednesday. Will try to log my laptop on if I find restaurants or rest stops with free wi fi en route.
I don't know anyone's phone #s at FeF, so I will be calling David who lives nearby when I am closer to determining an arrival time.
Looking forward to meeting the FeF crew in person and joining in! --Howard V. Agnew 21:06, 26 September 2011 (CEST)
Arrived at FeF
I arrived yesterday morning (September 28th) at around 7:30. I was frustrated away from my last attempt at sleep at 11 p.m. the night before at a rest stop in South Dakota when I discovered they outlaw staying at a rest stop for more than 3 hours unless you are in an RV ... so I kept going, drove all night for the final leg, arriving at Factor e Farm at around 8 a.m. I am settling in a bit, still have a bit of road wariness to sleep off, but starting to work helping document the |LifeTrac III with Ian, who is great with video and is actually doing a bigger video documentary project. A little project we started last night was to create one single jig plate that would have all the holes needed for the 4"4" tube frame members for the LifeTrac. He wrote a script, and based on the specs he had in the script, I created a sketchup of the jig plate with the holes (all 27 in one piece!) and decided to go with an alphabetical labelling scheme that could be used for a written documentation set. --Howard V. Agnew 21:44, 29 September 2011 (CEST)
September 30
Dug two inches into gravel for the concrete pillars where Shonda has been toiling away securing frames to stakes. Managed to get caught up with him, primarily because we unfortunately ran out of 2x2 stakes.
Need to get with Ian on video-documenting the wheel mounts for the LifeTrac III, but the facility expansion construction takes priority, FeF can only get into high gear when there's good housing and production facilities. Will collaborate with Ian when its too dark to do anything else.
September 30, Part II
Everyone busted their butts 'til a quarter past 2 a.m. working on the frames. Some had to be reworked. Note for anyone doing this in the future: Stake but do not attach frames to stakes until after the frames are levelled ... otherwise you wind up doing as we did, having to unattach the frames from the stakes and re-attaching.
We called it a night with another 10 to go, plan to somehow drag ourselves out of comas to finish them before the cement mixer pours tomorrow ... err, make that later today.
Its cold, we're tired, but we're all thinking the same thing ... when the Hab Lab is complete, we'll be living in high luxury. :P
October 1
Turns out the cement isn't coming until Monday. I worked a bit on more of the forms until David came over and we decided to replace the "bridge" (a long, flat piece of metal that had folded in on itself) over the trench between the current FeF and the new Hab Lab to the west. Will make walking and wheelbarrowing much easier.
October 2
Worked with Ian on documenting the wheel mount construction and assembly for the LifeTrac III. Unfortunately, have hit a few snags trying to determine scope. Will need to address these with Marcin after I have a clear, specific list such as whether the shaft assembly and brackets on the wheels should be included ... and if so, will need a walk-through.
Have also hit a snag that I lack drivers for the camera loaned to me by Alan, and am unable to acquire video from it. I searched the manufacturer's site, but unfortunately their "support" section has been down with a "500 - Internal Server Error" every time I have checked today. I sent an e-mail to the manufacturer, hopefully they can have the site fixed tomorrow, or at least point me to an alternative site to obtain the driver.
Note to self: When going to check out, in further detail, stuff from a video walk-through, always bring a tape measure and my laptop. Too many times I thought I had all the info I needed, went back to my laptop clear across the current Factor e Farm campus, only to find I had missed something and had to go back to record that, too.
October 3, 3:40 p.m.
Leaned a lot on Ian and Shonda to hammer out a draft for the LifeTrac Wheel Mount Construction video script. Will refine it a bit based on the script draft Ian completed for the Frame Assembly video which is getting rave reviews. Ian will, sadly, be shipping out in a couple weeks, and handling the script writing will be handed over to me at that point. Hopefully, Ian and his smooth, calm voice will still be available to actually narrate the videos over the Internet lest our Nielson ratings drop if I tried to narrate. ;)
After I finish tweaking the draft, I should return attention to the LifeTrac frame assembly jig Sketchup file; the labelling system needs to be simplified ... the one I created for the video simply labels each of the 27 holes from A to AA ... instead, I will group the holes according to the member (or members) they apply to, such that the first series of holes for the first frame member will be 'A,' then 'B' for the holes drilled on the perpendicular faces of the steel tube, 'C' for the top of the second frame member, 'D' for the holes on the perpendicular face, etc.
October 3, 9:20 p.m.
Marcin helped point out several things and I fixed the script accordingly. Its on the wiki at Life Track II Build/Wheel Mount Construction Video Script, but this may not be the final iteration. I completed the revisions Marcin requested, and did a couple other minor tweaks and sent it back to him. If it passes muster by him, it'll then go to Ian for final work-through. Ian's an awesome guy, he will surely be missed after he's gone, and as I said with my earlier blog, I hope he'll have the time to be able to continue to narrate our videos at least. I'll need to kick my video editing in high gear though ... I won't try to pretend I can match Ian with his years of experience, as I'm just starting out, but I feel confident that in time, I'll make smoother video edits
October 3, 9:45 p.m.
I have a new roommate ... a FROG!
Where the frog did this frogging frog frogging come from!?
I don't particularly hate frogs, but am not thrilled to share my cabin, small and dank as it is, with one ... and I'm particularly concerned that if a frog can find its way in, so too could something a bit more menacing like a snake or rat.
October 4, 5:50 p.m.
Its concrete day. I think everyone's tired and sore. I helped eliminate the air pockets at the edges and corners, helped float and smooth and tried to ensure the other teams working on the pads had water to keep the concrete fresh, but we were too few for so many pads and unfortunately several set before we could finish them nicely.
October 6, 6:00 p.m.
Yesterday was spent getting laundry done. Today I started working on the jig design, have some ideas I'd like to try out, will probably work on it into the night. Helped grab and stack hay bales.
October 8, 2:00 p.m.
Helped with baling last night after documenting Uncio (sp?) working on Arduino controllers for the CEB Press, but power issues last night kept me from working on it until today. Continuing to work on documentation, transcribing notes from the video I recorded yesterday that I can then work into documentation.
October 9, 4:30 p.m.
I helped paint CEB Presses until nearly dawn this morning, which had me asleep until after 3 p.m. Woke up to find my everything-depends-on-it laptop had shut down (I lazily tend to just close it to put it to sleep mode) and would not boot into Windows, instead indicating it could not find a partition and giving me an odd text prompt.
I realized I hadn't actually restarted my laptop since deleting the Linux partition and re-apportioning all space to Windows, so I figured that was probably what it was. I was at a bit of a loss for what to do though, as everyone at FeF was gone at that point. Eventually Uncio got back with Ted and Ian from shopping in town, and having had the very same problem was awesomely able to get my Windows partition restored.
I need to return to writing the script for the CEB Controller Box video, but we have an immediate need of getting construction in order on the Hab Lab, and the next order of business for that requires operational CEB Presses (thus I helped try to paint them until nearly 6 a.m. this morning). Unfortunately, the compressor for the sprayer was not adequate for the task, and progress was slow. I believe Thad and Shonda have gone to a hardware store to address this.
October 10, 5:20 p.m.
The CEB Controller Box script is coming together much more slowly than I had anticipated. Portions of video I thought I had recorded seem to be missing, and I'm having to do a lot of back and forth backtracking. I hope to have a rough draft together tonight to send to Uncio for review and critique.
Last night ran very late ... as a matter of fact, it ran past dawn. We had a construction meeting (/dinner courtesy Margaret and David) which started at 9 and ran until 2 a.m. ... Thad missed out due to working on the CEB Presses, and was still working on them when we got back at close to 3 a.m. Shonda especially helped Thad, and I chipped in where I could with the hope anything I did could help them get to bed a bit sooner, but I was wiped out quickly ... I stuck with them though before finally calling it a night at around 7 a.m. as the sky was getting light.
I really want to help out, but grogginess is not helping my productivity, that's for sure. Thad graciously donated a cappuccino the other night, but I think I'll go back to my plain old cheap drip coffee, which means buying a coffee maker ... aim to do so tomorrow when I do a laundry run.
Time is getting short for hab lab work. Skies are looking a bit threatening today in terms of precipitation ... dark and mostly overcast.