Dedicated Project Visits
Hint: We are currently offering Dedicated Project Visits upon application. For remote collaboration - see invitation for OSE Developers.
last updated May, 2019
Contents
Summary
We are now recruiting entrerpreneurial, open source developers to join us on-site for Dedicated Project Visits with an intended outcome of organizing and running an Extreme Manufacturing Workshop as the core deliverable. The Extreme Manufacuring Workshop is intended to be documented so others can replicate the model worldwide with local adaptation.
Introduction to Dedicated Project Visits (DPVs)
We are building a kit of the 50 most important machines that it takes for modern life to exist - everything from a tractor, to an oven, to regenerative agriculture. Then we create open source blueprints - so that anyone can build and maintain these at a fraction of what it costs today. Our goal is to create a life size LEGO set of powerful production tools and productive ecosystems - that can distribute production - to build modern economies from abundant, local resources.
The scope of our development centers around the 50 tools of the Global Village Construction Set - but it does not end there. We are interested in systems that derive from these tools. These derivatives include MicroHouses, Aquaponic Greenhouses, regenerative agriculture systems, Production Facilities, and many others. Further, OSE is interested in components, design tools, and other ancillary technologies that lead to distributed production in general and the Global Village Construction Set in particular.
The common thread is distributing raw productive power towards personal autonomy, and increased connection between people - in a more meaningful world.
Our logic model revolves around distributing productive power, with a focus on regenerative use of resources - thereby producing essential solutions to the wealth distribution gap and associated destruction of natural resources. To this end, we are developing open source technologies, open enterprise plans, and open models for organizations that can promote open enterprise. We believe that such tools should be freely accessible to anyone who chooses to use them: from indigenous people to corporations. Our logic model calls for change - in that adopting OSE practices and philosophies can be transformative for whoever chooses to participate.
We are inviting highly motivated people to collaborate with us through on-site Dedicated Project Visits. In 2015, we are shifting gears from the more general Summer Internships - to focused development that culminate in the organization of an Extreme Manufacturing workshop. This Workshop involves swarm building of significant technologies over the duration of a weekend workshop - and is enabled by remarkable coordination and production efficiencies. These efficiencies are afforded by innovation in collaborative, social manufacturing processes - based on open source tools and techniques. Extreme Manufacturing workshops are intended to demistify technology, and transform people by showing how THEY can be involved directly in effective production on the micro-scale.
We are inviting those individuals who understand the relevance of economic significance and economic replicability as a core feature that enables open source technology to scale. Economic significance is an essential feature of OSE's potential to spread virally around the world.
Program Learnings on Extreme Manufacturing
We have learned over the years that it is possible to run a workshop where a complex machine, and even a house, can be built over a weekend. We discovered that the key to this is to have carefully-developed workflows based on designs that consider a parallel build and ease of build as some of the essential enabling features. We have learned that by module-based design, a team can work in parallel on a number of modules to complete a build in a compressed amount of time. We have learned that language agnostic instructionals can help significantly, and that unskilled people can learn skills rapidly given the proper guidance. We have also learned that on the social front - the team dynamic of a supportive environment, collaborative learning, and immersion training can enable a group of people to build a team, and gain the satisfaction of a finished product. This has continued to be one a significant, empowering, and transformative dynamic in this work.
These learnings contribute to our conviction that a social production model can work in many areas of the industrial economy - up to the production of heavy industrial machinery on the community scale - and that the social aspects of such a model can make it fun and replicable. This means that humanity now has a choice to adopt this relocalized, reskilling, social production model to many aspects of its productive economy. We believe that the raw power of appropriate, modern technology, and lowered barriers to entry - can lead to a lifestyle where production is no longer the realm of the suicide-netted sweatshops - but the realm of educational, voluntary, and inspiring activity.
Applicant Requirements
The power to deliver the promise of technology as a truly liberating, regenerative force in society revolves around efficient, ecological production. With this in mind, we are looking for applicants capable of developing a technology to the point of running an Extreme Manufacturing Workshop on that technology. This means developing both the technology - and a plan for producing that technology via a swarming build process - plus doing basic economic analysis to show economic feasibility of organizing such an event. This involves event design for parallel production assuming an audience of 24 people.
We are looking for entrepreneurial applicants who typically are already working on a project, who are already familiar with the open source framework of development, and who would like to create an open enterprise around that project - along the lines of Distributive Enterprise. The goal is creating highly-replicable production models that can be deployed in the form of a social production Workshop.
The intended outcome of a Dedicated Project Visit is the Extreme Manufacturing Workshop. We are also open to exploring other collaborative economic development opportunities.
Only intrinsically-motivated individuals are encouraged to apply. We expect applicants to be fully aware that all of the intellectual property that is generated will be placed under an OSHWA-compatible hardware license, and all code will be placed under a FLOSS license such as GPL.
Timing
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Documentation
Documentation is the key to successful open source projects. All DPVs are required to keep a Work Log, and are encouraged to bring a digital camera or smart phone with them to document their work. They may also be asked to blog about their progress at the beginning and end of their DPV.
Logistics
The DPV will include two phases: the first is an off-site remote collaboration preparatory, R&D phase. Second, the DPV will continue on-site, for as much time as preparation is required to organize and run the Extreme Manufacturing workshop. Continuation to the second phase depends on showing feasibility of the success of a planned workshop. The DPV concludes with a Survey of participants and an Event Review in which lessons are captured for future improvements.
The duration of the DPV collaboration depends on the Project Plan and its scope. This duration is flexible and depends completely on the applicant's and OSE's needs and resources.
Factor e Farm is a research and development facility. Basic accommodations and an industrial workshop facility are available. We plan on building a 3000 square foot electronics workshop in 2015, see Schedule. Participants are expected to follow Factor e Farm Guidelines and Factor e Farm Community Standards, and to cover their own food expenses. Pets are not allowed unless specifically negotiated.
Financial Arrangements
There is a cost associated with the OSE internship program, and only individuals with a serious commitment to a lifestyle investment are encouraged to apply. The expectation is that the individual is pursuing realistic livelihood based on the learnings from OSE, as a generalist and an Integrated Human.
