Community Needs Assessment Summary

February 2012

• Most needed at this point is a more rigorous procedure for technical development...
• ... it is difficult to run a complex, integrated project solely on volunteers and random contributions.
• I would like to demonstrate at Factor e Farm that we can generate a resilient economy by providing healthy local food, renewable energy, natural housing, and robust economic production...
• I would like local fabrication to be available to the children, in 10 or 15 years.
• I suggest that critical mass of adoption, forking, and so on, will be the most important piece.
• I would recommend Peter Senge's group
• I'd suggest talking to Rick Warren
• Within 10 years I plan to be living sustainably off the grid, utilizing several OSE developed technologies to build my home and produce what I need.
• Proper documentation, clear step by step build plans.
• i'm extremely interested in the gasifier and...solar concentrator, steam engine, battery and inverter.
• my goal is to build the OSE car, if it meets my daily transport needs.
• Proper documentation and build instructions are paramount.
• ...i've been researching some of them for years but have struggled to find freely available build instructions. this is what sets OSE apart.
• That we keep safety in the foreground of the designs.
• ...you will need to identify who your perfect customer is, and work towards meeting their need(s).
• ...maybe have a kit (with detailed instructions i.e. lots of pictures) and look for volunteers to travel with the kit to assist with fabrication.
• I will do what I can over the next 3 years to start a separate OSE location in Pittsburgh PA, growing from a membership-based tool-lending library. I will make it pay, rather than relying on donations.
• Learn from Jack Stack at Springfield Remanufacturing, and in the ag world, Darren Doherty, Alan Savory, Willie Smits, Sepp Holzer, and Joel Salatin. Learn from the mistakes of Gaviotas, and recruit the former engineers of Gaviotas.
• I'm thinking of building a hydroseeder (or retro-fitting our hydroseeder) with a powercube...a micro-tractor and fit it with a small harley rake
• I think the GVCS could help our family business gain some advantages over our competitors by lowering the capital load we have invested in machinery...
• I would focus maximum effort on getting a rock solid tool chain to bootstrap production and perhaps sacrifice feature completeness for high standards of quality and efficiency...
• I want to share a simple kitchen design for tray freezing, packaging and distributing healthy locally sourced foods from small farmers and gardeners and mid scale diversified farmers.
• USDA Rural Development may be interested in funding this idea. NESARE might fund the creation of educational materials.
• have you contacted any UN/USAID orgs for sources
• ...source of leadership and volunteers would be a community of retired engineers.
• Rural Development Grant Assistance, USDA
• A human powered thresher - primarily of wheat, as that is one of the primary grains in our society.
• Rodale Institute? I know they do projects that involve sustainable food supply. Sharon Rempel in Canada and her Demeter Project might find the project worthwhile. Sustainablegrains.org, based in California...The Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) operates under the 501(c)3 status of The Learning Garden
• [I think we need] Basic-skills training for potential participants: basic-skills institutes where people can learn wood, metal, textile, etc. working skills.
• You might speak to Bernadine Joselyn at the Blandin Foundation.
• McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, MN. They fund many third-world and rural development initiatives.
• Suggest find chemical engineers to develop a heat-tolerant plastic from renewables like wood chips to make into car bodies, tires and electric motor components so that vehicles can be made locally.
• I'm going for full replication within the next five years and starting an intentional community/village in the spirit of FeF.
• Using parts that are commonly sold as replacement parts for common equipment
• defining interfaces between subassemblies so that localized versions can be made
• Making designs parametric with vitamin dimensions as input
• Equipment usable by small landowner (up to 2 acres) - earthmoving, CEB, etc.
• I suggest, in the near future, the creation of regional development teams to provide the same standard of quality of the original devices.
• I am in contact with the team behind Arduino. I spoke with them about the OSE initiative and they seem very excited.
• check out mit profesor Daniel Nocera discoveries.
• I could seriously see myself building a few implements using this site in the next 5 years
• I need a tractor, and several buildings, so the tractor and CEB are on my first years project list.
• I am most interested in the steam, peletizer, generator system.
• I really like the CEB, the bobcat like tractor design, in fact all the different attachments to the tractor design, the energy solutions such as the solar or wind energy converters with generator.
• I also am drawn to the CEB, and would like to use it to assemble necessary structures.
• Professional engineering associations such as NACE and ASME are all run by part time contributors and produce some very good results.
• Perhaps we will keep in contact with OSE when we have internet connection.
• the biggest need is for a better organizational structure and planning.
• for the tractor and ceb press, I would like to see performance data of these items from an independent evaluator.
• I would want to see/use the tractor and ceb press before buying one
• Needed most: better distribution of the work and communication. It is too centralized and closed to be a proper open source project.
• Get any Canadians you have working on the project to apply to art grants.
• WISAS western Illinois sustainable ag society...Marian Gradner Foundation,local community foundations great river comminity foundation,john wood comminity college
• I have tried to show people existing videos of OSE but most people doesn't ""get"" it...I propose a holistic explanatory short-film that hopefully makes the general public aware of this great project.
• I would like to take a shot at a few of the projects. The micro tractor and forge press, plus maybe a steam engine
• Long term, off the grid homesteading and zero energy housing.
• Most needed: field tests.
• ...it's like herding cats. It's critical to develop a structure to properly channel the interest, and organize the results.
• I'd also like to see more work on modern farming techniques - permaculture / aquaculture/ponics, agroforestry, swaling, water retention and recirculation, and so-on.
• Wallowa Resources
• Have you contacted the NRCS, FHA and USDA? " Sarah Skaar or Matthew King - matt@wallowaresources.org
• Adding occupational health and safety criteria to all design stages.
• NASA, the NSS or the Mars Society may cover some of your designs
• ...a free or affordable CAD program that can translate to and from existing proprietary programs
• There should probably be a single library for people to deposit their design changes and justifications at. There should also be a way for people to rank design decisions for when the libraries become bulky.
• Long Term: develop machinery that is multifunction for various processing functions and products for regionally scaled individual farms or co-ops.