Core Dev Process
About
OSE's collaborative product development workflow for onsite and remote participants involves an ability to document and share information digitally, while engaging in prototyping and digital fabrication.
At the most basic level 1, individuals with computers can follow Design Guides to engage in collaborative design. Basic familiarity with a hardware development process must exist. This process is summarized to 4 parts with concept->CAD->build->test. It is expanded in the OSE Development Template to 20 steps, and enterprise development adds another 20 steps in the Enterprise Template. We follow the Second Toyota Paradox (set-based concurrent engineering) for crowd development.
A common workflow involves CAD designs in FreeCAD 101, diagrams and pictures of hand drawings inserted into Google Slides presentations, understanding of File Simplification to make workflows scalable, and using Part Libraries while documenting on Work Logs.
To collaborate, start a Work Log, get a FreeCAD Badge, and request a Time Log.
Level 2 involves adding prototyping machines - by taking FreeCAD files and converting to 3D print files using Lulzbot Cura Appimage. Many things can be prototyped, and produced, with plastic, rubber, advanced plastics, and Plastic-Metal Composites.
Level 3 adds extraction of CNC torch table cut files from FreeCAD/Inkscape as well as WAAM, which now takes prototyping from plastic to metal. For CNC cut files, see Generating CNC Torch Table Cut Files. For 3D printing, use Lulzbot Cura Appimage, and upload code to the Universal Controller via the Arduino Environment software. We run all CNC machines with Marlin and RAMPS - up to dozens of axes of a screw machine based on the Universal Axis, and we can scale RAMPS drive with external stepper drivers for building larger machines.
Learn how to embed Google Slides using the {{Subst:Embed}} template, or just embed manually. Use Presentation Template to start working docs on everything - assuming that you have a greater vision for your work. The key is to include the Edit link so you and others can edit, and to open permissions for open global editing in the Google Slides. Then use hyperlinks in your Work Log linking to other wiki pages, thereby augmenting your brain with the wiki as an organizing platform. Learn how to Embed YouTube and to use the Gallery feature of the wiki for creating Part Libraries. Learn basic editing with Kdenlive.
To organize all work, use the {{dev+|Project Name}} template - the Dev Template - but substitute that into the wiki page by using {{subst:dev+|Project Name}}. Note the difference between these 2 routes by clicking edit. Then you're ready to become immortal as your work can be improved upon for ever. Understand that to collaborate seamlessly with a large, global team - you need to upload to the internet as soon as you have any file or picture: if it's not on the wiki on your log, it doesn't exist. To organize information, understand that the Taxonomy includes the 50 GVCS Machines, 500 Modules, and any other dev projects. The development follows a standard product development protocol (see OSPD) nomenclature, and we use Concurrent Engineering with the Second Toyota Paradox, which fits well with a swarm-based, Module-Based Design process with a lego-like Construction Set Approach - reified with Extreme Manufacturing and taken to the open enterprise level with Extreme Enterprise.
Version history is an important topic. The wiki already has a built-in file version history, and our process is to 'upload new versions of a file' to build on prior work. External repositories may be used for files >1MB, which is the wiki limit. For CAD file galleries, we use Visual Version History.
The Triumvirate
It is important to understand the triumvirate of open design: the CAD-BOM-Build trio. See Meta Design Guide for an explanation of the triumvirate. Here is a page from the Collaborative Design Guide that summarizes all steps that can be done concurrently, and thus which can be done by a large, realtime team in parallel, with the potential of superseding proprietary development as the norm.
OSE Rapid Prototyping such as box beam, Universal Frames, Universal Axis, Universal Controller, Universal Rotor, or Universal Track Unit can help build things large and small, with Power Cubes powering the heavy machines. All metal can be cut from flat steel and turned into 3D objects, similar to using Sketches in FreeCAD and turning them into 3D objects. While the Collaborative Design Guide focues on how to design collaboration - the Design Guides discuss how to design the technologies themselves. But designing collaboration is a prerequisite for redesigning machines and civilizations.
Stopping Reinventing the Wheel
The world reinvents the wheel constantly. Any new startup or enterprise has to catch up to the state of art of others - as all others keep their work proprietary. This is a serious issue in terms of peoples' time being sucked needlessly in their work life - where instead we could be productive and fun if collaborative access were available. Instead, people struggle - as others in fact try to monopilize and make it hard for their 'competition.' Like ruthless robber barons taking out all their competition - this dynamic is still well and alive today.
And in the world of hobbyists - reinventing the wheel is likewise pernicious. Nobody has the time to document or develop fully as they work on their own, and thus there is, for example, thousands of 'open source' CNC router builds on the internet and not a single one of them works well. This important dynamic must be emphasized regarding the extremely high cost of open source: without products going to completion - just once - they are continuously reinvented - given up upon - ad infinitum. Because hardware builds take many iterations to perfect. This collectively costs millions of dollars - much more than a proprietary company developing a product.
We are trying to change this by taking products to completion, gathering large teams to do so. Because it takes tremendous effort for design/build/product completion. We aim to involve the world, document as we go along - otherwise - it is all for nothing if it is not finished. By organizing our work and documenting, however, we produce the chance of our work becoming immortal - anyone being able to build upon that. For that to happen, specific assets - namely open CAD, BOMs, build procedures, calculations, etc. - must be available. Numerous aspects of the dev process must be documented - for someone to build upon it effectively. That is our goal. It's a lot of work - but it has to be done only once if it's documented properly. We are building a culture of collaboration, and we don't reinvent the wheel. Open collaboration is the new norm.
