OBI Webinars
From Open Source Ecology
List of Webinars - 2016-2017
- Dec. 2, 2016 - Living Home Webinar. Resources - [1]
- Dec. 9 - Aquaponic Greenhouse: Design and Operation Aquaponic Greenhouse Webinar
- Jan 20, 2017 - Seed Eco-Home Utilities Webinar We will be covering the off-grid utility systems of the Seed Eco-Home - which is 100% off grid on water and electricity, and we intend to go 100% off-grid on cooking gas and food production in the future. For now, we will cover: water from pond and roof catchment to potable; our 3kW PV system; the open source hydronic stove that can be built for $500 in materials instead of $5k for the cheapest commercial option; the bio-digester for producing cooking gas; heat exchanger for tapping greenhouse heat for space heating; super-efficient refrigerator and lighting; separating toilet; andthermoelectric generator. At the time of this webinar, we are still installing the utility systems.
- Feb 3 - House Design Crash Course Webinar This webinar covers basic design principles of how to design the structure of a house, with consideration of code compliance. Special attention is given to modular design that allows a large team of people to work in parallel on the build. Specific techniques cover the OBI building methods for those people who are interested in building an OBI house design.
- Feb 3 - Using the OBI Module System to Design Buildable Structures. This webinars goes over the Part Libraries of engineered house modules of the OBI building system - and how one can use these modules to build technically correct designs. The key is understanding basic design rules of house construction as discussed in the House Design Crash Course - and understanding basic additional rules of how the modules fit together and how to manipulate them within the open source SweetHome3d design software.
- Feb 10 - Navigating Code Compliance for the Seed Eco-Home What are the requirements of the Seed Eco-Home for meeting building codes, where and how the codes are applicable, and how to meet the required compliance.
- Feb 17 - Open Source Machines for House Building Webinar Open source construction machines are critical to OBI's work. Our development program until August of 2018 includes full development of site-working utility machines as well as a demonstration facility - the Open Source Materials Production Facility. The utility machines include the tractor, bulldozer, 360 degree mini excavator, and trencher. The Materials Production Facility machines include the production of lumber, stabilized CEBs, insulation, glazing, and concrete - all from locally-sourced and recycled materials. This allows for significantly reduced embodied energy of buildings and lower material costs. Both the utility and materials production machines allow for the successful development of open source construction enterprises. OBI's current thinking is that enterprise startup for regenerative construction is the key route to making affordable, ecological housing widely accessible. The machines involved are capable of building Living Building Challenge compliant homes. The webinar will cover how the product ecology of open source construction machines fits together, and the productive capacity that is achieved for a given investment. We will go into the design philosophy, how to build the machines, how to use and maintain them for a lifetime of service.
- Feb 24 - Landscape Design: Integrating the Seed Home in a Regenerative Environment
- March 3 - Applications of 3D Printing in Construction 3D printing is now being widely used to print small plastic, 3-dimensional objects from digital files. A large number of useful household objects can already be printed, but extending the scope of 3D printing to larger objects and different materials can have a significant impact on local production of building materials, including the shells of houses themselves. For the case of the Seed Eco-Home, we are particularly interested in 3D printing of multiwall, polycarbonate glazing for the Aquaponic Greenhouse, plumbing parts, and even fence posts - all of which can be printed from commonly-available, recycled plastic. This provides new opportunities to close material cycles using local manufacturing. The cost savings for the Seed Eco-Home can be in the thousands of dollars. This webinar covers these opportunities - including the production rates possible using widely-available, open source technology. We will also cover the current 3D printer development of OSE, and how this is intended to contribute to the next build of the Seed Eco-Home.
- March 10 - Seed Eco-Home and Aquaponic Greenhouse Automation We will discuss how to use automated controllers and Internet of Things monitoring and data collection for the built environment. Main data points include temperatures (thermal performance) and humidity, and water quality measurements for the aquaponics. Greenhouse automation includes automatic control of watering of beds, towers, and duckweed troughs; misting for humidity and cooling; automatic fish feeding, chicken door opening, hydronic heating, fans, and pumps. House automation includes automatic turning of of fans, pumps, and pellet stove heating, as well as smart control of the PV system to maximize power output.
- March 17 - Open Source Architecture Tools This webinar will cover: (1) Taking assets from the Feb. 3 webinar in SweetHome 3D format and converting them to FreeCAD. The goal is to take advantage of FreeCAD workflows for design features more powerful than the basic SweetHome 3D platform. The advantage of SweetHome is ease of use - and the advantage of FreeCAD is more capability, such as performing exploded part diagrams and thermal calculations. (2)Taking FreeCAD assets and converting them to WebGL. This allows for the embedding 3D design into websites, and manipulating 3D designs within the web browser. (3) Using BIM functionality and the architecture workbench in FreeCAD. (4) Using FreeCAD workflows to generate accurate models, including importing of rough designs from Blender. (5) Producing floor plans in SweetHome 3D and FreeCAD. (6) Using Blender to do realistic renderings of FreeCAD and Sweet Home 3D assets.
- March 24 - Collaborative Literacy 101: How to Work Effectively in an Open Source Hardware Movement The rise of Free and Open Source software has catalyzed the growth of Free and Open Source Hardware. Libre hardware is beginning to gain traction in mainstream economics, such as in 3D printing and in the scientific hardware community. There is evidence that open development creates both technically superior and far less expensive hardware than proprietary models. In this webinar, we provide an overview of Open Source Ecology's open source product development process - and the importance of collaborative literacy. Collaborative literacy is a form of literacy - like reading or using a computer - which allows individuals to work effectively on large, distributed, open projects. What are the principles and tools used for effective and focused crowd collaboration? Who can apply crowd collaboration to their work? What motivates volunteers to build a project that is much larger than themselves? What are the limits to the size and effect of a crowd based project? What is the potential of scaling this development model? Can widespread adoption of open techniques compete with proprietary product development? We will explore the learnings from the first decade of OSE's operation, culminating with the emergence of OSE's economic model of Distributive Enterprise.
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