Outdated Information: Volunteer
Contents
Volunteering Remotely
Design Sprint collaboration is key to our short-term schedule and rapid prototyping capability. We would love to have you join us! During the Design Sprint, you can express your level of expertise and availability.
In addition, we are recruiting forDedicated Project Visits(DPV). As a DPV, you live and work as a volunteer at Factor e Farm for a specified period--it could be a few days...or as long as a few months. During this time, you will learn about our design process, quality assurance gates, documentation standards, and prototype modeling and buildout. In addition, you will be able to network with other Open Source enthusiasts and participate wholly in open source community activism. If you are interested, please follow the instruction on the DPV page, and contact me, the Technical Community Manager expressing interest/next steps.
We are looking for people of all kinds, in all places to contribute what they can to to this project. Please consider lending a hand. This page offers a summary of ways you can get involved with OSE. There is a number of hands-on opportunities outlined below.
If you are an expert in any of the many bodies of knowledge that relate to our project of creating open source machines / tools, we would love help improving our designs. The more open source technologies and tools we have, the less we need to be locked to proprietary technologies, the closer we come to making our vision a reality. If you can help us design better tools, we would appreciate your input.
You can:
- Review the plan and development process for the Global Village Construction Set.
- Help us design a specific project or a sub-assembly of a project. We are currently requesting review and bids on our Specifications for a number of projects.
- Look at our list of subject areas in need of an expert to see if your expertise matches up with needs as we currently see them.
- Send us a proposal for the development of a possible open source tool or technology to our project.
We're also looking for someone to:
- Produce CAD drawings and fabrication drawings for the tractor, CEB press, Power Cube, and rototiller.
- Help with project documentation and technical writing.
- Volunteer to write grants for project proposals
- Collaborate as a professional grantwriter for a percentage of the funds raised.
Get your university to collaborate
We are interested in collaborating with university teams to design and build the tools of the Global Village Construction Set. Students of engineering, agriculture and development studies have a great opportunity to undertake a meaningful project and help with the work we are doing. There are several ways university students can help -
- Design, build and document one of the tools of the Global Village Construction Set (or propose and build a new tool we hadn't thought of)
- Replicate one of the tools we have already designed, such as the LifeTrac tractor, or the Compressed Earth Block press
- Help us build the documentation, such as drafting CAD files for the GVCS tools
- Check the possible tasks for Universities.
- Any other way you want to contribute!
If you are interested in collaborating, please post on the forum explaining your area of study, what projects you are undertaking in university, and how you would like to collaborate.
Collaborate on the Farm
Before considering volunteering at the farm, please read the following:
We are seeking individuals to come to Factor e Farm for one month project-based visits to help develop the GVCS and the infrastructure at Factor e Farm. Proposals for projects are being accepted and reviewed. The suitability of proposals depends largely on a candidate's level of skill and experience. This is also our route for accepting new people for long-term stays as part of the Factor e Farm experiment.
Ideally we are looking for:
- Confident and highly dynamic self learners and researchers.
- Highly motivated innovators who are open to new ideas and excited by diversity of thought.
- Developers who can take a project from concept drawing to real world implementation.
- Those comfortable in rural and rustic settings.
- Willing team members, self starters, and project leaders.
We are offering a place where you can put the philosophy of sustainability into action. We are a physical experiment in building a post industrial global village - a space for all people to learn and grow. Because of the diversity of our activities, we believe a Factor E experience can be exceptional and life-changing, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone. There are countless opportunities available in the realm of sustainability and justice. Look at: Wiserearth; Idealist; GrowFood; WWOOF; Growing Growers Kansas City.
For Technical Developers
If you would like to help bring this project to completion, we invite proactive collaboration on many fronts. First, see Proposal 2012 for a list of the 50 technologies that we are developing, for their product ecologies, and for general information about the development process. Second, read and re-read the Core Values of OSE, as these inform all of the technical, organizational, and community development around the project. Then, read about the technical development process at the GVCS Development Template, and the publishing standards for our results at the Product Template. The key page is the GVCS Tools Status - a GVCS master index for displaying the status and needs of each project, and see a simpler table at GVCS tools. If there is no entry for a given project and step, that indicates that no work has yet been done. Each entry in the table is hyperlinked so you can find out the status of each step, and the next steps and needs become transparent. At this stage, after general assessment of a given project, you are ready to contribute. Begin by filling out the Team Culturing survey according to the notes and instructions stated on that page. Then, contact the Project Manager for that project to see how exactly you can become involved, or, find out about Project Manager Duties if you would like become a project manager yourself. You can also see the GVCS Budget for a general description of the expected development and prototyping costs.
Success on the above requires that project managers are recruited for each of the 50 projects. It also depends on developing a corresponding organizational, web, and funding strategy. You can check our current Project needs.
For CAD Modelers and Drafters
Creating accurate models and drawings in CAD for the GVCS is critical in providing a level of detail of part design and assembly that is usually not available with other mediums such as video and descriptive text. These models and drawings provide a means of sharing information and collaborative design which is at the core of the Open Source Ecology philosophy.
If you would like to help with the modeling and drafting, head over to the CAD Team page.
See a list of Development Processes for inspiration on how to improve the success rate of your projects.
Organizational infrastructure includes organizational form, organizational architecture, process design, operations management, product management, resource development, donor relations, human resources, handling of finances, transparency, conflict resolution, media development, public relations, and other tasks that allow the technical development to flow smoothly. We are presently installing all of this infrastructure. At present, we are working on becoming an NGO or nonprofit, and we are defining the organizational architecture. On the resource development front, our first step is to install an instance of CiviCRM to handle contacts. To get involved, first fill out the Team Culturing survey. Then email our Operations Manager or Resource Developer to get involved. You can read about 50/2/2, our GVCS Organizational Infrastructure that is being developed to make this happen, the GVCS Resource Development Strategy to support the Organizational Infrastructure, GVCS Web Strategy to facilitate development, GVCS Media Development Strategy to communicate the work, GVCS Forum Policy to handle entry-level discussion and to filter it into actual development progress, learn how to help OSE win Awards and Contests. What else is missing here?
Organic Farm Volunteers
Organic farm volunteers for facility management, and food, energy, and housing provision.
Is OSE still registered with WWOOF, etc.? Are there any differences in expectations for farm volunteers and those coming for month long project-based visits?
