thumb|right|The 50 machines that compose the ''Global Village Construction Set'' Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a network of farmers, engineers, architects and supporters, whose main goal is the eventual manufacturing of the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). As described by Open Source Ecology "the GVCS is an open technological platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 types of industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts". Groups in Oberlin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and California are developing blueprints, and building prototypes in order to test them on the ''Factor e Farm'' in rural Missouri. 3D-Print.com reports that OSE has been experimenting with RepRap 3-D printers, as suggested by academics for sustainable development.


History

Marcin Jakubowski founded the group in 2003. In the final year of his doctoral thesis at the University of Wisconsin, he felt that his work was too closed off from the world's problems, and he wanted to go a different way. After graduation, he devoted himself entirely to OSE. OSE made it to the world stage in 2011 when Jakubowski presented his Global Village Construction Set TED Talk. Soon, the GVCS won Make magazine's Green Project Contest. The Internet blogs Gizmodo and Grist produced detailed features on OSE. Jakubowski has since become a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow (2012) and TED Senior Fellow (2012). In December 2013, Marcin married Catarina Mota. She co-chaired the Open Hardware Summit 2012, served on the board of directors of the Open Source Hardware Association, taught as an adjunct faculty member at ITP-NYU, and was a fellow of the National Science and Technology Foundation of Portugal. Catarina finished her PhD dissertation on the social impact of open and collaborative practices for the development of physical goods and technologies. She was a visiting scholar at ITP-NYU, Research Chair at the Open Source Hardware Association, TED Fellow, and member of NYC Resistor. Open Source Ecology is also developing in Europe as OSE Germany. This is an independent effort based on OSE's principles. In 2016, OSE and the Open Building Institute joined forces to make affordable, ecological housing widely accessible. The initiative has prototyped the Seed Eco-Home – a 1400 square foot home with the help of 50 people in a 5-day period – demonstrating that OSE's Extreme Manufacturing techniques can be apply to rapid swarm builds of large structures. Materials for the Seed Eco-Home cost around US$30,000. Further, OBI has prototyped the Aquaponic Greenhouse – which was also built in 5 days with 50 people.


Factor e Farm

The Factor e Farm is the headquarters where the machines are prototyped and tested. The farm also serves as a prototype. Using the Open Source Ecology principles, Marcin and Catarina have built four prototype modules which comprise their home. An added greenhouse demonstrates how a family can grow vegetables and fish. Outside, there is also a large garden including fruit trees.

Current progress

In 2020, OSE is planning its most ambitious collaborative design effort by hosting a
Incentive Challenge on the HeroX platform
– to produce a professional grade, open source, 3D printed cordless drill that can be manufactured in distributed locations around the world. This project is intended to provide a proof-of-concept for the efficiency of open source development applied to hardware – in addition to its proven success with software. This effort has been postponed due to COVID-19, and OSE has pivoted to a product release of the Seed Eco-Home in 2021 to address the need for affordable, ecological housing. In 2019, OSE updated its vision to ''collaborative design for a transparent and inclusive economy of abundance.'' This reflects a shift from ''open source'' to ''open source and collaborative design''. OSE began running it
Open Source Microfactory STEAM Camps
to emphasize the vision of collaborative design of real products. In 2018, the project achieve
33% completion
In 2014, 12 of the 50 machines were designed, blueprinted, and prototyped, with four of those reaching the documentation stage. On October 2011 a Kickstarter fundraising campaign collected US$63,573 for project expenses and the construction of a training facility. The project has been funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation and is a semifinalist in the Focus Forward Film Festival. File:Powercube v7 Assembly.ogv|Powercube v7 Assembly video File:Liberator Compressed Earth Brick Press v4 Assembly.ogv|Liberator Compressed Earth Brick Press v4 Assembly video File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Design Rationale.pdf|LifeTrac tractor – Design Rationale File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Fabricaion Manual.pdf|LifeTrac tractor – Fabrication Report File:Open Source Ecology - LifeTrac - Fabrication Drawings.pdf|LifeTrac tractor- Fabrication Drawings

Awards and recognition

* From 2012 to 2014, Dr. Jakubowski was awarded
Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship
* In 2011, the project won the Green Project Contest organized by ''Make'' magazine. * It was one of the 21 semi-finalists for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge, among 162 participants. *''TIME'' magazine rated OSE's Civilization Starter Kit as a top invention of the year 2012.


List of machines

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) comprises 50 industrial machines:

GVCS replication

The first time the Global Village Construction Set product was created by another group was in October, 2011; Jason Smith with James Slade and his organization Creation Flame developed a functioning open source CEB press. A group in Baltimore, Maryland, and a group in Dallas, Texas also began manufacturing GVCS machines.Other GVCS Replications
Accessed: 11/22/2011


See also

* 3D printing * Eco-cities * eXtreme Manufacturing * Fab lab * Free software * Ivan Illich – seminal figure in de-institutionalizing of education and appropriate modern technology * List of open-source hardware projects * Long Now Foundation * MakerBot * Open design * Open source * Open-source hardware * Open-source appropriate technology * Open-source movement * RepRap – a free and open-source software (FOSS) 3D printer * Sustainable city * ''The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch'' (book) * ''The Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs'' * Transition towns – a grassroots network of communities that are working to build resilience in response to peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.

References



External links


TED Talk on the Global Village Construction Set
*
Open Source Ecology: Wiki

Open Source Ecology: Blog

Open Source Ecology (OSE) Europe

NPR: Building A Village Starts With Building The Tractor

Bloomberg Businessweek:The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm
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