Open Hardware Design: 50 robust, efficient machines to make a farm or village and transcend artificial scarcity, and that's just the start of Marcin Jakubowski's vision

I've been reading through various versions of the Open Source Ecology website for several years previously known as openfarmtech.org.  My interest has been drawn to it repeatedly by my interest in compressed earth block construction. (The first machine they focused on is an open source compressed earth block machine.)  I seem to recall that I was intrigued but skeptical.  It sounded too ambitious to be true.  But it seems to be coming true, at least Chris Anderson, the curator for TED thinks so.

Marcin aims to create designs for fifty essential machines (apparently up from forty mentioned on one video). He intends the machines to be repairable, modular, robust, highly efficient, long lasting and cost much lower than other their closed source competitors. The machines are meant to be bolted together when possible so that they can be broken down for transport.

Among the fifty machines, those which have been at least been prototyped are a compressed earth block machine (the Liberator) , a drill press, a general power unit aka the Power Cube, a big tractor known as the Life Trac and a walk behind version called the Micro Trac, and a Torch Table a digitally controlled cutter for shaping metal.  Other machines including a sSawmill, an agricultural spader, a micro combine, a hammer mill, a well drilling rig, energy production devices, a lathe and bakery machinery are to come. This FAQ from their wiki is quite informative as is this brochure.

The designs are to be open sourced meaning that others can add to them and use them without payment, though the exact licensing terms haven't been worked out.  The intention is that people will be able to build modify and improve these devices for resale.  Though the designs will be open source, significant mechanical skills are required to create them just as substantial programming skills are required to work on open source programming projects.



Here is video that appears on the website which explains more about the Marcin's goals.  There are lots of other videos there, but this is one with much higher production values making it easier to watch.

Global Village Construction Set in 2 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.

Here is a 41 minute talk Marcin gave in San Francisco in July 2010 which conveys an even more expansive vision.

Marcin Jakubowski - part 1 from East Bay Pictures on Vimeo.