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Extreme Access

to Economic Power

Extreme Manufacturing and Extreme Learning

(Towards Viral Replicability of Open Hardware)

by Marcin Jakubowski, Ph.D.

Open Source Ecology, Founder

Updated May 27, 2015

My goal is share with you the work we are doing on Open Source Hardware, and Extreme Access - lowering entry barriers to distributed production - and why it matters.

I will start with an introduction to our work - and our results of Extreme Manufacturing - which is essentially about efficient manufacturing on the quantity of one - and innovative social production models that OSE sees as gaining a significant share of the future economy.

I will start with my TED Talk, then move to our latest results - and share what we achieved to date - and why it is significant. Then I will go into what is required to reduce barriers to wealth access - addressing the Biggest Risk Facing the World today - the growing gap in wealth distribution (according to Davos 2014). We start with 4 minutes of my TED Talk.

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http://opensourceecology.org

facebook.com/OpenSourceEcology

marcin@opensourceecology.org

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My Story

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Milestones

By 2013, we prototyped 16 of the 50 machines, and as of beginning of 2015, we stand at a total of 110 machines, and 27 independent replications in 8 countries around the globe. One dozen of the replications is the CEB Press.

There were 6 major milestones in that Journey - here is the list and then examples.

First, we showed that they are replicable by independent people downloading our plans.

Second, we demonstrated that we can compress build time of one of our heavy machines - to One Day.

Third, we demonstrated radical modularity and part interchangeability.

Fourth, we have demonstrated that such modularity allows us to compress prototyping cycles from months - to days.

Fifth, we showed realtime documentation - an instructional published at the same time as the build - important because in most cases, people don’t go back to documentation - so you typically lose it unless you document in realtime.

Sixth, we have shown a swarming social production model of immersion educational workshops - Extreme Manufacturing - significant because we are reskilling people - as we build real product.

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25% Done

2015

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Replications

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2. One Day

To achieve a one day build - we used using a swarming build process - based on our modular design. We did this with the brick press. This is important because we have shown 2 main points: one - that serious manufacturing can be carried out in the framework of a fun and educational social production model - and 2: because the build is so efficient - we can hold immersion skills-training around such an event - allowing us to combine production and education into one. What we have learned to do is simply to adapt the production engineering such that the build time = total build time/ number of people - such that a 50 hour build time is more or less divided by the number of people participating.

On December 18, 2012 - we achieved a major achievement - and built the Liberator Brick press in one day.

The machine is fully automated with an arduino controller, and can produce up to 5000 bricks per day - enough for a small house. It costs $4k in materials, and the nearest competitor sells one of the same throughput for $52k. We pride ourselves as the simplest machine design of this sort in the world - with careful attention to ease of build.

Thus, One Day became our motto - an aspirational message - and a measure of efficiency.

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3. Radical Modularity

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4. Prototyping Cycle Reduced from Months to Days

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5. Real-Time Documentation

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6. Revenue Model: Extreme Manufacturing Workshops

Based on the 1 day build - we are transitioning now to a sustainable revenue model. It is the workshop production model - as an economically sustainable move forward based on open hardware.

This is important because this is a bootstrap approach that can scale the movement to many locations - as we intend to scale this work globally.

The economics work. The machine costs $4000-5000 in materials. We sell the machine for $10k, and the nearest competitor costs $52k. Tn our workshop last year, we make $5k from the sale, and $5k from tuitions - $10k net earned over a weekend.

We are taking these methods to Housing as well - showing that we can build a house on the time scale of a weekend. So far, it took us 5 days to build our 800 sf microhouse 4 addition - up to the roof and insulation. We did not finish the interior during that time - but we learned a lot as a proof of concept to see what is needed to achieve completion. We disovered that CEB by itself is difficult, so we intend to provide the house as a Product Service system - via our tractor + CEB press infrastructure and skill. It turns out that hybrid CEB - carpentry can be a highly replicable business model.

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Work Flow - Day 1 Bricklaying

D

14

W

Mixing Station

Bricklaying Calculations - 200 per person per day from MicroHouse 1 -> 22 people required. We have 28 allocated here, and 14 for the floor. 42 total + 6 on Quality Control and Documentation. Optional: if we are finished in less than

= tuck point

4 hours

= 8 brick layer

teams of 3

= brick carrier

Requirements:

3 water hoses
4 heavy duty drills, 4 backup
Bricks laid out on pallets prior to start
Electrical extension cords
200A breaker box will be available
Mortar
Buckets
Wall apertures: hydronic heating hole, outlet placeholders
Multiladders as scaffolding

= floor brick layer

note: brick carriers also mix mortar; 2 buckets per brick layer, so once one runs out, a second one is made available.

Refreshment Station

Tools,Safety, & Washing

including cleanup and classroom

Prep For Bricks

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Next: Extreme Swarming

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In short, there are several features of open source that make it suitable for sustainable and regenerative development - for which reason OSE’s goal is to create the open source, regenerative economy - because civilization has been effin’ up nature and people since the beginning of time. It would be better if we converted degeneration to regeneration. Simply put, we see the next economy as the distributive, open source economy. First there was silicon valley - it brought production to the world by creating terabyte chips and ubiquitous information access. The Second Silicon Valley is coming. First, Silicon Valley brings produciton. Next, Distributive Enterprise brings distribution.

Our funamental assumption is that educating people, and empowering people with the highest amount of skill and productive potential - is the best solution for many ills in the world.

Distribution of wealth, or poverty, is one of the most pressing global grand challenges remaining today. The 85 Richest People In The World Have As Much Wealth As The 3.5 Billion Poorest. This issue appears worth solving.

What is required to make distributed production happen, as opposed to the wealth disparity growing? The World Economic Forum has identified the Worsening Wealth Gap as Biggest Risk Facing the World in 2014 – among issues including extreme weather events, unemployment and fiscal crises. The Genuine Progress Indicator, a measurement which includes wealth distribution, is not improving.

OSE's mission is to create the open source economy. One important question that we ask is: “What does a business model for redistributing wealth look like?” We are developing what we call Distributive Enterprise. To explain - Open Source is not a business model. It is a development methodology. OSE likes open source because it promotes collaboration and solving complex problems faster than they are created. An open hardware business model has to be created on top of the open content. Standard business models of monopoly capitalism - which have been designed for secrecy - may not apply. A casual observer may conclude that 'open source business models do not work because standard models of monopoly capitalism cannot be applied readily'. This means that another mechanism instead of protectionism is required to make for a sustainable enterprise. That mechanism is based on removing artificial scarcity - the framework of the existing economy.

This involves the alleviation of poverty, and also alleviation of wealth.

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In short, there are several features of open source that make it suitable for sustainable and regenerative development - for which reason OSE’s goal is to create the open source, regenerative economy - because civilization has been effin’ up nature and people since the beginning of time. It would be better if we converted degeneration to regeneration. Simply put, we see the next economy as the distributive, open source economy. First there was silicon valley - it brought production to the world by creating terabyte chips and ubiquitous information access. The Second Silicon Valley is coming. First, Silicon Valley brings produciton. Next, Distributive Enterprise brings distribution.

Our funamental assumption is that educating people, and empowering people with the highest amount of skill and productive potential - is the best solution for many ills in the world.

Distribution of wealth, or poverty, is one of the most pressing global grand challenges remaining today. The 85 Richest People In The World Have As Much Wealth As The 3.5 Billion Poorest. This issue appears worth solving.

What is required to make distributed production happen, as opposed to the wealth disparity growing? The World Economic Forum has identified the Worsening Wealth Gap as Biggest Risk Facing the World in 2014 – among issues including extreme weather events, unemployment and fiscal crises. The Genuine Progress Indicator, a measurement which includes wealth distribution, is not improving.

OSE's mission is to create the open source economy. One important question that we ask is: “What does a business model for redistributing wealth look like?” We are developing what we call Distributive Enterprise. To explain - Open Source is not a business model. It is a development methodology. OSE likes open source because it promotes collaboration and solving complex problems faster than they are created. An open hardware business model has to be created on top of the open content. Standard business models of monopoly capitalism - which have been designed for secrecy - may not apply. A casual observer may conclude that 'open source business models do not work because standard models of monopoly capitalism cannot be applied readily'. This means that another mechanism instead of protectionism is required to make for a sustainable enterprise. That mechanism is based on removing artificial scarcity - the framework of the existing economy.

This involves the alleviation of poverty, and also alleviation of wealth.

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Technology has not delivered the promise of making life easier, as currently our work week is not shorter than the cave man’s - who lived at a lower level of technology.

From first principles - we need to start with the fact that good life is possible for all: the sun shines 10,000 times more power to the earth than all of humanity uses today - wastefully so.

But with the amazing productive power - we think that that we should be working maybe 25% of the time to make for a modern standard of living. I mean up to semiconductor production. Think of a combine reducing work by 1000. Say we need 10 areas to prosper: mining, agriculture, industry, construction, doctors, and teachers - that is about 10 people - than we should still be way ahead. Or even 100 people to meet our needs. Then our work week should still be 10x less than it is today.

We are at a unique point of history where production can so efficient that all vital needs of all indiv can be met so that the struggle for survival is no longer the primary motivation for all human action.At that point, we can transition to higher needs: autonomy, mastery, and purpose -

popularized by Daniel Pink in his TED Talk on the surprising science of motivation.

There is one great swindle that I must expose here - This is known as technological determinism - a popular myth which technology develops of its own will. More careful study reveals that social, political, and economic forces shape technology. The seminal book on flexible specialization - The Second Industrial Divide - has shown that centralization was just a path that developed via the dominant forces of the time - and that a much more decentralized industry - with more general purpose machinery and more highly skilled workers - as opposed to super-specialized machinery with a dumb work-force - could have occurred.

We also know that Small is Beautiful - Schumacher, and Small is Profitable - RMI. And we know that Gandhi bumped out the invading colonials, the British - by relocalzing textile production and shutting out the Engligh textile mills.

Thus the question emerges - what is the most appropriate scale for prosperity to happen?

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For the above to be any believable, one needs to experience production.

This is the theory behind powerful advanced modern tech, like 3D printers - are providing a compelling counter-experience to technical powerlessness to many people.

I certainly got a glimpse of my raw productive power when I built the first tractor. I admit that this is hard to communicate to someone who has not engaged in some form of direct production/creation.

That’s why the education part is crucial - as people take our workshops - they get transformed.

Is it useful that in the modern age, spending by Apple and Google on patents exceeds spending on research and development of new products?

Here's our model

In the business as usual case, the genalized model follows 2 main guidelines, summarized as: Guideline 1 - "Good artists create, great artists steal."

Picasso was apparently good at this.

The second guideline is - "The greatest artists prevent others from stealing." That is industry standard monopoly capitalism.

Jobs, for example, appeared to be good at that.

In the open source case, the first guideline still holds. The second guideline is "The greatest artists help others to steal." This means that we encourage others to rip us off - to replicate our enterprise, because it's good for the world. How do we stay in business?

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For the above to be any believable, one needs to experience production.

This is the theory behind powerful advanced modern tech, like 3D printers - are providing a compelling counter-experience to technical powerlessness to many people.

I certainly got a glimpse of my raw productive power when I built the first tractor. I admit that this is hard to communicate to someone who has not engaged in some form of direct production/creation.

That’s why the education part is crucial - as people take our workshops - they get transformed.

Is it useful that in the modern age, spending by Apple and Google on patents exceeds spending on research and development of new products?

Here's our model

In the business as usual case, the genalized model follows 2 main guidelines, summarized as: Guideline 1 - "Good artists create, great artists steal."

Picasso was apparently good at this.

The second guideline is - "The greatest artists prevent others from stealing." That is industry standard monopoly capitalism.

Jobs, for example, appeared to be good at that.

In the open source case, the first guideline still holds. The second guideline is "The greatest artists help others to steal." This means that we encourage others to rip us off - to replicate our enterprise, because it's good for the world. How do we stay in business?

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True Freedom

Because of my childhood - I never stopped thinking about the terrible things that happen when resources are scarce and people fight over opportunity.

My childhood memories, and my first hand experience in the Extreme Production milestones just mentioned - fuel my belief in Freedom. I believe that true freedom - the most essential type of freedom - starts with our individual ability to use natural resources to free ourselves from material constraints. The more tools we have for converting nature to life-giving resources - the more free we are - the more immune to financial or geopolitical manipulation. Our running assumption at OSE is that empowering people - through education - to distribute productivity as far and wide as possible - is the single most important key to freedom and prosperity worldwide.

The mental model for OSE is that the distributed approach - the approach of distributing power through open source design - is more effective than concentrating

We have seen Small is Beautiful by Schumacher in the 70s - and Small is Profitable by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Inst about 30 years later.

If centralized systems work, can a presperous smaller system be devivered?

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Because of my childhood - I never stopped thinking about the terrible things that happen when resources are scarce and people fight over opportunity.

My childhood memories, and my first hand experience in the Extreme Production milestones just mentioned - fuel my belief in Freedom. I believe that true freedom - the most essential type of freedom - starts with our individual ability to use natural resources to free ourselves from material constraints. The more tools we have for converting nature to life-giving resources - the more free we are - the more immune to financial or geopolitical manipulation. Our running assumption at OSE is that empowering people - through education - to distribute productivity as far and wide as possible - is the single most important key to freedom and prosperity worldwide.

The mental model for OSE is that the distributed approach - the approach of distributing power through open source design - is more effective than concentrating

We have seen Small is Beautiful by Schumacher in the 70s - and Small is Profitable by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Inst about 30 years later.

If centralized systems work, can a presperous smaller system be devivered?

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20 Year Goals

Development Method

Develop Community and Enterprise

Complete GVCS in 2-5 years

From completion of Development Method

10Y - first full OSE Campus

2-4 year College Equivalent
100-200 person model Learning Community which does everything that an advanced civilization does up to semiconductor production, but only from onsite energy and materials
Develop Replicability

20Y - OSE Campus - replication Phase

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OSE Development Method is Open on 3 Levels

Open Hardware
Open Enterprise
Open Organization

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Physical Production is 80% of the Economy

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