Maysville, MO (PRWEB) September 10, 2014 -- Open Source Ecology (OSE) is a 501(c) (3) organization that seeks to empower millions of people around the world by creating all the machinery and systems required to build a society from the ground up, while putting the costs within reach of the average person. In most cases, the costs of OSE’s machines are about 20% of similar machinery that is currently available off-shelf. Unlike the equipment available on the market today, the OSE machines are designed and built for a lifetime, by using commonly available parts, which may also be produced locally using the GVCS fabrication machinery.
OSE has been collaborating with leading design specialists in the alternative energy space for the last year in an effort to create one of the first energy self-sufficient micro houses of its kind. The organization plans to achieve this by using advanced solar technology that continually stores energy and then distributes it year round when needed. OSE is also collaborating with specialists that have created innovative energy conversion units that provide the electrical needs to power the micro-homes, which is fueled by inexpensive, locally sourced materials. OSE will employ a hydronic woodstove for additional heating needs for its next micro-house in their upcoming workshop. By using one or more of these technologies, outside energy requirements will be little to none.
Open Source Ecology’s next full immersion workshop will be from September 25th-30th 2014, where they will be employing their Extreme Manufacturing (XM) technique. This 5 day XM Micro-House workshop is intended for innovators and entrepreneurs who are interested in exploring the limits of XM for rapid building of environmentally friendly homes. OSE’s micro-houses utilize Compressed Earth Block (CEB) construction, which extracts much of the building material needed for the home from the site itself. Both XM & CEB construction methods make OSE’s Micro-Homes one of the most cost efficient and robust available. OSE continues to demonstrate that superior quality housing can be achieved, while maintaining expenditures to only a fraction of conventional construction methods.
“Our vision is to provide high quality homes that the average person can afford, avoiding burdensome mortgage payments. Imagine a world with little to no mortgage/rent or utility costs—we see this as a significant step towards personal freedom” —Marcin Jakubowski, OSE Founder
OSE’s goal is to reduce the duration of construction by a factor of 20 compared to industry standards, at ⅓ the cost of conventional housing. The XM design process involves a rapid parallel swarm workflow with 48 people using simple-to-follow documentation created with Agile and Waterfall methods prior to build. The Micro-House XM 4 design is built on the experience of the last 3 iterations to produce the most ambitious – level of completion – build of a 762 sf home using test-driven open source techniques and equipment.
OSE was founded in 2003 by Marcin Jakubowski Ph.D. Since its inception, the organization has grown into one of the premier open source hardware groups, replete with a committed support system which grows larger by the day. OSE is one of the first companies of its kind to successfully apply the open source software model to hardware.
OSE strongly believes that by publishing and sharing all of its material, several positive effects are produced: Open source lets anyone and everyone contribute to the advancement of a concept, directing more brainpower to accelerate innovation on any specific challenge. When using this method, competitive waste is replaced with collaboration, which can lead to superior results. Open source also circumvents our inefficient distribution system. By providing online access to simple, easy to follow plans for DIY machinery that could be made locally, the need for shipping is greatly reduced.
OSE conducts many workshops throughout the year where people come from all over to learn the required skills to start their own GVCS enterprises. OSE is seeking qualified leaders to run workshops at the OSE headquarters and at other locations. Please see http://bit.ly/1lHE2fw for more information on the workshops.
Dr. Marcin Jakubowski, Open Source Ecology, http://opensourceecology.org, +1 816-646-3968, [email protected]
SOURCE Open Source Ecology
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