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Author Topic: The Village Construction Set  (Read 8009 times)

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The Village Construction Set
« on: February 02, 2012, 12:20:20 pm »

GVCS Wiki

The Global Village Construction Set is a project to develop a set of easy-to-produce machines that can be used to not only make one another, but other modern tools and machines and can be bootstrapped from virtually nothing.

Going from raw iron extraction to modern solar power production up to vehicles and industrial robotics, the tool set is still in development but is provided open source.

It's a fascinating read, and in need of more people to help develop these tools.
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RedKing

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2012, 01:08:00 pm »

Real-life crafting Wiki FTW. Needs more weapons, though. Or *any* weapons. Otherwise their open-source, sustainable civilization is going to be plundered by the guy who remembered the Sharp Stick + Pointy Rock = I Drink Your Milkshake recipe.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2012, 01:21:41 pm »

Should've named it GECK.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2012, 01:34:17 pm »

A real life STC? Interesting.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2012, 01:39:58 pm »

Reminded so much of the Minecraft Industrialcraft mod by their charts. http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Product_Ecology
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RedKing

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2012, 01:45:47 pm »

I think it's an interesting approach that they're starting with some of the most complicated gear first, and then working backwards. Rather than "Hey, what can we build with this?" it's "Hey, what do we need to build this?"

Unfortunately, it means that the overall wiki is not that useful until they get fairly far back in the chain. If all I've got is a pointy rock and some animal hide, having the blueprints for an industrial robot is not helping.
« Last Edit: February 02, 2012, 01:53:22 pm by RedKing »
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2012, 01:48:26 pm »

Hey this IS pretty cool.  Thanks for the read.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2012, 02:02:15 pm »

Unfortunately, it means that the overall wiki is not that useful until they get fairly far back in the chain. If all I've got is a pointy rock and some animal hide, having the blueprints for an industrial robot is not helping.

It's an industrial robot! It's designed to gradually flatten this animal hide!

I'd like to see a beta community for this project. I think there's a few places where people have built some of the things, but having a community centered around building these things and developing new ones would be awesome.

In fact, I could see it being a kind of educational thing/time share. Some people I know would love to be a part of it, even if they aren't there all the time. They'd rent out cabins or houses in the area and participate for part of the year. Perhaps during the fall, you'd have an educational program where everyone from teenagers to engineering students to corporate teams in need of morale building come down and build stuff, operate the equipment, use the truck to bring in firewood, that sort of thing.

Using money made from the renters and guests, the community would get the outside stuff it needs and expand the materials it uses.

I could even see shorter events where people come in for a weekend and make, like, a flashlight out of raw ore and get to keep it.

I'm fantasizing now, but I'd put it some place in BC, Canada so you can bring people up from Seattle / west coast in general- lots of potential customers there. You'd get storms and limited sunlight, but I think that makes it a good place- harsh, but habitable. If the tools work there, they'll work most places.
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freeformschooler

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #8 on: February 02, 2012, 02:10:15 pm »

I'm still not completely sure: does or does this not require, in any point of the process, crude oil?

I'm assuming "no" after googling a lot of the parts. But, if the answer is "yes", that could create a sustainability problem as oil becomes scarcer.
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RedKing

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #9 on: February 02, 2012, 02:17:51 pm »

A DIY summer camp? Hells yeah, I'd be interested.

The more I think of this, the more I get a sort of Canticle for Leibowitz feel out of it. Now they just need to find a practical, survivable format for it. Sure, you could put the finished product on a solid-state drive, but that still trusts that there's some kind of compatible computer device (and electricity source) capable of reading it. Paper hard-copy would be too bulky and too perishable. Maybe some kind of intermediate form (laminated sheets?) specifically detailing the part of the chain needed to construct a basic electrical source and a barebones data reader/display, into which the solid-state drive is inserted. From there, you could access the rest of the Wiki.

It's an interesting thought experiment on how to bootstrap civilization.

@freeformschooler:
Looks like they're opting for petroleum alternatives (as evidenced by the bioplastic extruder, steam engine, etc.). Several items have "gasoline" as a prerequisite, but I'm thinking that as they develop backwards they'll try to find a non-petroleum substitute like ethyl alcohol, biodiesel, plant oils, etc.

If they can design a coconut oil-powered mechanical exoskeleton....they will officially be made of WIN.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #10 on: February 02, 2012, 02:25:15 pm »

Well, we'd have aluminum. The frame itself would be pretty easy... but the big problem would be a power source. Oil and advanced batteries are just so energy-dense, and even they are too heavy for power armor. You could have a big hydraulic pressure supply on the ground feeding your suit, I guess. I wonder how well hydrogen would work.

Microdots. You have the instructions needed to make a good microscope, then write the rest at very small scale engraved onto metal. It's all one sheet of metal.

But more effective than that is to keep a working community with this tech running. Then they can make working copies and distribute them.
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DJ

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #11 on: February 02, 2012, 02:25:39 pm »

Obviously, it must be chiselled unto stone tablets.
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2012, 02:27:53 pm »

A real life STC? Interesting.

My thoughts exactly :P

Though this is ubiquitously awesome.

I'm going to turn my toaster into a passenger jet everyone! Wish me luck! :D

RedKing

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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2012, 02:43:00 pm »

I'm going to turn my toaster into a passenger jet everyone! Wish me luck! :D

Funny you should mention that...considering the guy who built a toaster from scratch. As in, he smelted his own iron ore, hammered out the wiring, etc.

It was done more as a look at the fact that you can buy a toaster for about $10, but yet it's a device which is, in its own way, insanely complicated and requires a vast chain of infrastructure and specialized labor to produce. I do hope there's some kind of synergy that results, with "Toaster" being one of the items added to the wiki.  :D
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Re: The Village Construction Set
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2012, 03:14:16 pm »

I bet we could at very least make hydrogen balloons- just electrosis some water and make an envelope for the balloon itself. As for a heavier-than-air vehicle, that might be challenging, but not impossible.
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