Open hardware in a connected world
A spotlight on Open Source Appliances for Sustainable Development, a 2018 Global Sprint project
Jose Carlos Urra Llanusa (@jurra) is an industrial and interaction designer, currently living in Delft. Vinay Bhajantri (@vinay_bhajantri) is an industrial designer with background in mechanical engineering. Together, Jose and Vinay were selected to join our current round of Mozilla Open Leaders for their work on Open Source Appliances for Sustainable Development.
I interviewed Jose & Vinay to learn more about Open Source Appliances for Sustainable Development and how you can help at the Mozilla’s Global Sprint 2018.
What is Open Source Appliances for Sustainable Development?
It is one of the open hardware projects of GO!Commons, an association of open source advocates and enthusiasts. For this project in particular we are exploring how far we can go in documenting open designs for appliances. It is an experimental project, with an underlying idea, to use the most powerful collaborative tools, widely used today in software, in the context of product and machine designs. This will empower users, fabricators and communities by distributing such designs, in a usable way.
Today this is not a fantasy or utopia. We are living in a new era of productive capacities and industrial revolutions. One of such revolutions is the peer-to-peer production tools, also referred to as distributed, decentralized and integrated global collaboration. This is also known or labeled as collaborative commons. The new peer-to-peer revolution and the collaborative commons can create impact in sustainable consumption, ecological and economic awareness, as well as in new ways of producing and distributing goods. It is already happening and we are just a tiny part of this new economic wave, that is just giving the first steps in the world of hardware.
Why did you start Open Source Appliances for Sustainable Development?
The idea came because we thought it would be great to start open source projects for consumer goods. We think it is important to distribute knowledge about how things work, to make users more responsible and aware of the impact behind the products they consume and buy. But also it can empower teachers, technicians, fixers, fabricators and entrepreneurs with new tools in a more participatory economy. Common resources, like design blueprints, can be a great tool for scholars, and students to learn different aspects of technology, etc. Another major reason is that one of our members has been involved in different open source projects and communities. These communities have been a major source of inspiration and experience to take the idea further, into a more open and distributed model.
Why are you starting with the Open Source Microwave?
We thought that a washing machine was too complicated to start. The microwave is a reference project to start working and understanding mainly how far we can go. It is a simpler machine, with less parts and less complexity (although is still dangerous). It also has properties that are similar to a washing machine, specifically the control module and user interface. We also got inspired by the pimicrowave project, and the potential of the internet of things, in equipments like microwaves, washing machines and ovens.
How are you working during the Sprint?
We will be mainly teaching people how to do open design, giving freedom for community members to create content, and making sure that they understand the relevance of quality standards to scale up the project. For us, the most important part right now is to get highly experienced in working and encouraging communities to use our workflow and documentation standards. We are focusing more on improving a decentralized open hardware workflow, since we felt this is lacking in the design and engineering context outside from software.
What challenges have you faced working on this project?
Understanding how we can make an impact, our limitations, as well as the pains that are currently in commons oriented projects. An interesting and more operational challenge has been to prepare the issues that are necessary to allow people to participate and help solving them. We use these issues as subproblems, and tasks that need to be solved. To do so we aim, to explain and visualize the steps to reach the result, as much as we can. Bigger challenges will come when a bigger number of contributors join the project, but also with the use of different file formats from diverse CAD tools.
What kind of skills do I need to help you?
Engineering skills of any domain: mechanical engineering, software engineering, electronic and electrical engineering, also testers.
Leadership, design and project management skills: this involves entrepreneurial background, but also communication skills, scrum and agile backgrounds.
Activist and event organizing skills: we need people that know how to run campaigns, use social media and is able as well to organize and run events.
Teaching skills: learning and helping others grow through community interaction is essential. Wikis, and issues must be documented so that people with non technical, or little technical background can start learning through contributions under responsible mentorship.
How can others join your project at #mozsprint 2018?
They do this by leaving comments on our main #mozsprint issue, and we will immediately incorporate them as contributors. The project for this #mozprint will have several tasks for contributors, so that they can jump in.
What meme or gif best represents your project?
GO!Commons and open source things (Engage in both paths to make it work)
Example of two machines below
Join us wherever you are May 10–11 at Mozilla’s Global Sprint to work on many amazing open projects! Join a diverse network of scientists, educators, artists, engineers and others in person and online to hack and build projects for a health Internet. Register today
