What a fun day! I'm too tired to write anything up right now but I figured I'd set up this forum for everyone to say hi in case we want to get in touch with each other later.
Ill make the idea short and quick. Have a chicken tractor made out of recycled pallets mounted on two metal studs or 2 skis/snowboards (something that will slide on the grass easily). Have a timed Big Wheel (kids toy) or electric motor with wheels to move the tractor a certain amount a feet a day. You c=could also program it to move the tractor twice a day. To keep the battery charged if your super lazy you could always attach a mini solar panel to the Big Wheel. That would be your biggest expense.
To put some perspective on the scope that 3D printing will have on our lives, here's an article from The Economist discussing this third industrial revolution.
Here are a few points I found especially interesting in the article:
"The factory of the future will focus on mass customisation—and may look more like those weavers’ cottages than Ford’s assembly line."
I have the missing passport from Belgium! If you're looking for it give me a call at (802)233-5465! Rob
After our conversations this weekend, I was wondering if it might be appropriate to develop some primary tool goals (like low cost egg washers, root washers, combines, seed cleaners, cultivating tractors, flash freezers, or micro pasteurizers) with performance goals and as a community raise prizes for successful designs to give a little boost and some recognition to the folks out there who take on these important tasks. Prizes could be tools, food or other services if not cash.
Our aim is to improve the function, safety and durability, of the existing root washer tool we surveyed at the Farm Hack Intervale meet up. We would also like to reduce the up front cost. We were very lucky to have input from the farmers who use this washer on a regular basis and at high volume. The improvements we propose fit into a few basic categories.
Pedal Power and Micro Hydro
This is a quick summary of my talk and shop tour at the Farm Hack event Sunday April 29, 2012
Pedal Power Pedal power is useful for off-grid and small scale applications.
our website and video: Pedal Power Engineering also check out: Maya Pedal
I have a concern that too many conceptual posts, or documentation type posts may clutter the focus of the tool wiki listings. Once idea that might take advantage of the forum/wiki construct but not dilute the tool wiki listings would be to use floating wikis for business documents, and conceptual discussions. These wikis could be accessed through links in the forum, but would not be listed along with the tools. Right now, this is not much of a problem, but might be worth keeping in mind for later...
Perhaps we might create a wiki and forum category for business document creation and discussion. I seem to recall a few months ago that some urban farmers wanted to do something along these lines?
I started this Tool Wiki to explore the idea that financing and marketing methods are just as much a tool as contracts and shovels are. They are all required for the work that the farmer undertakes to be productive and sustainable. In several of the Farm Hack events this has been discussed, and so I thought I would push the concept along with a conceptual tool wiki approach. I think the repository of a working document will work better than keeping it just in the forum discussion. With the documentation in the wiki, the accumulated discussion can be kept up to date in one place.