New member? Post here.

[Alastair]

If you're joining the group (or even if you have been around a while!), please feel free to post below to just introduce yourself, what you're interested in, your background / skills, what you're working on etc, with any files, links you want.

[Will Newby]

Hey Group,

My name is Will Newby. I'm a devops engineer/programmer (day job) and entrepreneur ( I founded and run https://open-dance.net + https://open-reg.net with a partner, nights and weekends. ) in Chicago. My skills are mainly in systems administration and PHP programming, but I love architecting new applications. I was brought to the WikiHouse project by watching the TED talk given by Alastair. 

I'm interested in building the "Data Warehouse" for the "Wikipedia of Things" that Alastair mentioned. Here's my idea: use GitHub to store the data (plans, revisions, etc) and build a searchable index of these projects. We could build the index as a GAE App and make it query GitHub for raw data. I'll open a new thread with the full idea and we can discuss it there.

Cheers!

Will

[Chris Musselle]

Hi 

I'm Chris, an enthusiastic supporter of Wikihouse based in Bristol in the UK who's been following progress for a while now since I heard about it on a blog post by the Open Source Ecology guys. More recently though, I have decided to help out in developing the SketchUp Wikihouse Extension in my spare time.

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, with a background in mathematics and computer science. My primary skills are Python programming, data analysis, machine learning and statistics, though I have recently brought myself up to speed with Ruby and the SketchUp API, JavaScript and HTML, so as to help out with the development of the plugin. 

I am currently working on the following: 

• General improvements to the usability of the Wikihouse plugin. 
• Automatically nesting the parts onto cutting templates. 
• Generating dxf and G-code outputs for the cutting templates.

I still have a way to go with each of these, so if anyone would like to lend a hand with the coding that would be great. Feel free to drop me an email!

The most current development version of the plugin can be found at: https://github.com/MrKriss/wikihouse-plugin/archive/Dev.zip

Cheers

Chris

[Antonio Martin]

Hello everyone,

 

My name is Antonio Martin.  I have a budget and finance background, an MPA and MCRP.  What I would like to bring to the group is integration of earth ship and traditional building technologies into the designs being developed.  This project is exciting as it can assist in the development of community and sustainable urban and rural development.  A goal I would like to assist with would be to prepare grant proposals in order to make this project a reality.  Perhaps with a little luck and effort submit a design of my own.  I am honored and privileged to be part of a group of designers that is building the new future of design.

 

[Tom Kluyskens]

Hello all,

I'm Tom, legal alien in New Zealand, and founder of Made on Jupiter, a startup forged in the visual effects industry.  We are using digital movie, web and games technology to catalyse the democratisation of production, mass customisation, and the personal manufacturing revolution.

A few weeks ago, we were approached by the Christchurch WikiHouse team, who were intrigued by Spoke Creator, our browser-based parametric modeler.  Further conversations seem to indicate we might be a match made in heaven...

We have been looking to connect our efforts to a worthy greater good project, and Spoke Creator could very well be the comprehensive solution to software limitations currently faced by WikiHouse.

Needless to say, we are pretty excited about the opportunity to collaborate.

[Vincent van den Eijkel]

Hey Alastair and everbody else!

I'm a developer and sysadmin (fulltime job, every day) and entrepreneur (most nights). My current (night-)project is a organic food delivery service in Freiburg (south germany). Since a few days I'm also owner of a RepRap 3D Printer. 

The Startup I'm working for is located at the betahaus berlin (http://betahaus.de/) which is an co-working space with a "open design city".

I've planned to move to a shipping cointainer-house, while searching different Ideas and existing projects I found WikiHouse, which is much more interesting than a container :)

My english is'nt very well, but I hope everybody understands me...

I'm looking forward to work together!

Greets from Berlin, Germany,

Vincent.

[ore...@fufurasu.org]

Hello all,

My name is Orestes, based in London. I have a little experience with stochastic algorithms (see here) so I'm hoping I could contribute something towards an improved nesting implementation.

In my other life I teach architecture and point cameras at people.

Fufurasu.org

We own cameras!

Nice to be part of this!

Orestes

[nick godfrey]

Hello everyone. This is Nicholas Godfrey and my background is based more on the physical fabrication side of things. I have no formal training or background in CAD/CAM software and the little bit that I do know was picked up out of necessity. I am thankful to be a part of this group and want to learn more and grow in this, the software, aspect of digital fabrication. Once again, thank you for having me here.

Nicholas

[Brian Korsedal]

Hey,

I'm a retired computer chip engineer / physicists.  I've been working on computer generated architecture for about five years.  I'm doing a startup based around a structure printer which calculates out a steel spaceframe to match any input shape.  We think we can do warehouse sized objects right now.  We just got the frames figured out in the last few days.... I think.... it's a work in progress.  I really hope to collaborate with you guys.  My company is for profit because I feel that if I can't feed myself, I can't feed the world.  But I'm pro-singularity and post scarcity era.  So when things start to pick up I'll probably open source it all.  That's the eventual goal.  I have a lot of pictures to describe my journey here so I put them together in a PDF along with a bunch of text.  It's a good read if you are interested. 

I think I can lend a lot of experience with compiling shapes into parts and then autogenerating the g-code to cut those parts out of plywood.  I've done three compilers to do this type of work so far.  One for a 3-axis plywood CNC machine, one for a CNC plasma cutter and I'm working on one for a plasma tube cutter.  One place I'd love to collaborate is computer generated shelves, cabinetry and other accessories.  Perhaps even interior walls.  I haven't figured out a good solution for interior walls yet.  I have the outside shells figured out and coded.  I have the floors figured out and not coded.  Interior walls I'm drawing a blank.

I'm also buying some land near Crestone, CO, USA.  I'm buying in a location without any building codes so it's pure freedom and no oversight.  I might be buying as much as 308 acres.  There is a plot of land that big the owner is willing to finance.  It's a bit overkill, but it would be an epic development.  Especially if we cover it with huge mega buildings.  I have a 3D scanner working.  I might mount it on a quadcopter and just scan the terrain in.  We will see.  I have to sell a house to pay for all this.  Anyone from the Wikihouse team is welcome to collocate with us.  The more the merrier.

I'll include an example of what our software can do.  Go to sketchfab to see the 3D model.

https://sketchfab.com/show/2INbmmj5mVsHCpaqYcWW2o3DAs2

If we get some crowdsourced funding we might make a freeware/donation supported version of our app for the 3rd world countries.  These things can be built with a chopsaw, a vice and a metal stamping machine.  Our metal stamping machine is an ancient breed from the early 1900's.  So the construction method is low tech.

[hannalie malan]

Hi my name is Hannalie Malan

I am an architect living in Cape Town, South Africa. I am extremely interested in working together with NGO's and other relevant projects to introduce the WikiHouse project to South Africa, in a way that speaks to our informal housing -urban -and infrastructural issues in the townships on a community-ownership based level.

This project takes the idea of participatory architecture to the next level, which is exactly what is necessary.

[isabel...@rwth-aachen.de]

Hello,

my name is Isabel Nolte. I´m an architecture student at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. This semester I do my Master's thesis at the chair of CAAD under supervision of Professor Peter Russell. My project is to design working spaces for students using the WikiHouse construction system. The WikiHouse-WorkingSpace shall be comfortably habitable, energy self-sufficient (off-the-grid) and still easy to assemble.

I´ve no software-engineering background. I´m joining this community mostly to find information and ask questions. :-)

First: I´m not able to use the plug-in. Brad, from WikiHouseDetroit, suggested to use the old version sketch-up 8.0.0, and he suggested to asked you, Alastair, for dxf-files of sheet layouts. I would like to start with the WikiHouse calibration test to make a first try with the CNC-router from our faculty.

Looking forward to be part of WikiHouse.

Best regards

On Sunday, May 26, 2013 12:00:50 AM UTC+2, Alastair wrote:

[Brett Elmendorf]

Greetings from Texas. I'm Brett. I'm with a software company in ruby that has a CNC router in the back. 

We've passed the Calibration Test and have been cutting a test floor section of the SketchUp Maker Faire Pavilion for the last week. Everything is going so well that we're cutting a full height section next. Our goal is to see if we can use the structures as  rooms in a new workspace.

We're using SketchUp Pro 2013, Illustrator CS6, and VCarve Pro - ShopBot Edition.

We ran into problems with the Wikihouse Plugin so for a workaround we turned down the minimum area constraint (1412: if area1 < 0) to export the smaller parts like the C-shaped lock.

The SketchUp MakerFaire model has some small issues. The floor fin slots have surfaces that prevent them from being exported.

Other than that, we have no idea what we are doing but having a great time figuring it out as we go.

Thanks for all your effort on WikiHouse. 

Build on.

[Steve Baker]

Hi!

I'm Steve Baker and I work with my wife to build 1:60 and 1:120 scale model buildings (and also, ships, vehicles, etc) for table-top gamers.  We use 3mm plywood and a laser cutter - but our problems are really no different from WikiHouse - it's just a matter of scale!

   http://RenaissanceMiniatures.com

I'm a software engineer by training - so I'm happiest in C++, but can get by in most other languages.  Our business uses only OpenSource software and OpenHardware machine tools.  We have two 'lasersaur' laser cutters and a couple of 3D printers - a CNC machine is likely to figure in our near future.

We use Inkscape for all of our CAD work - the end result is a bunch of cut paths that get sent to our two Lasersaur laser cutters.

A major issue for us has been version control and browsing design files.  GitHub handles version control beautifully - but totally sucks at the browsing part of the problem.

Unlike WikiHouse, we have THOUSANDS of design files - so organization and browsing becomes a major issue for us.

So we dropped Git and ended up using MediaWiki (just like Wikipedia!) - it has basic version control built in - and handles SVG files fantastically.  The idea of having attached "talk" pages for discussion of every design and text annotations for each version is great.   The "Category" system handles organizing files in a heirarchy of categories with each design or category being able to be a member of multiple 'parent' categories makes organization a snap.  Everything is web-based, so we can access our designs from anywhere on any kind of machine.

A good solution for the 'nesting' problem would be of great interest to us.

Seems like there is a lot of interesting synergy here - so I plan to lurk and see where I can help - and what ideas I can use in our business.

  -- Steve

On Saturday, May 25, 2013 5:00:50 PM UTC-5, Alastair wrote:

[David Flores]

Hey :) I`m David Flores from switzerland. I come form the architecture sector.

We wont to make Wikihouses for the Swiss Alpine Climate and Open Source Buildings for the future!

http://www.fleeds.ch/

http://fleeds.ch/portfolio/opensource-standard-house/

regards David

Am Sonntag, 26. Mai 2013 00:00:50 UTC+2 schrieb Alastair:

[Max Hegedus]

Hello everybody!

I watched a TED talk about WikiHouse yesterday and decided I needed to check this out.  I'm a Civil / Structural Engineer, currently working at an Assembly Yard for the new Tappan Zee Bridge.  My experience with improving the design process while preparing for construction has a lot of similarities to what is being done in this group.  I'd like to work on my own project, while specifically looking at expanding the structural limitations of a WikiHouse.  I'm also interested in figuring out how to advance the feasibility of WikiHouse construction while still working within the boundaries of current zoning and building regulations.  I hope to learn more about this project as a whole, help build upon the progress that has been made thus far, and possibly build a WikiHouse of my own.

- Max