Open Source Ecology HeroX, 16 Sep 2017

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From YouTube: OSE + HeroX 2: Towards an Open Source Microfactory Challenge

Description

These are notes from a second meeting with HeroX.

Notes at http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_HeroX_-_The_Open_Source_Microfactory_Challenge
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A

um I've got a working document for you to take a look at and I've done a little bit of thinking about this. So do we want to go basically through the you want me to go through an overview of what I'm thinking and then start with an overview and then go through some of the details. Or do you have an agenda for today like how we should pursue this meeting.

B

To jump right into the concepts of anything you want to chat about in terms of your thoughts, um what I look like? Okay,.

A

No I, don't really have any questions right now. I think I kind of studied it enough a bit to kind of understand enough about it. I think the Devils in the details, as far as the parameters of the design, so I think we can go right into that yeah. Do you have any questions or anything er? No.

B

We're just excited to see what you've dreamed up since we last spoke. Okay,.

A

So let's do it, would you mind taking a look at that document? Are you in there already.

B

A

Excellent excellent, so so the concept is won't. Look at the document right now, just go through a brief overview. Learn going into some of the details is detailed in the document, but the idea is: we've got, let's start with some small project like a cordless drill, construction set an open hardware project that would involve a lot of people. It would produce a really tangible, valuable product, so right now I'm thinking so I'm, thinking of framing it around the open source, microfactory challenge, but with a very tangible product up front.

A

But the challenge does include that micro factory aspect in the sense that we're building in the capacity to produce this item that we're designing so part of the challenge is that we developed some of the Production Engineering and on a small scale that is 3d printers some jigs hand tools as well as a CNC circuit mill, because that's what it would go into a a cordless drill. So I was thinking too from dad go-to because we want to go on a construction set approach.

A

We designed the drill as a very highly modular item, so you can break it down like just like you mentioned last time into modules, to make this tangible and parallel able and get a lot of mileage out of the design process and then so on one level, it's the technology aspect, but there's several levels. The other other part is spawning design challenge capacity out of this as well. So that say, we develop in the first part of the project.

A

We develop the actual, cordless drill and we're talking about industrial grade quality, and that's why I actually wanted to do a pretty big reward, because we're not talking about some. You know something that you just make on a couple of weekends and it breaks after a little while I'm talking about a real industrial tool that can be done by open source, 3d, printing and, of course, you're gonna source, some parts off the shelf, but the goal would be to go as much into the distributed manufacturing capacity as possible.

A

Now why a cordless drill, a cordless drill, is a billion-dollar market in the United States alone. So I looked at some of those numbers: black &, decker I think is the leader, but altogether it's a billion dollar market annually and if the US is a quarter of the world GDP, let's assume a four billion dollar market worldwide per year and the big item that this addresses is the throwaway nature of these things. So personally from our history, here we do extreme manufacturing workshops. We run workshops where we build stuff.

A

We build houses, we build tractors, we build 3d printers, then a workshop setting where we build those in a day or a weekend and I can tell you right now that we go through a lot of cordless drills. They get banged up, they just break. We you know we we have to get like 12 new, cordless drills a year. You know things like that, so you know there's some costs. You say 500 bucks a year right there, but for any contractor or anyone who actually understands this.

A

They know that you go through tools like like crazy. Even the super high quality ones in there you're expected a few years of lifetime. Then you throw them away because one part breaks and you cannot really fix so by doing the open source design we're promoting this environmentalism like a tenfold efficiency increase in material productivity, because you can always replace or remake a part yourself or from from easily accessible parts. So that's the motivation for the cordless drill. It's a very tangible thing. It applies the craze of 3d printing, that's quite current.

A

It could get into materials like rubber and plastic, not metal, but just basic 3d, printing and I was thinking that in the second phase of this we would spawn this as a because we're designing this. As a Construction Set, like you got a battery pack, you got a body, you got a motor you've got a tool head, you've got the gear mechanism, you got a clutch, etc. You got the switch. You got a battery charger. All those are modules, so think about a universal, cordless tool, Construction Set, where we then can talk about okay.

A

Well, what about putting on a different head? Can we make this into a reciprocating saw? Can we make it into a circular saw just like there's some power tools that are kind of like that right now, but I was thinking that in the first phase, the first six months, we would do the cordless drill itself and then branch out or or even in parallel, spawn it that we're saying. Okay.

A

Now we can do all the other tool heads you know, maybe even like a mini lathe, a little bandsaw R, various things that are common as power tools. So with that we can involve like I like the first robotics model, where basically get a bunch of kids together and they they do challenges to build robots. Well here we could do something like that, where, if we have the basic Construction Set defined, then we can have challenges. Okay, build a crazy but functional power tool.

A

You know things like that, so we can actually add that next level to a first robotic, like program or robotic FIRST Robotics, for example, is education. In this example, we can actually have education and real production, so real innovation on real, tangible goods. So the first part is the technology, but the other parts are then documentation, teaching and entrepreneurship.

A

So at the end of the day, is what I to see this this do is spawn. A lot of small enterprises like every city can makes it make its own cordless power tools. You know, so that would be the idea for down the road, but we want to in open-source. We want to see this as a real good example of what the open-source innovation can do, that it's absolutely crazy open-source, but all these small enterprises can can arise from this because of the economic value of the product. So does that make sense?

A

Do you have any questions at this point or yeah.

B

That makes sense, it seems, like you, chose to dive right into a big project first and starting with something more like a story, challenge or sort of inspirational, smaller challenge.

A

It could be that we can phase it. It depends how we phase the sound, because I told you kind of the the picture, the overall picture, but then, let's maybe go to the slides I, want to show you a couple of things like, for example, water. Okay, let's, let's go to a couple of slides and I'll answer your question. So here's the page two shows the modules themselves. That's a simple, simple idea: let's see the one I wanted to share is how do you phase this out?

A

In particular, can we phase this out such that? Let me see, there's a slide. I had about collaboration goals. Where is that.

A

Look at the crowd sourcing on Slate slide, 5. What? If we open this up, as we can crowdsource a bunch of the initial stuff like what are the power tools we wanna? We want to develop what are what's even the software, the open source software that we use to do the design work, but we can involve the audiences up front, saying: ok! Well, what are what are all the tools we want to develop in this challenge itself, because we're gonna say this is a Construction Set.

A

But what exactly are the tools that we're after and we can? We can get some engagement from that part. Whereas say somebody has a pet peeve on a tiny bandsaw that they always wanted to have, but doesn't really exist.

A

Yet we could leverage a lot of interest from all kinds of different people, so, on the crowdsourcing part, we can do some other things like also funding crowd, funding the the seed money and stuff and even up to like I, would see a process manager managing this project that hopefully we can possibly hire one from the proceeds, but I think. The answer to your question is that we can start small by saying. Ok, this phase, we just select the tools that we want, and maybe I don't even know, if there's a prize attached to that.

A

That could be just crowdsourcing upfront. But let me just cover one more thing, so the other thing is as far as the money aspect, I think I could, probably, within a month time frame gather a hundred K from interested parties who are in an open-source community already who are excited by this kind of a concept.

A

Ok, we're using open source we're using open source, 3d printing, so in particular like Lowe's bought Jack mall Co talked to him about this idea of the the cordless power tool and he said yeah I'll, throw down ten K for that, so get like 10 10, 10 people at 10, K start that and then second, let's crowdsource more so open it up to the public saying.

A

Ok, this is our project now and then hopefully, get I would try to pursue corporate matching like they would match in a in my write-up, I I said five to one. That's realistic, but I mean if we're gonna do something. That's actually professional-grade like real quality, stuff I. Think, let's just go big but I mean so tell me what you think.

A

B

It looks like it might be the crowdsourcing 5 room. You know that might be almost a couple years of work for house yeah.

A

Yeah, as far as getting to the level of we're actually saying, we've got this million bucks.

B

Finding the funding rolling that over to the next challenge, which doing the bigger project about the drill that might need to be open for 16 months itself, pieces and parts.

A

Just they'd start to add up after they do you've got.

B

The the big plan laid out, but you know just in terms of seeing how crowdsourcing sort of a platform like hero, X works, I think that yeah, as you said, the Devils in the details and I would just sort of you've got a really great organization here, but I'd say work on the details for those up front to get any parts. Okay,.

A

B

Before you get too many details down the road right, because you don't know what you're gonna learn and asking people what tools they want mm-hmm, you know. Maybe you know you've identified, that the drill is an awesome target, but maybe other people really want something different.

A

B

That change what you do with the drill or sticking with that. You know what I mean like this is an example of how learning something in the first phase might change what yeah.

A

I mean one thing to go at would be so that's the overall program, but I mean I would just say what is the difference between how we're meeting our needs versus the needs of the community I think we definitely would like a cordless drill. Do you think we can just say okay phase one next, you know next one year or six, you know six, maybe six months of prep ins and spawn it and like say six months from now and run that challenge for next good six months or something, but can we?

A

What would you think about just saying? Okay right now, we're gonna do the cordless drill and then worry about the other tools later. Yes,.

B

I mean that's a great crinkle I mean you've got the use case for the gyro. You've got the market identified, it's a great project for sure in terms of the phasing for seeking funding for that kind of project, I think my recommendation would be to get the details up on the Kara website and have a pre-registration page where.

A

You start collecting.

B

People and showing people that site circulating it and using that as your framework to ask people for for the funds, for it to say, everything's all ready to go. This is what it looks like you can get input on it on the design and and what people think you should be asking for, and I think I'll be able to powerful to really show people the tangible competition.

A

Okay, so I'm starting slide number two. So let's talk about rollout thence, okay, so post on hero, X and then what would we post on hero X at the initial point, so we say: cordless drill, here's some of the properties we're looking at and then use that so is step number two to use that to get the hundred K or do the hundred K before that have a phase in the background which is just well, it seems like post on he rocks first and then use that as basis for.

B

A

So use that as a basis for the ten times ten K and then would you agree that so so what do you think about the idea of then opening it up to so so I mentioned open it up to crowdfunding and then based on steps one through three.

A

Go to Matt go to corporate sponsors, say. Does that make sense or what would you say.

B

Yeah, for sure I mean you might consider going to corporate sponsors independent of two and three and just treat them. As you know, part of the funding I mean it might not be matching. Maybe they have some other interest in it.

B

Yeah I think that the approach there would just be to engage them as quickly as possible, and it's matching and something they're interested in. Then you can come back to them later and they're willing to put up money without matching and.

A

A

Okay, so when we go to the say, the corporate sponsors I know I how I can pitch to say the open source hardware community, you know I just tell the same old same old and they like they, like the I, think you know an open source hardware community. They already understand the vision of open source and potential development potential leverage of that development method. What would I say to the corporate sponsors at that point, so we're saying we're currently raising a hundred K for this challenge.

A

I mean what would you say at that point, I mean and do you think what do you think of the magnitude of the funding like 100 K and then going up to a million? You? Do you think, that's realistic? Should we go for that.

B

It's hard to say.

B

So you're thinking for the the drill project that that one person or one team would come up with the whole integrated design or you would have separate competitions for different modules. Sort of how do you think about phasing? Just the drill project itself, yeah.

A

Yeah, so, okay, so the notes on that are there's for the drill. The basic idea is to, of course, break it into modules, define so in any kind of a parallel design problem. You want to define the interfaces clearly. So we can say here: are the interfaces now design the parts that go in between us there's like eight interfaces? For if you look at the simple diagram of a cordless drill, there's like eight interfaces in there we can say basis. We provide up front the requirements and specs, including the performance specifications like, for example.

A

This thing needs to drain its entire battery without overheating, or it has to drill 200 holes through wood, with a half inch bit etc, like like various basic performance, specifications, weight, size, power, battery life, etc. We at in parallel. We just start everything.

A

We say: okay design, all the modules everyone works on the modules, but the idea there I'd like to push the idea of collaborative development, which means we say start either like on hero X or on our wiki start year, log, which would include a development template, basically, where we have all the different development steps that you need to go through to do a complete product I'd also like to have.

A

We can generate a burndown graph for that, so everyone would have that I would actually like to see if people can keep their hours on their log and just daily log of what they're doing so that they, the rewards, are given on based based on how much they document.

A

So if people are documenting, if somebody else picks up their design, which will be in CAD an open-source CAD, then they actually get points not only if they actually make a design, but also if someone else uses their design component or something like that, so so make it make sure that and their reward structure I think that's gonna be one of the not the rewards structure but the the judging of it. That's that's very tricky, I mean because how do you track?

A

You can never really track contributions accurately when there's so many people contributing I was thinking. We can simplify that by having the judgment be based on not the fact that you do design design couldn't get some contribution, some value in points, but the bigger value would be okay, here's a prototype, here's what works so say somebody, you know somebody's just a designer.

A

Well, they have to get together with someone who's a 3d printer or something they actually have to step up to that physical challenge, and that's why I actually wanted to raise the price up pretty high so that you know people are motivated, even though you guys say that. Well, it's not really the monetary award. It's the other types of rewards that play in here, but but what I would see happening is that we might have some kind of a grand prize we might have like 20 small prizes.

A

You know maybe like do like a a grand prize. You know top three and then maybe 20 of the top top 20 contributors, people who have contributed types of a design so forth and then maybe just the rest would just a bunch of small prizes like a thousand dollars. If some requirement today they got a sufficient number of points. According to our requirements, which once again Devils in the details, I think that's gonna, be the hard part of actually there's designing. How you're rewarding points because I mean I think that's that's, of course, very tricky.

A

B

It's gonna be really important. Yeah.

A

B

Know, in order to be most likely to win you're gonna have to do you know, post to the wiki post this, but also contribute so much to design mm-hmm.

A

Yeah yeah, so we would reward people based on not only designed but documentation since the end goal is documenting up to be able enterprise. So we always talk about distributed enterprise that we actually make it easy for. Somebody to run a business like that, and what I like to see on our side is that we generate the full documentation necessary to train somebody to do this as as a business.

A

So all that documentation would be very important for those subsequent phases which would be about entrepreneurship, training with this and the potential design contests, where we're linking the the design and real production in one as part of kind of reinventing education wherever that may be applicable. But how do we work.

B

A

B

Little bit about the interfaces itself, are you gonna, pre design? Some of those interfaces are those gonna be set out for people. We.

A

Can make basics specification requirements? We would do some design on that enough that it's constrained enough, but perhaps not over constrained. So we might say the battery has to connect to the handle using this square plug shape. That's so forth, we might not give the everything we might give will give enough to be sufficient and interoperable so that somebody can design the handle, for example, independently, because they, even if the battery pack wasn't designed yet we this next person can go independently because the interfaces are designed.

A

So there's no bottleneck in the overall design process and also one big thing that I think would be really valuable. Is the open source 3d printed motor like if you look at the link that those actually exist but they're not open source? Let's see just to show you how incredible some of this content out there already is.

A

Where was that thing.

A

Yes, that's the priority. That's that's! Pretty cool like that kind of stuff were where were focusing on like the reward specification would be you get good points for making it a scalable construction set kind of a design like. So, if you do the design, an electric motor, you also produce information.

A

Okay, how would you make it a little bigger or how do you make it a little different shape so that so that people will be rewarded on how much documentation about the design rationale they provide such that we're creating a true Construction Set, with ambitious goal being that like? If this is done properly, I mean. Can this? How much can this impact actually transform an industry? You know?

A

That's, that's always the question, because I don't think we have really seen any great examples of open source, just diffusing so widely I mean, except, of course, for the 3d printer. You can. You can say the 3d printer is somewhat of a success story of open-source because all the companies today that the major companies of today are based on an open-source RepRap project and one of the leading companies lulzbot that I, like is also a fastest growing computer company in the United States.

A

So so there is some some case to be made that open-source has dominated an industry completely outside, of course, for the MakerBot enclosure when they went proprietor out of you, I, don't know if you've heard about MakerBot that they were based on an open-source project and they closed it up. But you can say for all practical considerations: the entire consumer 3d printer industry been started through an open-source project, so this would be an example. We can show that and make it more visible, even where we see okay.

A

Now, all these open-source modular power tools are coming out there and they're becoming the norm. Just like the open source, 3d printer kind of normalized or spread the 3d printing to the masses. Pretty much so I think that potential there is great, but to make it really succeed, we have to just provide like really quality documentation, so I think I think we can do a lot of breakdown. Okay, one is the modules that we can say.

A

People are competing for, but also other parts would be various pieces of documentation like all the jigs that are involved. So I could see like right now pretty much easily like 20 or so modules that we're designing for and I mean that's a significant amount right there. That could be a so I'm, considering like a grand prize and then a bunch of smaller prizes. But that's that's, of course, up for debate as we get this go back.

B

A collaborative design first.

A

B

Picking amongst the best of a number of different ideas and then like open sourcing, the integration.

A

So right, yeah it'll be nice that what do you think is the best idea there cuz, it seems like I mean just both levels. One is the individual modules. Two, as the integration I mean. Do you think there's a strategic point to take to consider how we do that? What are your thoughts on that.

B

So there's risks both direction, I mean. If you say you know, we want the best design for the body handle great. That person probably isn't the person who's gonna have the skills and know-how for maybe the battery pack construction like.

A

B

Know the ergonomics of holding the handle is totally different than the electricity of the battery pack mm-hmm right.

A

B

So how do you get the person with the ergonomic design or together with the person with the electricity design, and how do you get other people's input on the designs without sort of.

B

Ruining the best ideas.

A

B

Do you take you, take 20 different ideas for a little desk, handle design, move and then pick the best one and then say this is the handle design that we're moving forward with an open source that is the winner and then you start building from there or do you ask everybody to collaborate on what the handle design looks like.

A

We'd want to create the incentive structure for collaboration. That's there'll be the ideal setting.

A

Are you suggesting that it's it's one way versus the other? Is harder or they're both equally challenging they're.

B

Both equally challenging I think that, as as it gets, more collaborative you're scoring and point system for rewards has to be more about effort and results rather than being scored. I guess has to be more a objectives or based on something, rather than the subjective opinion.

A

B

You know if you have people contributing to like a wiki or something people have for a number of different designs, and then people tweak those designs. So you know the more people that are utilizing your design versus another design. You get more points for that and then a design that nobody is using or picking up for modifying yeah.

A

Yeah yeah absolutely I mean basically, the the winner is kind of like the community of developers is helping. You select the winner, because people are publishing their designs openly, especially with a wiki right now, installing a 3d embedding tool for the wiki. So you can view your 3d design can pan and zoom and so forth. So you can easily see okay. This is what this looks like.

A

So when more and more people download that or use it, and as as long as we can track that, then that designer can get more points, but the bottom line is what does the end product look like? Does it have the performance specifications so we'd have to design the reward to keep that in mind. But ideally we want to have everyone's just eating up each other's contributions and building upon them just stacking one on top of the other.

A

So we don't have a bunch of individual like parallel efforts, they're actually stacking one on top of each other as much as possible. Right.

B

A

B

That case I think it. Maybe there isn't a grand prize. Maybe it's not worth it to have one huge prize with set apart from the others. Maybe you just have the 20 sub prizes? Okay,.

A

And basically, based on a point point system, that's developed, mm-hmm.

B

Yeah and then maybe the one of the final rewards is, you know an invitation to integration Day, where you get together.

A

And actually build it right.

B

You've got all these designs on the internet, and people are working, but you get them together. You have a beat and you've got the 3d printers and you've got everything all in one place and they actually get to get their designs out there into the real world together.

A

Yep yep part of grand prize, yes, so I entered the social and and social aspect is a part of the final just final prize.

A

Integration Day, where we build the thing or something like that, where we build it or something.

B

Because until then you know the specs that you've set out are theoretical. We don't know whether they're gonna need it or not. Right you've got to actually test it to see whether the assumptions are true. That's.

A

Correct and, and then the question was I was thinking that if we really led the crowd do the walking here, then they actually have to build it, and the greatest amount of points comes to those who actually show data, so data and results and product testing are part of the development process.

A

So, basically, the more of any person gets through the entire development process and they could build, of course, upon everybody else's work and maybe, like someone comes in and they see oh wow, this cool design is here already, but nobody built it yet I'm just gonna build it. Well, maybe they get a good. You know they might get a good reward for just doing that. But of course, once again we have to weigh how much real actual effort went into the design process and that's why I was actually suggesting that timesheet.

A

So we great people on burned down, timesheet, visible contributions and up file, uploads and so forth. So once again we have to really get clear on what what the whole reward structure looks like, which, which then brings the case for okay. If the prototype has actually been made as part of the reward process, what would that social prize be at the very end?

A

Maybe it would be some some kind of a gathering I do like the idea that the top winners maybe get invited to some kind of a clash of titans, so something something where we actually yeah. What are.

B

Your thoughts, the you mentioned in there that just gave me a little bit of pause, was not everybody's gonna have access to a 3d printer right right.

A

B

Maybe there's a special subset of prizes, for you know physical prototyping, that that's separate, so you don't give people an unfair advantage and have a 3d for so.

A

How would how what else could they do and because, naturally, we're gonna reward some points for design aspects? What else.

B

We talked a little bit about sort of public aspect of being the cream that rises to the top in terms of design. I, don't have a good grasp on how exactly that's scored, maybe something to do with a number of edits on the wiki or a number of you know alterations to your work. Yeah.

A

Yep we'd have to we'd have to come up with an algorithm, but we also want to you know, hide the Algar, the exact exact algorithm, so that people don't game the system. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so so create enough of guidance that okay. This is kind of in general.

A

What we got to do, but don't necessarily reveal the reveal the details, but we will have to have those details and the trick would be to make the yeah get that algorithm to be as simple as possible, because otherwise it could be a mess and people might get pissed for not know they're contributing but not getting rewarded, in which case the idea of the multiple you know you pretty much get as much reward as the points like the point system, where it's a pretty much a gradual bunch of awards. That would be easy.

A

I mean the easiest thing would be that you pretty much you know go down to like you know, five dollars, I got one point for this design. Another person got, you know a thousand points. They get ten thousand dollars, but something like that even and I, don't know. If I mean, how is that, is that executable within hero X, that you pretty much roll out a ton of different rewards.

B

Yes, so there's a couple of different ways: you can think about that. You can actually what up so you can create a like a channel page. That's got the vision on it that says we're trying to create a drill. This is why it's important. This is how you get involved, and then you could create a number of sub challenges. Let's say this challenge is for this challenge is for the battery pack mm-hmm and then you could split out sub rewards in each one of those mm-hmm.

A

B

One way, or you could just say, to find the prizes in one large challenge as well, I think in this case the sub challenges might work really well.

A

Okay, sub challenges, yep sub challenges that they're almost like. Are they all parallel or they're gonna, be like bottlenecks like once you get to this, then you get to the next phase. Yeah.

B

It's time the only factor here I mean how do you say that if everything is collaborative, how do you call.

A

Well, we say that one you have to meet specifications, so this thing can drill 200 holes in you know 1/2 inch holes in a 2x4 on a single battery pack. You know stuff like that. Various performance criteria. Second, is the time of course.

A

So we have, we probably set a a particular window right and then, at that window, whatever steps, whatever metrics people have accomplished, you reward for that, but I think the reward should be like okay, if this hasn't been accomplished and nobody gets a reward for that, we have to stay that upfront like, for example, it has to last, like the final things towards industrial performance is really. How long does it last so we'd have to actually make it make it go through a destructive testing.

A

Like you know you you charge it, you know you actually do charge discharge. You know how many times like under load, like so you say: you're drilling a hole or going against some resistive load, and you just went through like a hundred battery packs and then at the end of that, the performance or strength of that drill decreased like 10 percent or something you know like down to that level. Like that's that's what would say. Okay, this thing needs, you know, meet the performance, specs of a Rio B or a massive brand name out.

A

There is and be strict about it and, and then maybe just say, okay well, if we reach 75% of that, we get 75% of the reward or something I, don't know something something to that effect. But I think that the power we have here is to get an amazing level of product development, I think in somewhat of an unprecedented way, I'm, not really sure who has done this kind of a challenge for a physical product that meets or exceeds industry standards.

A

So I think, though, it's a nice, exciting area to explore how we can hack industrial design, yeah yeah,.

B

For sure I think the the scoring aspect of it and the participation aspect of rewards I think that'll be a fun conversation to have as you you know, maybe that's something that one of the partners will be really excited to contribute in terms of you know, would help put together that algorithm or that scoring mechanism. Mm-Hmm.

A

Okay, definitely that's something we can engage people with some more things. So what are your thoughts on so timing? So we want to go with so should we think about and maybe restrict ourselves outside, of setting the big vision upfront, but for the timing we say: okay, we're gonna go for a year, we're gonna go like six months to prepare and then run the challenge for like six months. Let's say something like that:.

B

Yeah, that's workable.

B

Based on your experience with this kind of product design projects that six months will be solution.

A

B

Long, do you think if it's gonna take six months to do the work, I'd say think about two or three months to assemble the right community? People will want to participate and then give them six months to get work.

A

Okay, that sounds good to me. Make.

B

Sure you factor in the the work and effort take to get the right people to the site and prep to do the work. Maybe.

A

B

During that phase, during the six months of prep, maybe or you're pointing people to that heroics challenge, page and saying sign up here to here when we alive, maybe you've got a big community waiting for the rules and guidelines and you're ready to go. And then you run six months. But that might be a decision you have to make closer to launch based on the.

A

Size of the community you've got mm-hmm now what's launch defined as launches when we make the heroics challenge the page live or that's pre-launch. That's.

B

Pretty launch- that's not like a pre-registration page I. Think launch is when people can start in this case scoring points when you can.

A

Start contributing in a way that affects the outcome. Okay, all right. Let's see if I wanted to bring up any more points here, so.

A

Talked about a bit about modules, I mean that's a technical question.

A

Yeah so I think at this phase of the game. Do we want to confuse it by saying you know all these other potential power tool heads maybe forget about that. In the phase 1, we can say phase 2 we're gonna get based on the results of this. We're gonna have the actual cordless power tool in general, Construction Set challenge after that, would you say yeah.

B

I think you just make it clear what the opportunity is in the future right. You know. If you take the body and the battery back and start attaching other things to it, you know you can create almost anything. You want right, mm-hmm,.

A

B

Just lay out how easy it would be to change either the Chuck type or the ear type in order to make a new product, but that the first goal is to create the drill and then be able to use that as a platform. For.

A

Other tools, okay, so if we were to do another challenge for the construction set, that means we would fundraise for that after this, or is this something we include at this point um I.

B

Don't know, that's tough I mean I. Think your position for fundraising will be really strong if the general project is a success. Yeah.

A

B

That's a this is what we produced. Don't you want to get out on the next one yeah, absolutely.

A

I think we shouldn't confuse with any other other power tools when you say it that way. I think that's good, just just one step at a time.

A

Now the production engineering side. So in order for this, so the we're calling it the open-source microfactory challenge. So we have to back that up. So this is okay, where we're setting up a small factory to produce these things anywhere. That means some production engineering. That means parts have to be easy to make accessible materials a totally distributive nature at kind of enterprise, which includes some of the production tools to magnets, including 3d printers 3d printer and there I think there might be a CNC circuit mill, some of the basic circuits say for the charger.

A

So we focus on okay, DIY or open-source production tools in this time around. It would be the circuit, melon and 3d printer, and we definitely want to make sure that's part of the reward structure: okay, design, the best production system for this drill itself, including, like maybe we say, here's the best jig for winding the motor and maybe no one gets that. Maybe everyone finds out all the these open-source 3d printed motors, really don't work. We're just gonna go with the commercial one, and that might be the case, but we still open up the challenge.

A

Maybe that reward will not be attained so so we have to be open to that. But I do believe that, in order to promote the enterprise aspects, we want to open this up to the production tools themselves, so it becomes much larger than this is just the drill. This is the micro factory challenge and we're, starting with this drill as our positioning for it for a quick, immediate success of a tangible item. Yeah.

B

For sure, I, just I think that the explanation and vision is going to be really important for laying out what the big picture is, but then also explaining how the drill fits into that and what steps need to be taken. First, what's most important and help I think that the part about manufacturing and production.

B

That might be a really important part of eventual scoring aspect.

A

Yeah, because that's where the rubber hits the road it's, these are more than the design, so they might be weighed accordingly. Yeah mm-hmm. Okay, let's see any more points here so manufacturing technology collaboration, yeah and, of course, open source hardware, Association and open source initiative. Compliance software and hardware reward structured bill is based on building each other's work. Wiki is used for contributions. Could social network on he X be used as like?

A

We were to say: okay, part of the reporting you have to report on a hero, X page to let people know that hey I could just got this so basically make it that the share a year. You are the more credit you get. Would the hero acts platform be appropriate for that erm, because we can do something like a Facebook page, maybe do a little custom platform or just simple thing on a wiki or yeah.

B

The hero ox page has a forum which might.

A

B

Good for that, one of the other ways that you could perhaps think about how many people share their work is through like a hero, X entry, we can make those entries public and people can see them. So if somebody makes a contribution.

A

B

Particularly excited in and wants to share that they can submit that entry and say this is where that info lives on the wiki. This is why I think my contribution is important. That sort of thing.

A

So and a hero, X entry, does that also mean they'd be actually running another contest themselves or.

B

On their profile, the challenge page itself, so they say I was working on the clutch assembly and this is my contribution and this is what I did and that will show up under the clutch assembly sub contest as an entry. So people can see yeah.

A

Yeah yeah absolutely so use so would you say that wiki reporting, as well as heroics social network, the challenge page because you you are calling here, oxo social network right right, so I think between hero, X and the wiki right? That would be sufficient for reporting yeah.

B

And there's the forum as well here is where people can have conversations, and you can set up conversations right about different topics.

A

Or the forums a challenge specifically or there's a general forum as well, their.

B

Challenge specific okay.

A

Yeah no I mean so discussion happens on forums. People report on a challenge at cell and the wiki okay sounds good to me.

A

Okay, partnerships: what are your thoughts on some of the partnerships at this point? I mean: do you have any specific I mean we can just go? You know, go to the open hardware. Community then probably think about I mean related manufacturers. I, don't know if we want to go to Black and Decker for support.

A

B

Like like Home Depot, it's thinking about putting 3d printers and stuff in their stores, uh-huh I, don't know. If it's worth approaching. Somebody like that uh-huh.

A

B

Help them put a lot of pressure on their suppliers right and I'm the ability to come into the store and print something that fixes your.

A

Yeah I mean, if there's some progressive thinkers in the in a big companies. We'd love to talk to them, I think it's probably worth a try. I mean I. Could not why not like if someone's progressive, they're, they could say hey, we could actually be improving the tool quality if someone cares about maintenance and life time, but that of course throws out their current business model, which is to just sell disposable items, but it's worth the try.

B

So they've got the capacity to utilize this open source micro manufacturing and they can have way less stock in a store and print parts and pieces on demand, and then there overnight goes down a ton. They don't have to have such a giant place. Absolutely.

A

So that I mean that's absolutely complimentary, depending how we, how we look at it, but if they're willing to consider such a thing, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so yeah, we should definitely reach out to them. What about a part of an entity like go ahead? Oh it's.

B

Just gonna say I mean hey what the project you're working on right now. Is it specifically gonna? Let somebody like take apart their Ryobi drill and put a new motor in it and not have to come, buy a new one yet like right.

A

B

A couple of men are each of the stuff they're working on like. If you positioned right, I, don't think I should be at Brett. What.

A

If it's positioned that it's actually gonna meet or exceed industry standards, would you see that as a threat like okay so say we're gonna make a drill? That's like a Rio, be at a comparable price or possibly lower I'm gonna, say comparable price, but the advantage is that you can really service it for life.

A

B

The bottleneck here isn't the design it's access to what you need to make and repair it may be home depot. Doesn't care about the hole drill itself, they care about, owning the manufacturing process to be able to come in and print your drill on-site and come back and print a new part, maybe that's more profitable for them than selling the drill itself. Yeah.

A

Yeah, that's that's an absolute thing that they can be potentially interested in and that's definitely forward thinking but I think inevitable in the future. I think that's just what's what's gonna happen in the future, so each one of those places gonna have their little custom fab. That's highly automated cranking out and.

B

Everybody can go out and buy a 3d printer. That's gonna be capable of making the tools that they want to make for themselves right. But if you go to Home Depot and buy it from them by the time on the machine and buy the component materials yeah.

A

B

Still providing a huge service to something.

A

Oh yeah Duchin.

B

Maybe you don't buy yourself a 3d printer to print your LS, but you know you still want that job because it meets and exceeds the standards right.

A

And you can make a case for how printing on demand is actually going to be more cost effective, so Home Depot takes their cut, but the consumer still wins out, still prices lower, you know yeah and then the same kind of logic might go to places like Black & Decker, where they say: okay. Well, instead of outsourcing to China, we can employ people in Milwaukee here and yet comparable prices and better service, etc.

A

I mean so, and that would definitely be some far far reaching or some forward thinkers are required to see that it depends on just who's who's in their leadership yeah. hmm No, this is great. That's awesome, I think, let's, let's take a look at got any of the other other pages.

A

How important do you think yeah I mean the two slides about the roadmap here, so there's cordless drill, any cordless power tool and then also corded power tools that could be subsequent phases. So the discussion here as we said it focuses a lot on okay, we're focusing on this particular campaign for the next year, but we also have the longer-term just visible.

A

How attractive do you think it is because, because for us we talked about, we talked a lot about the universal access system, just like on page. If you go back to page eight with a 3d printer, we talked a lot about the CNC torch table and heavy duty. Cnc machines combined with all cordless power tools, get you any tool or any light or heavy machine produced. So so there's a few critical production machines like, for example, the tractor.

A

If we have a CNC torch table, we can cut all the metal for the tractor, I mean there's a whole vision of this micro factory kind of the greater microfactory vision. So we can. We should definitely have a nice infographic on on what the micro fact, the local micro factory, open source micro factory, would look like right. I mean that's. That's compelling I. Think a lot of people like that yeah.

B

For sure, before with the vision just make sure like this was part of that long term. Overall vision and that's important for people to understand, mm-hmm.

A

B

Also, then, you know treat that, like the top of the funnel and then help people understand what they're being asked to do for the cordless drill project.

A

Mm-Hmm treat has the top of the funnel. What do you mean by that? It's.

B

It's broad at the top of the funnel, so you know that's the long-term thought, the background, the vision and then so that's what you lead with this is why the overall thing is important, but then, as you go down the page or as people get more impatient, it funnels them closer and closer to what they need to do to participate and make a difference in the project at hand. Yep.

A

Yep, okay, let me see anything else that I might have documentation.

A

Uh-Huh technicals audience audience is quite broad, yeah. Okay, what are the next steps then? So.

B

I think the next steps are I suggest that you start putting together the the key rocks registration page, so I think we sent over one of the.

B

Either webinars or you.

A

B

Any of the things where you you know: click the Create, a challenge, button and start setting stuff up; I, think that title picture and then the overview of why what you know the vision and what you're trying to achieve and the explanation around why this is important. That's that's really.

B

What's going to be important for the pre-registration page and then I think that that getting that live- and you know, will start circulating that and using that as your tool to start approaching, people for the prize funds, an operation funds and the corporate partners and that sort of thing.

A

Would be helpful next step? Okay, that sounds good. Can you review the basic process of the way hero X works, so we start with pre-registration and we funnel everyone through there before opening that's standard for every single project. The.

B

Vast majority of projects we do have a pre-registration phase, sometimes it's short because we just need a couple weeks to finish the design. Sometimes it's very long, because people are using that page to seek funding. So that's normal and as you're talking about this, you know if you start, including that page in outreach that you're doing to the communities we interact with people, can click on the follow button on that page and.

A

B

Get updates when things change on that page. If you want to start using that page as a social hub and ask people for ideas, I mean if you get a community on that page, you can go to the updates or going to the forum and say we're designing this. What are your ideas for execution area mm-hmm? You can start using the crowd to help you design.

A

The eventual project itself mm-hmm and the the phase of seeking, subject matter experts- that's something that's done in the background or you'd, also use it to seek subject matter. Experts.

B

The outreach itself is sort of outside a little bit, but you can seek their input once you've got them in your community on your college page.

A

Anyone who participates in that they have to register for the heroics platform they like, like signing up on Facebook yeah.

B

It's really easy just start.

A

B

Link it to another social media, pick a password or you just give us an email address and a password. That's it. Okay, yeah.

A

Yeah, it sounds good, so I think so next step is get the page up and basically, how does it work so once we did, you guys send I forget you guys send info on how to start the page, yeah.

B

It's really easy so, when you're on the site.

B

There is a create button over on the side.

A

Yeah is it to become a hero or you've.

B

Got the little little hamburger over here, so it's just create. Okay,.

A

B

Click create and it'll take you through the flow, so you put in your title, you put in a couple other things and then you'll have access to that page. You can work on in the background. It won't go live until you want it to go live so you can work on it and save drafts and come back to it later. Do.

A

You have the capacity to like once you have the pre-registration phase, does the crowdfunding phase enter and the pre-registration or that's after.

B

We don't do crowdfunding on-site anymore, we partner with other places to do crowdfunding. So you know, fundraiser is one of the people that we partnered with for that yeah.

A

B

Yeah, that's something that we can can make a connection for after we got the page up. If you want to do sort of community based crowdfunding versus getting the funding on your side independently, yeah.

A

I mean we like to do both and that's that's consistent with what we can do. Yeah.

B

Yeah we can have the page linked out to the fundraiser page, okay,.

A

Okay, so basically you just send them a link to an external site. Now, as crowdfunder the only one you use or do you recommend, do you work with anyone else? It.

B

A

B

But we'd be willing to work with other people as well. If you wanted to do it, ah yeah.

A

So so I mean you guys are still evolving the platform, details and stuff like that, so I mean lots of things, are negotiable or or it's pretty fixed in terms of structure. How you want to run projects I, guess you know. If we want to think of like the question, I guess would be. How do we most create a nice ecology of how the whole structure of the project, how we're contacting potential funders, how we're potentially getting crowd crowdsourcing of ideas.

A

How to think about is that that's kind of like it comes out in the wash you just do it.

B

So some of those will be like services that we provide in terms of like outreach and targeted outreach and marketing help. So some of those things down the line, maybe that that's something that you choose to utilize some other raised funds for is utilize heroic services to help with execution type thing, but in terms of just like getting the first steps of registration, page up and helping connect to a crowdfunding site and stuff that would just you know, help out with that help you get going. Okay,.

A

Yeah, that sounds good sounds good. Okay, yeah, very exciting.

B

Yeah, it's great so yeah, it's started playing around on the site itself and and start trying to take the slide information. You've got and transferring that over to the site and putting your vision up there. You know if you've got the start of the wiki. Maybe one of the things you want to do is link to the wiki from the challenge page. So people can see what that looks like. Maybe you want to put some of the vision there as well.

B

That's a platform, that's easier to put those explanations together on and then we will touch base and a little bit and see how it's going and then see what the next steps need to be.

A

Okay, that sounds good, so basically, at this point wait until we got this thing up and then we should set up a meeting at that point, or should we set up a meeting now or just wait till we get some content up, yeah.

B

Reach back out when you've got some content up tokens we can I mean depending it's gonna depend a little bit on what you need. Next I mean if the content, if you're happy with it and it's there- and you just want to take that and start using it approach some of the potential funders. You know you don't need to talk to us before you do that, but there. If there's something you need help with or a chat about, we'd be happy to have excellent.

A

Excellent, are you how many people do you guys have to manage the challenge creation is, are you you and some other people, or just you or challenge.

B

Creation and so far yeah.

A

Like like you're guiding people, I kind of helping people along the path of creating it and running a challenge, yeah.

B

So for people that are getting started on their own for sort of the DIY path and don't have services at the moment, we've got a list who helps out most of those clients um I'll be available as well. So there's there's me and a couple other people, but the primary.

A

Okay, that's pretty cool all right, so um yeah any other comments or on how we should approach this or any other suggestions. At this point before we start putting the content up or no.

B

I think just start getting it on the site, see how it looks and see what troubles you run into and then we can. We can troubleshoot it. Maybe.

A

Okay and a typical time to to post the challenge like the pre-registration phase, is that like where you really got to get all your stuff clear, like possibly put a video off there and stuff like that? Or is there time down the road like this? Is this kind of like? Is this phase like the equivalent of okay? Here's you create your Kickstarter campaign, like that's that's kind of where we're at so that means.

B

It's gonna take.

A

B

You can edit it, you can add to it. You can add a video later. You can change the.

A

Movie later so.

B

It's all really flexible. This is just your your starting point. It's a place to give you content about what you're looking to achieve. Okay,.

A

B

Start moving towards opening the challenge for competition, okay,.

A

B

All morph and evolve into what you need to be: okay,.

A

No, that makes sense great great okay. You can get going all right, Paul! Well, thanks! So much for your time. This is great look forward to some traction here. Yeah.

B

Great talking to you and good luck reach out, if you run into any problems, okay,.

A

Thanks take care of them back.