As a group assignment for this week, we all made drafts of our presentation slides to get critique. I made mine using illustrator. I made some minor changes based on feedback, but it mostly stayed the same.
week 17. Invention, intellectual property and income
Video
I didn’t have time to make my video before my trip to Bhutan, but I was able to make a very basic one while I was there to show for my presentation. I used Premiere Pro to edit it.
For my final video, I plan to include panning shots of the whole assembly, a shot of me changing some of the settings using the dial and LCD menu, and some clips of the production process.
Future steps
I want to figure out how to cast the wheel in ceramic, and imbed the wires and slip rings into the cast. This might make the production process cheaper, while also increasing its operation life. I could also say that it's proof that a rolling stone can grow moss.
I haven’t yet gotten around to actually growing moss on the wheel, but when I do, I want to test different moisture levels and incorporate a capacitive sensor to adaptively manage the soil moisture in the wheel.
I would like to make a custom water container and incorporate it into the base of the design. It would need to be easy to remove and refill, and see how full it is from the outside.
If I want to sell it as a product, it is important to consider the difficulties of scaling up the production of my project.
The first issue is that the moss wheel involves using at least 7 different machines, and involves several steps to be done by hand. My documentation shows many of the steps involved in creating it, but it would still be very difficult for someone to be able to create it based only on my documentation, without prior experience with the tools and machines I used. The barrier of entry for someone creating my design is high.
The second issue is that there are many different steps, and making a single copy of the moss wheel takes many hours of work. If I were to sell it as a product, valuing my time at $20/h it would probably cost $400-$800. If I were making enough of them, say 20 or more, I estimate I could bring the cost down to ~$200 each.
Dissemination plan
I don’t have a social media presence, and I would find it difficult to reach many people who I don’t know personally. My current plan is to show and explain the work I have done to people I know who are interested.
If, hypothetically, I were to take part in social media and reach more people, I might post instructions on how to build my project and make it open source. Making my project open source doesn’t necessarily make it accessible to everyone though because of the complexity in manufacturing it. If there was enough interest in purchasing my project, I might run a kickstarter campaign to get funding. I would probably market it as a fancy desk plant, and try to refine the solarpunk aesthetic.