That Place

For the first time, I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo and needed both days to see and do everything that I wanted to do.

I bought some fantastic Art by Sarah Dungan. The cowboys just seem to have stepped into a disappearing part of America, taking a job that no one else wanted. Can we teach an emergent AI stoicism, or will they learn that on their own? Anyway... I had a great time talking to her about her art, and it always adds instant memories to a piece of art, to have been able to thank the artist personally, and financially.

In the interest of being able to rapidly return to various Occupy locations as fast as they can evict us, we need inexpensive, disposable "housing". If we could reOccupy faster than they can clear out our locations, then we can keep our message, ourselves, and our movement in the public eye.

To this end, I submit:

Idea: Rapid Deployment Occupy Housing

1. Easy to create
2. Inexpensive to create
3. Easy to deploy
4. Provides shelter for Occupy participants

My first pass on this would be cardboard framing, covered with recovered Billboard Vinyl. Folded triangular tubes of corrugated cardboard would be strong enough to provide a frame that would support a vinyl covering. A positive to this is that if the shelters are thrown in a dumpster, the vinyl would be pretty easy to save, and all we would need would be a new cardboard frame. Even if the whole thing is landfilled by city workers, we should be able to create these faster than they can evict us.

Once a template is designed, CNC manufacturing could rapidly turn out the framing, ready for assembly. The vinyl covering would be easily cut out with a box cutter/mat knife, especially if designed with enough margin of error that accuracy becomes unimportant.

Template needs:

1. Minimum material usage (Preferably using less than 4'X8' of cardboard and with the least amount of unused material/sheet.)

2. Maximum housing square footage

3. Ease of manufacture (Single pass or maximum of one repositioning on CNC table (flip over the sheet of cardboard) to reduce labor/increase output.)

4. Ease of assembly (Minimum additional hardware needs (Duct tape, Zip-ties, etc.). White/Yellow glued seams would be ideal.)

Materials needs:

1. Cardboard
   • Usually full sheets are used as separators on pallets between sheets of delivered materials. I see 0-6 sheets/week at my job. Does anyone else see and recycle this type of material?
   • If we could collect a reasonable supply of this material, then we could make multiple frames at once, rather than piecemeal.
2. Billboard Vinyl
   • I have seen this material used to cover geodesic domes and create shade structures at Burning Man. Does anyone know how this is acquired?
   • I know that it comes in large, seamless sizes. This is ideal for rain/wind and heat retention.

I will offer at least the first few manufacturing hours on a CNC table, and what cardboard I can "re-appropriate" if we can come up with a good design/file/pattern. Any Origami/Kirigami experts that could help with this?

More details to be added here, as they become available.