Open Design Engine

New idea from Jarryd Bekker over on the KickStarter Campaign.

• Have per project web stores so projects can sell kits and finished products from their open source hardware designs. ODE could keep a small percentage of each sale the same way KickStarter, Pledgie, and others do.

A game. An optional subscription to a game of sharing. All the participants sign up with monthly set amount of donation. Then they get to chose projects to send a portion of the money towards. Another portion of the money is used as rewards for participating in fun contests or just simple lotteries, and the winner gets to decide which project or projects gets that sum of money. The idea is that if you play the game well you get to send more money towards your favourite projects. ODE keeps a fraction of the monthly donations for itself, OR it simply relies on the common sense of people and simply keeps the community updated on what it needs money for and how much is needed. I am pretty sure there are a whole heap of different games people interested in open source hardware would play for a chance to get more money for their teams.

Sorry but I don't have more specifics.

Here is an idea: community projects like maybe simple apps written together, but sold by the community and all the revenue goes towards ODE.
So its an open design project, but it's purpose is to be sold by ODE to get money to support the activities of ODE. People chip in with helping to finish the project, or buying the end product. These apps could be ODE related, or just games to spread the message about Mach30 or just the open design movement.

Also how about "educational" projects with private paid involvement. So people pay to get access to the project to learn somethin cool while actually being involved in a project and doing work for the project. Well in this case the design would only become open at the end of the project, or at some regular but infrequent intervals.

Good thoughts Balazs.

Along the lines of mobile apps, I've wondered several times what a Mach 30 app might look like:

1. Searchable newsletter and blog archives in-app.
2. Access to data acquired from hardware like the Shepard Test Stand and Arduino Sats, and a means to visualize the data.
3. Live video feed from the "Mach 30 labs".
4. Instant access to a storefront for project kits, Mach 30 swag, etc.
5. Mobile access to ODE.
6. Alerts for upcoming spaceflight related events (Mach 30 and otherwise).
7. Courses (i.e. Rockets 101 formatted as an interactive mobile app).
8. Mobile access to the Openeering Wiki.
9. Interactive makerspaces map that's location aware.

As far as games, what about a game where you establish a colony on the Moon or Mars (like a simple version of the Civilization series of games)? Maybe it could even be based on the work Pictor Project has done on establishing a colony on Europa.

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply to this thread. The last few weeks have been very crazy.

I really like the idea of working with the community to fund ODE is some way. You know, all of this reminded me of Reddit Gold. It is a program where users pay a small fee to support the operation of the site, and get a few small bonus features and get a badge on their profile showing they are gold members.

I had not thought about having a mobile app before. I think mobile access to ODE would be very cool (or perhaps the ability to cache project data so you had it offline). If/when we started a project for this, I would want to look at some of the existing apps in the space arena (like NASA's) and see what lessons we can learn from them because I have not always found them to be all that "sticky".

I think we are coming up with some good ideas. I look forward to starting the next round of development so we can implement some of them.

This is only vaguely relevant here.

I have started working on a "space crowd surey". At this stage I am suing a google document to collect quesetions from people who wanted to know more about the "crowd" of people who are interested in space.

I thought this would be useful for all projects aimed at "crowd" doing space related stuff. It's here: [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ORa7yHqHiMZaWIPTiDpzIH4tZ8YP-nHZNIlp5Go1A8I/edit]]

I think if we want to develop apps, or games aimed at this audience it is crucial to actually have data on interests and demographics of all kinds. This is why I posted this here. If anyone here has questions or inputs just go there and write it in. /assuming you are not afraid to share/

More details on Reddit Gold (recent improvements, philosophy, etc). - http://blog.reddit.com/2013/09/a-few-more-gold-benefits.html