
Farm Hack: worldwide community of farmers that build and modify our own tools - Osiris30
http://www.farmhack.org
======
tjic
I clicked over to this, prepared to hate-read it and leave a caustic comment.

(background: I live on a farm, and have come across dozens if not hundreds of
websites that promise to "open source", and/or "crowd source" "innovative",
"new" plans for farm tools, all of which are either useless, overly
complicated, too much work to build, or better bought as a working product
from Tractor Supply.)

...and - much to my surprise - this website actually has a fair number of
really decent ideas.

"Pastured pig waterer", "Home built no-till seed drill", and a few others all
look interesting.

FWIW, over the next year or two I'd like to design and weld up a potato row
mounder and a potato harvester, both designed to attach via three point hitch
to my tractor. They're commercially available, but not locally, and shipping
on big stuff like this is killer.

~~~
ourmandave
Your comment reminded me of the PlayPump idea that was going to supply fresh
water to every village.

[https://newrepublic.com/article/120178/problem-
international...](https://newrepublic.com/article/120178/problem-
international-development-and-plan-fix-it)

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
Gordon Murray recently designed a flat pack truck for the third world: "[The
Ox is] The world’s first ‘flat-pack’ truck [...] designed to provide low-cost
all-terrain mobility for remote parts of Africa and the developing world" [1]

I wish they would try to disrupt the first world first instead.

[1] [http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/news-articles/the-
world%E2...](http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/news-articles/the-
world%E2%80%99s-first-%E2%80%98flat-pack%E2%80%99-truck-revealed,-set-to-
bring-aid-to-remote-parts-of-africa-and-the-developing-world.html)

Edit: And a truck like this is just the thing for transporting crops or doing
farm related tasks.

This statement from 1 makes me worry, but I think it was meant to instill
confidence, which is also worrisome: "It is unlike any other vehicle and has
no direct competitor – whether from a concept, performance or pricing point of
view."

~~~
pimlottc
Good grief, they go on about being "flat pack" and easy to put together but
offer no photos of it as shipped or during the assembly process...

~~~
sandworm101
Worse yet, they are playing tricks with the perspective. Look at the loading
ramp. That's actually the rear gate unmounted and used as a ramp. But see how
photographing it from that angle makes it look so much longer.

The entire thing is a deathtrap. A used toyota pickup is better in every
regard.

~~~
pimlottc
Yeah, I couldn't help but think there's probably a reason no normal car or
truck on the road has completely flat sides.

~~~
tgb
Don't the LLVs that the US postal service uses have flat sides? Similarly for
UPS trucks and the containers that eighteen wheelers haul. Seems pretty normal
to me.

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edblarney
This has been going on since the dawn of time.

Farmers are the original entrepreneurs, they are all hacking, all the time,
sharing their hacks.

It's unbelievable how much knowledge most farmers have.

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Mister_Snuggles
I had no idea that a large-capacity scale[0] was something that I could
reasonably build myself. Granted, I don't need one, but I can think of a bunch
of non-farming uses for something like that.

Some of the concepts, like the vertical garden, could give city-dwellers the
opportunity to grow their own food on an apartment balcony or make better use
of a small back yard.

[0] [http://farmhack.org/tools/livestock-weigh-
scales](http://farmhack.org/tools/livestock-weigh-scales)

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lowglow
I recently wrote[0] something related about my observations on toolmakers and
their craft.

"In life you're a tool maker or a tool user. What we're building at Baqqer[1]
is a tool. Here's something I've noticed about tools and the people that make
them. There are ultimately two types of tool makers.

The first type of tool maker is an observer and participant of their own
craft, and as such can make very insightful decisions on how to devise a tool
from the systematic understanding of what explicitly and implicitly goes into
the work being shaped by these tools. Typically these tools are utilitarian
and without form in excess beyond what is absolutely necessary to accomplish
the task. This is the truest form of tool.

The second type of tool maker is an observer, but not a participant in a
craft. These tool makers tend to be cloning tools with small changes, or
seeing a problem where there might not be one, because they might not truly
understand the way makers participate in this task of their craft. This is the
weakest form of tool.

To say there is not evidence to support contraries in both statements is
false, but I would expect these instances to be outliers. These statements
also do not dismiss the contributions made by outsiders of a craft, as there
is something to be said about observing outside the traditions of a craft. I
would even suspect large leaps of innovation in the craft might be made from
the application of knowledge and modes of thinking leveraged from
other/disparate pursuits."

[0]
[https://www.facebook.com/dpgailey/posts/10102604703490186?pn...](https://www.facebook.com/dpgailey/posts/10102604703490186?pnref=story)

[1] [https://baqqer.com/](https://baqqer.com/)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There's a freely available book from MIT, called "Democratising Innovation"
that talks about a similar dichotomy:

[http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm](http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm)

They are a little more even handed though. I think one of the examples are
specialised scalpels. They point out that a doctor innovating a new surgery
may need a tool which simply doesn't exist, and theyll need to build it
themselves.

On the other hand, a professional scalpel maker may know about a new alloy, or
a new casting technique, or a way to mass produce them for pennies. You get
the best product when both types of innovation are present.

~~~
lowglow
This is great. Reading now. Thanks for the recommendation.

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drumttocs8
Reminds me a bit of Open Source Ecology
([http://opensourceecology.org/](http://opensourceecology.org/)) and their
Global Village Construction Set. Haven't kept up with these guys- not sure on
their progress anymore.

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vram22
The Whole Earth Catalog might be useful for people interested in these topics.
I first read it as a kid. All kinds of very interesting and useful info for
gardening, farming, food production, makers [1], living partly off the grid,
health, etc. etc. Don't know if they still produce it [2] or if there is
anything equivalent these days. Would be interesting to know.

[1] e.g. the Japanese saws that I mentioned in one of my recent comments - I
read about them in the Whole Earth Catalog.

[2] Update: Just googled and found this:

[http://www.wholeearth.com/about.php](http://www.wholeearth.com/about.php)

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prawn
I visited Four Seasons farm last year in Maine. They do a lot of open
experimenting and share their ideas. Four I was shown were:

    
    
      - washing machine converted to a large salad spinner
      - a hand drill with a mop on the end, plus a slicing blade and catching bag (for picking lettuce)
      - a 12-tine rake to which you'd attach a combination of hose segments specific to the seed row spacing you needed
      - a green house on rollers so you could start seeds undercover and then move the framework without replanting anything

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delegate
Just read this article and I think it brings a bit more perspective:

[https://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-
equipment-n...](https://www.wired.com/2015/02/new-high-tech-farm-equipment-
nightmare-farmers/)

Open source farming hardware is the right way to do it.

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Kinnard
This reminds me of open-source ecology:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S63Cy64p2lQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S63Cy64p2lQ)

~~~
arxpoetica
That guy is awesome.

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codeulike
Farming is basically hacking of ecosystems, when you think about it.

