This week the core team continued moving the updated content from the “Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring” Google Doc to the One Community’s website.

The focus this week was merging the content already published with the new content, editing the images so they are ready for the site, starting to place the images, adding crowdfunding video placeholders, creating and hyperlinking the table of content, and identifying missing information in the tools and materials section. The pictures below share some of this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring

The core team also completed a detailed review of the aircrete compression testing plans and purchased the related materials for the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Review of aircrete compression testing plans

And the core team continued work on the energy analysis for the solar farm and microgrid designs. We completed the solar energy demands for the Game Room, Library, Gym, and Meeting Room within the Straw Bale Village. See related pictures below.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Energy Analysis for the Solar Farm and Microgrid Designs

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 53rd week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis began updating the AutoCAD roof plan of the net-zero bathroom. The update included the addition of diagrams for the construction and installation of the flash used to shield the radial beams of the exterior roof.

The added diagrams included details on the flash and fastener positioning. The positions of the fasteners were detailed by illustrating the distances from the flash edges. He updated the rest of the roof plan so the diagrams following this step could coincide with the additional fasteners used to secure the flash.

The following step will be adding these diagrams to the tutorial/instructions of the net-zero bathroom and text that will elaborate the importance and steps for the construction and illustration. The pictures below show some of this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village

Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 45th week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacey was working on wrapping up all the current comments so that we can resubmit all the instructions for checking.

She thinks we will be able to resubmit the PDF by next week for another look in finer detail at the assembly and checking in 3D. Some of the renders still need to be redone so that they have a more consistent look throughout. Currently some of the graphics are really old and use colors and visuals that look lower quality than the newer renders. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Murphy bed instructions

Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 20th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson added a description paragraph to the perovskite solar cell section before the advantages and disadvantages.

He also added a solar panel hardware comparison table and a table description in the cost analysis section to give a better understanding of product specs and costs. He rephrased and rewrote the master conclusion, cleared up confusion in the solar inverter summary, and added the inverter comparison tables to the summary.

In addition, Jeson added a total solar hardware cost table and description to the master conclusion. He also added more diesel generators to the diesel generator research table and added product specs, contacts, and linked the resources. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 14th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela made edits to the Earthbag Village road. Using AutoCAD, she widened the street and pushed back the village domes.

In doing so, more space was created. New designs were then proposed so that more domes can be included. She then removed the duplicate sources on the Roadway, Walkways, Gutters, and Parking Lot Report.

During this time Daniela found two extra resources that had been incorporated so she uploaded them to the Dropbox and formatted them within the resources section. Once completed Daniela added easements to the AutoCAD file she had previously been working with.

Although there were some difficulties scaling the new satellite image for the easement, she was able to measure the correct length of the paths. Lastly Daniela created a CAD for the parking lot design. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 9th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Katherine made corrections on the Grid-tie system report according to the core team and other reviewer’s feedback.

Katherine also updated the table of contents and references, and formatted all the tables. Pictures below are related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Solar microgrid designs

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 7th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath continued development of the grid-tie tutorial by updating all his past content based on feedback from the core team and other reviewers. Below are some images related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Solar microgrid designs

Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 4th week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. This week, Shreyas worked on building a techno-economical model for analyzing and optimizing the charging time and period for electric vehicles within the community.

He started off by installation, setup and learning the software – HOMER GRID. He also applied the basic settings and combinations of the previously researched data into the analysis that was carried out. Pictures below relate to this work-in-progress.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Solar microgrid designs

Jarot Tamba (Civil Engineering Intern) completed his 3rd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week Jarot’s focus was on performing precise calculations for the standard concrete and aircrete mixes. In the beginning of the week the group spent time transferring soil for their stabilized earth mixes.

They also performed initial tests for aircrete and concrete. The tests were not successful. The concrete slump was excessive and the aircrete shrank too much. In order to get accurate proportions the group decided to do another week of testing. Pictures below relate to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Aircrete and earthbag compression testing

Dominick Banuelos (Civil Engineering Intern) also completed his 3rd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week Dominick worked with the team to create the first test cylinders filled with aircrete and standard concrete.

Through the process of working on calculations, doing a sieve test, and slump test, the first cylinders were created. After having these poured and sitting for 48 hours, some issues were noted and will be properly fixed to ensure the best product.

The cylinders were then put into the compression testing at the end of the week to see what the psi strength of the concrete was. The numbers were a bit low so Dominick will work the following week to achieve a greater psi that can withstand the required strength. Below are some images related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Aircrete and earthbag compression testing

John Paul D. Matining (Civil Engineer Intern)  completed his 3rd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing too. This week John and his team’s main focus was on initial week testing of standard concrete and aircrete. The bulk share of the time was on testing the ratios which were calculated beforehand and tweaking them.

One problem that arose is most of the ratios for the aircrete were based on a full batch of aircrete so calculating and finding the right amount of aircrete for one cylinder took a bit of time to accomplish and will need to be rechecked before full test is to be done.

Lastly, other tests that were accomplished included the slump test for the right amount of water, the clay sand test to find percentage of clay in soil mix, and the sieve test to find out distribution of the aggregates. The pictures below relate to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Aircrete and earthbag compression testing

And Marcus Nguyen (Civil Engineering Intern), also part of the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing team, completed his 3rd week as well. This week Marcus and his group did initial testing for the Aircrete and Stabilized Earth Project. During the test, Marcus figured out what materials and equipment was needed for the actual testing procedure.

He also learned how to use a slow-motion camera to prepare video recording when doing the compression testing. The group was also able to revise their calculations for the testing proportions and determined the best route for testing. Throughout the week there were results that were not acceptable and will be fixed this week.

To better understand how to work and use the equipment a test of the compression testing equipment was used as well. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Aircrete and earthbag compression testing

Lastly, Tiffany Gao (Sustainability/Plastics Researcher) joined the team and completed her 1st week as a researcher, reviewer, and web developer. This week Tiffany settled into her new experience working.

She spent her initial hours going through the orientation/onboarding, figuring out how to work with WordPress, and reading through One Community’s articles to familiarize herself with the format.

Tiffany then quickly picked up her work by starting with her first task: editing the”Best Small and Large-scale Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options ” article. After spending an abundance of time carefully combing through word choice, grammar, and spelling, she compiled a Google Document containing all her personal comments, questions, notes, etc. to improve the article.

Tiffany also began researching and looking into the non-recyclables article. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Plastic Recycling

This week the core team continued review and feedback on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial. We cleaned up the Roadways doc by deleting all addressed comments and had a phone conversation with the civil engineer in charge of that doc.

We then reviewed the “Choosing the Best Solar Hardware Research & Report” doc dealing with solar hardware components, solar panel types, recyclability of components, etc. This doc is completed as much as possible until the creators make final additions.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping

Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 28th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center.

This week, Ian processed the energy modeling narrative documents for LEED. He continued the whole building energy simulation process documents as reference for the Duplicable City Center project.

As of today, he is almost done with the energy process guide for the proposed design building and is waiting for other inputs to be completed, particularly HVAC and service hot water design. Process guide for the baseline building design will be provided after he completes the proposed building simulation process guide. Please see below progress photos for reference.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Energy analysis calculations

David Na (Project Management Adviser/Engineer) completed his 21st week helping with input and management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, as well as the City Center Water Catchment Designs.

David started the week by sending out the weekly action items to his team. He then went on a phone call with a core team member to discuss all comments and questions remaining on the google doc. David also spent some time making revisions on the google doc that haven’t been changed.

He also spent time working on a list of action items left for next week for his team. With the remaining time that he had left, David researched and read through some of the SF Greywater Manual to prepare for his next project with a different core team member. Pictures below are related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping

Carol Nguyen (Civil Engineer) also completed her 13th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. Carol worked on the 3 main pavements comparison table/Google Spreadsheet comparing flexible asphalt, rigid concrete, and composite.

She also worked on the roadway initial and annual maintenance costs tables, putting in the equations to calculate linear ft, square feet and cubic feet costs for 3 types of roads. Carol also removed the pre-edit version in the table on spreadsheets, added the references, and incorporated the CAD drawings to the respective sections in the report.

She added details into the introduction of the bikeway design as well. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping

Neel Shanbhag (Control Systems Electrical Engineer) completed his 7th week helping with the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week Neel worked on power and energy needs for the various zones in the Duplicable City Center. Pictures related to this work are below.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Duplicable City Center Electrical

John Aquino (Electrical Engineer) also completed his 4th week helping lead the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week, John has set up the RCP drawings for each floor containing light fixtures, and added the RCP xref files to the Electrical Dropbox folder.

In addition, a sample lighting sheet was developed for reference; named as E201 and is now in the Drawings subfolder under the main Electrical folder. Next steps will be to develop an excel spreadsheet highlighting sheet numbers/names, as well as drafting a sample electrical details sheet typical for the scope of work. Pictures below show some of this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Duplicable City Center Electrical

Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 3rd week helping finish the Duplicable City Center roof designs. This week Venus created the 3D isometric section of the City Center Living Dome roof. For detailing the roof, she’s using Revit to create details and callouts.

She also added different layers and started to annotate them and create callouts. The isometric section is still in process and she will be adding the gutters for the Living Dome. See pictures below.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Duplicable City Center roof designs

And Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) completed his 2nd week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms. This week Carlos continued developing his skills in Blender. He improved some models and produced several render pictures and animations.

At first Carlos encountered problems like “noisy” pics or pixelated animations but after testing formats and filters he overcame these challenges and created higher quality render pics and perfect fluid animations.

Given the time it takes to produce a render Carlos decided to shorten the time of the videos, fortunately they can be edited in any video edition program to extend their times. Pictures below are related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms

Dipanshi Batra (Mechanical Engineer) also joined the team and completed her 1st week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors will use to build the domes.

This week, Dipanshi successfully finished her onboarding checklist and read up on One Community’s entire project to gain a better understanding of the task at hand. She moved on to reading and understanding past research to make better notes. This was followed by the formation of a new document, where all new work will be documented.

A work flow was established and Dipanshi then came up with a format for the rest of the work and began research specific to the hub connector designs. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Duplicable City Center connectors

This week the core team completed 19 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration towards not mentioned elsewhere here.

The picture below relates to this. We also did more testing and bug identification within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Bug identification within the Beta version of the HGN software

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 32nd week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Chris worked on the Badge Report including the ability to download a PDF report of persons selected/featured badges or a report of all badges that a user has earned.

Chris also worked with Patrick on setting up the Edit Button for Badge Management and Patrick is now working using some of Chris’s code as a base to add type’s and the different data needed to make a Badge get auto assigned. Pictures below are related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Highest Good Network software

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 22nd week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Yueru was working on trying to make the “edit task” function work in the people reporting page. Unfortunately, after spending several hours, she did not figure it out.

Yueru also did research on the UI change so the resources button will change to a head down arrow when clicking. She plans to spend more time to really make it work.  Apart from that, Yueru worked on the selected options UI on the project reporting page. The pictures below are related to this work.

Global Highest Good Stewardship – Highest Good Network software

This week the core team started moving the updated content for the “Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring” tutorial from the Google Doc generated by the researchers to the One Community’s website answering the “why open source sustainable cities” question.

We worked to make sure the format matches our standards, solved situations where the special characters are not supported by default on WordPress (like the square root symbol), and began to make the table of content clickable and more detailed. The pictures below share some of this work.

Moved Content of Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring” Tutorial to Our Website

The core team also completed a thorough review of the best solar hardware report for our solar microgrid designs.

Completed Review of the Best Solar Hardware Report for Our Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 52nd week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis continued researching information on how snow accumulates on sloped roofs and the effects the environment has on the snow focusing on understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.

He also researched ways to control the motion of the snow when on the roof. His findings determined that temperature fluctuation causes snow to slide abruptly on sloped roofs. This poses a danger to the structural integrity of the interior roof of the Net-Zero Bathroom.

The most practical solution was to retrofit snow guards onto the roof in order to hold the accumulated snow in place and slowly allow it to melt. He rendered the exterior roof of the Net-Zero Bathroom with snow guards to help the user understand where to install them.

He then rechecked his calculations of the maximum allowable snow depth on the Net-Zero Bathroom and found it to be 34.5″ and a scaling factor of 1.15 when average snow depth is under 30″. Jose Luis added this information to the tutorial/instructions of the Net-Zero Bathroom and gave construction recommendations.

He will finish the AutoCAD roof plan of the Net-Zero Bathroom and review the tutorial/instructions to fix discrepancies and/or errors. The pictures below show some of this work.

Continued Researching Information on How Snow Accumulates on Sloped Roofs – Click for Page

Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 19th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson contacted Garkane to arrange a phone meeting next week to discuss the rate schedule that One Community will fall into. He also continued on his diesel generator research, finding products, inputting specs and contact information.

He additionally linked the spec information to the product name cell for future reference and then focused on addressing the comments in the Choosing the Best Solar Hardware Research & Report collectively working towards understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.

Jeson added first, second, and third generation solar cells definition, cleared up a few confusing areas, and added image descriptions. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Continued Solar Microgrid Design, Sizing, and Cost Analysis Specifics Research ” Click for Page

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 13th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela completed working on the roadway easements for the property. She then worked on a new design for the fire access road of the Earthbag Village.

The new design that was implemented expanded the road to 35 feet, which was the smallest width the team was able to come up with. Once approved Daniela then began to work on this change for the complete village layout as part of answering the “why open source sustainable cities” question.

This week Daniela also created a resources page for the Roadways, Walkways, Gutters and Parking Lot Report and uploaded the resources to the Dropbox. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Completed Working on the Roadway Easements for the Property – Click for Sustainable Roadways Page

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 8th week working answering “why open source sustainable cities” and on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs.

This week Katherine read feedback from peers and made corrections on the report. Katherine also redid the tables, and made them look professional, and did some formatting for the report. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs

Nicholas K. de León (Project Management Adviser) completed his 6th week helping with review of Highest Good Housing research and related tasks directed at answering “why open source sustainable cities”. Nicholas continued editing documents, going through the first three documents on his list and working up from there.

He cleared prior suggestions that had the necessary improvements, continuing to make suggestions where necessary. On a positive note, Nicholas believes that many of the documents are nearly at a stage where a final read can be done. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Continued Helping With Review of Highest Good Housing Research and Related Tasks ” Click for Page

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 6th week working on answering “why open source sustainable cities” and the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath continued development of the grid tie tutorial by rewriting assigned sections based on team feedback. Below are some images related to this work.

Continued Development of the Grid Tie Tutorial for Our Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 3rd week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. Following up with last week, Shreyas came up with a more illustrative block diagram to explain the Vehicle-to-Grid concept for the current generation of Electric Vehicles.

He found an option to consider the Tesla Model X as an option for the community in accordance with its features that would be helpful. Shreyas illustrated with an example of how much energy can be used from an electric vehicle battery pack considering all the governing factors.

He started to look into the different battery storage options that are available to use for the solar-farm application and the parameters to be established for the same further contributing to the answer for “why open source sustainable cities”.

He also consolidated information regarding the different levels of Electric vehicle charging the related parameters like the power delivered and charging time.  Pictures below relate to this work-in-progress.

Continued With the Solar Microgrid Design Specifics Related to Electric Vehicles and Battery Sizing

Jarot Tamba (Civil Engineering Intern) completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week Jarot dove further into gathering information regarding the different proportions which Aircrete users have found to have worked successfully.

Jarot found some useful information from the Honey Do Carpenter Youtube channel which focuses on the construction of small rectangular homes using Aircrete.

There was information provided regarding the best curing methods (covered and out of direct sunlight and high temps), how to protect aircrete from a mold (using visqueen plastic wrap), and how to reinforce aircrete (pouring mixture over grid patterned wire mesh). Further research was also done about superadobe which was a bit difficult.

Jarot’s group cannot control what dirt or clay mixture they receive so initial tests must be run to determine the best mixture. Jarot and the group also met on campus during the week to scope out the workplace and discuss some important aspects of the project.

They also met to finalize their plans for initial testing, documentation, video recording and cleaning and maintenance plans related to “why open source sustainable cities”. Pictures below relted to this work.

Continued Helping With the Aircrete and Earthbag Compression Testing ” Click for Aircrete Page

Dominick Banuelos (Civil Engineering Intern) also completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing a crucial part of “why open source sustainable cities”. This week Dominick worked with the whole team to create the initial mixing plan, materials, testing plan, cleaning plan, video plan, and project schedule.

Following what the group came up with will allow for the project to run smoothly and on time. Below are some images related to this work.

Worked to Create Initial Mixing Plan, Materials, Testing Plan, Cleaning Plan, Video Plan

John Paul D. Matining (Civil Engineer Intern) completed his 2nd week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing too. This week John completed more research on Aircrete and the Earthbag mixes and created a proposed plan that was then combined with the group’s individual plan to create the group’s proposed plan.

This included plans for documentation of the project, a materials proposal, mixture proposal, schedule, and cleanup plan, all parts of the “why open source sustainable cities”. These documents included calculations, ratio mixtures, camera uses, and other details needed to conduct and fully document the compression testing. The pictures below relate to this work.

Completed More Research on Aircrete and the Earthbag Mixes and Created a Proposed Plan

And Marcus Nguyen (Civil Engineering Intern), also part of the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing team, completed his 2nd week as well. This week Marcus did further research in order to figure out the overall schedule for the Aircrete and Stabilized Earth Compression Testing as part of understanding “why open source sustainable cities”.

He also attended the meetup on his campus to meet with Jae, his group members, professor, and internship liaison to go over the necessary information needed to run the test. Later in the week, Marcus and his group gathered all the information to meet up and shared their research in order to come up with a schedule and plans for approval.

The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Continued Helping With the Aircrete and Earthbag Compression Testing ” Click for Page

This week the core team continued review and feedback on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial segment of the “why open source sustainable cities”. The focus for the week was making comments and addressing some older comments related to the doc. This week’s work has taken us through page 128 and included sections on Rigid Pavement Design and the Glossary.

Continued Review and Feedback on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial

The core team also completed a thorough review of the best solar hardware report for our solar microgrid designs.

Completed Review of the Best Solar Hardware Report for Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 27th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center. This week, Ian worked on the energy modeling narrative updates as reference for the future projects to be processed to ensure the LEED platinum certification.

Ian produced a narrative report that is general and easy to follow. The provided procedures also considers the ASHRAE 90.1-2010 standard that is applicable to the LEED 4/4.1 version of the rating system.

This report can be considered as an official manual of Duplicable City Center to properly design the energy model of the building working towards answering “why open source sustainable sustainable cities”.

The inputs here are more efficient than the performance of the Baseline Design so we can make sure that the energy model attains the highest possible LEED credit points. Please see below related pictures for reference.

Continued to Update the Energy Modeling Narrative Documents ” Click for Heating and Cooling Page

Carol Nguyen (Civil Engineer) also completed her 12th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development as a part of “why open source sustainable cities”.

This week, Carol worked on the report, added more details in the writing, added references for the requested sections, and resolved the comments that had already been addressed. For the Rigid Pavement section, she added the pictures to illustrate types of rigid pavement (CRCP, JPCP) and “Expansion Terminal Joint Section Between CRCP and Structure Approach Slab”.

Carol also added more details in the “Dowel and Tie Bar” and “Pavement Smoothness” section. In addition, she worked on the comparison table for alternative pavement options. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Continued Helping With the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial

Neel Shanbhag (Control Systems Electrical Engineer) completed his 6th week helping answer “why open source sustainable cities” and  with the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week he continued researching and understanding various papers for solar sizing for the Duplicable City Center. Pictures related to this work are below.

Continued Researching and Understanding Various Papers for Solar Sizing for the Duplicable City

Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 2nd week helping finish the Duplicable City Center roof designs working towards answering “why open source sustainable cities”. This week Venus started development of the City Center Living Dome roof design by detailing the roof, making the isometric section, and adding R-value specifics.

For detailing the roof, she’s using Revit to create details and callouts. For the City Center Living Dome roof, she added different layers and annotated them. The isometric section is still in process but Venus was able to complete details and the 3D isometric section. See pictures below.

Started Development of the City Center Living Dome Roof Design – Click for Page

And Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) joined the team and completed his 1st week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms as a part of the “why open source sustainable cities”.

Carlos started the week importing the Duplicable City Files into the Blender Environment. By the end of it, he was able to complete his firsts deliverables: All Renders.

Carlos encountered a problem when generating the renders after including the LED system (noisy renders) but after a while he was able to overcome said problem by increasing the render quality and using a denoiser filter. Pictures below are related to this work.

Joined the Team and Began Helping With the Pallet Furniture Designs for the City Center Guest Rooms

This week the core team completed 32 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration for answering “why open source sustainable cities” not mentioned elsewhere here.

The picture below relates to this. We also did more testing and bug identification within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

Completed 32 Hours Managing One Community Emails, Etc. – Click for Home Page

Jaime Arango (Graphic Designer) completed his 32nd week, spending time on contemplating “why open source sustainable cities” returning to creating badges for the Highest Good Network software. This week Jaime created the New Max-Personal Record and Most Hours in a Week badges. You can see both below.

Created the New Max-personal Record and Most Hours in a Week Badges – Click for HGN

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 31st week while understanding “why open source sustainable cities” and  working on the Highest Good Network software.

This week Chris worked on the Badge Report/History including the ability to set up to 5 featured badges and for Admins to delete badges in a user’s history and change badge counts on the User Profile page. Chris also placed the listing of featured badges (up to 5 by rank) on the user profile page. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software – Click for Page

This week the core team completed 24 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here for creating a global shift. Also more testing and bug identification was done within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

Continued Testing and Bug Identification Within the Beta Version of the Highest Good Network

The core team also created a new Subscribe page, setup the confirmation pages and messages, and all the other Mailchip custom details.

Created a New Subscribe Page and All the Other Mailchip Custom Details – Click for Page

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 30th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Chris modified the projects page to allow for categories to be added to projects for Badge assignment and created a link to the future inventory management page on a per-project basis.

He also worked on getting the auto-assign code working for most badge types but still needs to do some testing on that front before moving to beta. Finally, Chris helped OJ build out the API’s for inventory management contributing towards the vision for creating a global shift. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software ” Click for Page

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 21st week working on the Highest Good Network software and contributing towards creating a global shift. This week Yueru mainly worked on making filters have more than one option in the same filter list on the person reporting page. Now the users can select both food and housing in classification filters.

She also added an arrow sign on the collapse button. Yueru additionally changed the assignment filter from dropdown list to radio button since only two options are available for assignment filter. She also modified the UI part on the selected filters options part to make it easier for users to see the options they chose. The pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software ” Click for Page

This week the core team continued edits and additions to the “Best Small and Large-scale Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options ” article. This week we resized images to our standard width of 640px and added them into the page, embedded more videos that were missing, worked on the index of the page, and started to check that every link worked properly.

The pictures below share some of this developing work for achieving humanity’s eco-potential.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Continued Edits and Additions to the Plastic Recycling Page

The core team also updated the layout of the plywood for the loft floor for the Earthbag Village Dome Home Loft Engineering page.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Updated the Layout of the Plywood for the Loft Floor

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 50th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis began adding the results of the maximum roof size with and without external columns when snow is present.

He began by explaining the circumstances when building structures in snowy climates and the assumptions used to determine the maximum roof size and the maximum allowable snow depth for achieving humanity’s eco-potential. To illustrate the snow on the roof, Jose Luis utilized the SolidWorks model with and without the external columns.

With the illustrations he was able to form a free body diagram for both instances. With 30in of snow as the depth, it was found that the original roof size without additional supports could not support the weight.

The maximum snow depth the roof could handle was calculated instead and found to be 3.8in. Jose Luis then proceeded to elaborate the calculations and graphs used to determine the maximum roof size with external supports when 30in of snow is on the roof.

He concluded his calculations in the narrative, with suggestions such as wooden columns with larger cross-sections or additional supports in the case of there being more than 30in of snow. The pictures below show some of this work.

Maximum Roof Size With and Without External Columns When Snow Is Present – Click for Page

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 6th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Katherine read the Garkane New Construction Handbook, and wrote our grid tie construction step and cost estimates based on it for achieving humanity’s eco-potential.

Katherine also re-wrote the introduction part based on supervisor’s feedback. Moreover, Katherine proofread the whole report written by her, and made changes, did editing and formatting, and submitted it for feedback. Pictures below are related to this work.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 5th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath completed his areas of research and then proofread everything and submitted it for feedback. Below are some images related to this work.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs

Nicholas K. de León (Project Management Adviser) completed his 4th week helping with review of Highest Good Housing research and related tasks. Nicholas returned this week and started with looking over the energy reports’ edits that had been made per suggestions from previous weeks. So far those that have been made looked good and many were cleared.

Nicholas also got back to working on the bracket research for the City Center and summarized the viable information in a spreadsheet. Nicholas also worked on editing the Rabbit Stewardship article, getting more familiar with WordPress and direct adjustments in the process. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Review of Highest Good Housing Research and Related Tasks

Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also joined the team and completed his first week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing.

This week Shreyas completed his onboarding tasks and started planning the Electric Vehicle and charging infrastructure for the community. He researched the options and segregated information regarding 5 golf carts and 1 Tesla model 3 with respect to their commercial, battery options and charging requirements.

Shreyas started to find feasible options for 100% off-grid storage for the Solar-Farm application too working towards achieving humanity’s eco-potential. Pictures below relate to this work-in-progress.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Solar Microgrid Design Specifics Related to EVs & Battery Sizing

This week the core team continued review and feedback on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial for achieving humanity’s eco-potential. We reviewed the new additions to the Landscaping section on pages 66-69.

We also resolved comments throughout the doc up to about page 69 and addressed the recent comments within this section. We then reviewed and edited the remainder of the handrail section beginning on page 76 and continued through the Bicycle Design section pages 79-86 and followed up with Road Design Specifics beginning on page 86-91, and then reviewed Porous Asphalt Design on pages 92-97. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial

The core team also started double checking all the angles for the City Center hub connector work.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Checking All the Angles for the City Center Hub Connector Work

Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 25th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center. This week, Ian updated the energy modeling narrative documents.

He included in the documents the ASHRAE 90.1 requirements/tabulation of requirements for us to determine if the inputs are above the energy performance of the baseline.

It is important that the energy efficiency of the proposed building design be more efficient than the baseline design for us to achieve the LEED Platinum Certification. We will measure the energy savings after we simulate the baseline design. Please see below updated progress photos for reference.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Updated the Energy Modeling Narrative Documents

David Na (Project Management Adviser/Engineer) completed his 19th week helping with input and management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, as well as the City Center Water Catchment Designs.

This week David began by reviewing and preparing the action items for his team working towards achieving humanity’s eco-potential. He used the progress updates doc to verify which items still need work and delegated tasks.

He also worked on a cold climate hydrology paragraph for our location’s drainage plan, because our state is a state that sees an annual snowfall of approximately 22 inches. David also prepared a preliminary parking lot design for the parking lot. Pictures below are related to this work.

Input & Management of the Parking Lot & Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial

Rushabh Bhavsar (Mechanical Design Engineer) completed his 11th and final week helping with the City Center Eco-spa designs. Rushabh updated the final report on the City Center hot tub spa.

He researched further about the foundation materials used for in-ground hot tubs, comparing Aircrete and cinder blocks with traditional materials and then incorporating this into the model as our solution for achieving humanity’s eco-potential.

Rushabh updated the model removing the air line and making graphics and flow diagrams of the foundation as well as the piping layout. Pictures below relate to this work from last week.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Updated the Final Report on the City Center Hot Tub Spa

Carol Nguyen (Civil Engineer) also completed her 10th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development.

This week, Carol worked on adding details and making changes to her AutoCAD drawing according to David’s new comments and suggestions for sump pump construction details.

In addition, she also wrote the introduction paragraph for the “Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Details” section. Furthermore, Carol edited the “Landscaping” section about native plants and other sections based on feedback. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Continued Helping With the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial Development

Neel Shanbhag (Control Systems Electrical Engineer) completed his 4th week helping with the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week Neel finished working on the cut sheets, matched the properties, and also updated the spreadsheet and the dropbox. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Helping With the Duplicable City Center Electrical Designs

John Aquino (Electrical Engineer) also completed his 3rd week helping lead the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs. This week, John updated the base plan backgrounds per the City Center Master drawing file.

Additionally, the Equipment subfolder within the Electrical folder has been organized to include Kitchen, Mechanical, and Electrical equipment. Initial specifications for electrical equipment to serve HVAC equipment has been provided. Project set-up document is still a work-in-progress. Pictures below show some of this work.

Achieving Humanity’s Eco-potential ” Helping Lead the Duplicable City Center Electrical Designs

This week the core team completed 34 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here. Also more testing and bug identification was done within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

Continued Testing and Bug Identification for the Beta Version of the Highest Good Network Software

The core team also completely updated the badges outline for the Highest Good Network software team to follow for creation of the next round of functionality there.

Completely Updated the Badges Outline for the Highest Good Network Software Team – Click for Page

Jaime Arango (Graphic Designer) completed his 31st week helping, returning to creating images for the One Community Updates Blogs like this one spreading the vision.

This week Jaime created images for weekly progress updates #502, #503, #504, #505, and #506. You can see all these new images below.

Created Images for Weekly Progress Updates #502, #503, #504, #505, and #506

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 29th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Chris created the DB schema and mockups for the Materials/Items input component, he stubbed out the Inventory APIs and wrote comments on how to implement for OJ to work on, created the Cronjob to award badges, and started working on the infringement streak type. Pictures below are related to this work.

Created the DB Schema and Mockups for the Materials/items Input Component

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 20th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Yueru mainly worked on making the filters have more than one option in the same filter list.

Now the users can select both food and housing in classification filters. She also added the resources number to the collapse button. The pictures below are related to this work.

Worked on the Highest Good Network Software Filters – Click for Page

This week the core team worked on more updates we realized were needed for the Earthbag Village Dome Home Loft Engineering page. This included creating updated imagery and trying different strategies as a part of a complete sustainability model to reduce the count of the sheets needed for the loft floor from 5 to 4 by rearranging how they are placed and simulating where to make the cuts.

Worked on More Updates Needed for the Earthbag Village Dome Home Loft Engineering Page

The core team also continued working with the latest version of the Murphy bed assembly instructions document. We provided detailed explanations with supported images for suggested updates in the electrical section and the wall design part of a complete sustainability model. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working With the Latest Version of the Murphy Bed Assembly Instructions Document

Dean Scholz (Architectural Designer) continued helping with the Earthbag Village (Pod 1) 4-dome cluster designs contributing to a complete sustainability model. This was week #224 of Dean’s work and the focus was fixing an issue with the lamp shade sticking as transparent and trying to get the light coming from the lamp to look realistic. Pictures below show some of this work.

Continued Helping With the Earthbag Village 4-dome Cluster Designs – Click for Page

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 49th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis began transferring information from the maximum roof size calculations along with added elaboration and narrating in the Net-Zero Bathroom Tutorial/Instructions.

He began by updating the introductory narrative of the maximum roof size along with the addition of design choices made. Three sections were made covering the maximum roof size without supports, the maximum roof size with supports, and the maximum roof size when snow load is accounted for.

Each section had an introduction stating the final results and explaining the general approach to the solution. Variables and assumptions were added to the maximum roof size without and with support columns sections. The assumptions were stated to clarify what steps were taken for the calculations.

Finally the calculations and graphs were added along with paragraphs elaborating the steps, values, and graphs promoting a complete sustainability model. The same elaboration will be added to the snow load section and the added sections will be proofread. The pictures below show some of this work.

Continued Helping Finish the Net-zero Bathroom Component of the Earthbag Village – Click for Page

Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 43rd week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacey continued working through the different changes in wood pieces and sizes. The addition of the 2 vertical support beams in wall frame continues to be a feature that needs to be updated in all views.

Updating pages of the clothing and storage area and finding the cutting lumber instructions need to be planned out for a complete sustainability model. Some page features are in need of updating text sizes and there are a few questions of which updates to make to overall structure. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.

Continued Working Through the Different Changes in Wood Pieces and Sizes – Click for Page

Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 17th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson focused on reworking the solar incentive research and best solar hardware research. He fixed every comment request, and finished reworking both research documents for a complete sustainability model.

He also added Jae’s request to the solar incentive research conclusion. Jeson additionally contacted Garkane and Rocky Mountain Power engineers to confirm their program and rates, and other options they offer. An appointment was made with Garkane engineer on Jun 29th, 9am LA time.

After finishing the reworking, he looked into some diesel generators and recorded their data. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Focused on Reworking the Solar Incentive Research and Best Solar Hardware Research – Click for Page

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 13th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela worked on the Water Catchment section for the Roadways, Walkways, Gutters, and Parking lot Report.

She read through the current material within the Water Catchment section and analyzed which portions were necessary. Daniela edited and rewrote sections, elaborating on some concepts and removing others.

In order to incorporate information regarding porous pavements and the grey water processing pond into the water catchment section, she also researched information concerning the two for a complete sustainability model.

She primarily focused her research towards the grey water processing pond due to previous work on porous pavements. Daniela then wrote and edited new sections. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Worked on the Water Catchment Section for the Roadways, Walkways, Gutters, and Parking Lot Report

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 5th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This Week Katherine made some corrections on the cost section based on more research and peer feedback. Shed also started researching on steps and procedures to start a new project with Garkane, and wrote the related section in the report. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Working on the Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Frank Roland Vilcapaza Diaz (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 4th week helping with the Earthbag Village energy specifics. This week Frank worked on the heat loads needed for the Tropical Atrium on the coldest day of the year. He also researched about selection of HVAC systems to determine which heater is best fitted for the Tropical Atrium by reading the ASHRAE Handbook 2016 HVAC Systems and Equipment. The pictures below relate to this work.

A Complete Sustainability Model ” Continued Helping With the Earthbag Village Energy Specifics

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 4th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath completed the research and writing for the section covering subsidies programs. Below are some images related to this work.

Completed the Research and Writing for the Section Covering Subsidies Programs – Click for Page

Last but not least, Wanda Field (Research and Review Assistant) completed her 3rd week helping with research and reports review and additional research for the Duplicable City Center and Highest Good Housing components.

This week, Wanda continued working on calculating the power consumption of the Straw Bale Village. She made a list of all the items that would consume power by reading through the cost analysis provided on the Straw Bale Village information page.

This table for the village is based on and in the same format as the power consumption table that has been completed by her and the core team for the Earthbag Village. Wanda was able to complete the research for about a third of the items in the list. See below for some pictures related to this.

Continued Working on Calculating the Power Consumption of the Straw Bale Village – Click for Page

This week the core team reviewed, edited, and provided comments of the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial through page 64. This included more responses beginning with Flexible Pavement Materials on page 5 through page 60 that covers Streetscape Elements by Street Type. Then a detailed review of the text of Considerations for Sidewalk Width Determining on pages 60 through 64.

Edited the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial – Click for Page

Ian Oliver Malinay (Energy Modeler/Analyst) completed his 24th week helping run the energy analysis calculations to help us achieve LEED Platinum status for the Duplicable City Center. This week Ian provided the energy modeling documents and summary of inputs as references to be posted on the One Community website.

He also provided the service hot water design guidelines with ASHRAE 90.1 design requirements. Ian additionally started the energy modeling documentation updates covering the LEED whole building simulation prerequisites and then the optimization requirements as per the LEED reference manual. Please see below updated progress photos for reference.

Continued Helping Run the Energy Analysis Calculations to Help Us Achieve LEED Platinum Status

David Na (Project Management Adviser/Engineer) completed his 18th week helping with input and management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, as well as the City Center Water Catchment Designs. David began the week with assigning action items from the progress google doc he had created.

He also reviewed and commented on all comments made from the core team and Nicholas who have been reviewing the roadways, walkways, and landscaping document. David made some changes and additions and worked on the remaining cross sections for the walkway. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued With Input and Management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways

Sunitha Paraselli (Mechanical Design Engineer) completed her 16th week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors we’ll use to build the domes. This week Sunitha worked on load calculations, collecting all the references for 2×12 seasoned fir, red cedar, yellow pine, or spruce, bending strengths, snow loading, full-time loading, work to maximum load, Modulus of elasticity, etc. and adding all of these to the report document. The pictures below relate to this work.

Continued Working on the Duplicable City Center Connectors We’ll Use to Build the Domes

Luis Manuel Dominguez (Research Engineer) also completed his 15th week helping with research related to the City Center Eco-spa designs. This week Luis collected the team’s feedback, discussed the suggestions with the team and made the necessary adjustments to have it presentable for the website.

Luis also narrowed down his selection of the pump using the team’s latest plumbing design for a complete sustainability model. This will allow the parts selection of the system to be wrapping up in the next week. He has also been tasked with designing the control system for the unit through code and creating a user guide for his system. Pictures below are related to this work.

Continued Helping With Research Related to the City Center Eco-spa Designs – Click for Page

Rushabh Bhavsar (Mechanical Design Engineer) completed his 10th week helping with the City Center Eco-spa designs. This week he worked on the final edits to the hot tub design report and justification of all the recommendations, designs and systems.

He delved deeper into understanding the differences of Shotcrete and Gunite as foundation materials, Eco-friendly insulation methods for the hot tub, and documenting all of this contributing towards a complete sustainability model. Pictures below relate to this work from last week.

A Complete Sustainability Model ” Worked on the Final Edits to the Hot Tub Design Report

Carol Nguyen (Civil Engineer) also completed her 9th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week, Carol worked on the research and writing of a new section, which was the native plants for landscaping section built upon a complete sustainability model.

She also added the pictures for illustration so the readers can have a better understanding about these plants. Carol continued to work on the sump pump construction details on AutoCAD and added more details in the system as recommended by David. In addition, she continued to work on the Greywater in Developing Countries notes. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Worked on the Research and Writing of the Native Plants for Landscaping Section

Neel Shanbhag (Control Systems Electrical Engineer) completed his 3rd week helping with the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs part of a complete sustainability model. This week Neel continued working on the cut sheets of kitchen equipment. He also matched the model number with the ones on the spreadsheet.

And he found working links for the ones that were broken and the various models for the ones that were not mentioned before. Pictures of some of this work are below.

A Complete Sustainability Model ” Continued Helping Lead the Duplicable City Center Electrical Designs

John Aquino (Electrical Engineer) also completed his 2nd week helping lead the Duplicable City Center Electrical designs building upon a complete sustainability model. This week, John cleaned up the base plan backgrounds of the project scope and created xref files for each of the floors.

This method of having base plan xref files (and in the future RCP, furniture plans, power/data plans, etc) will help ensure a more organized way of creating drawings. In addition, a new title block xref was created, as well, in order to have one TB file to go back to whenever issuance information changes. Pictures below show some of this work.

This week the core team completed 22 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here. Also more testing and bug identification was done within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

Tested and Identified Bugs Within the Beta Version of the Highest Good Network Software

TEKtalent Inc. (a custom programming solutions company) also continued with their 45th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Nithesh and TEK Talent team worked on the bug fixes mainly in the time entry, weekly summary report, and user profile areas.

The pull request has been raised for the same. They also upgraded the react script version to the latest and ignored the lint error for the time being, to run it locally. Pictures below show some of this work.

Worked on the Bug Fixes Mainly in the Time Entry, Weekly Summary Report, and User Profile Areas

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 19th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Yueru mainly worked on doing code cleaning and refactoring for reporting feature deployment.

Like the project reporting page, for the people reports page, she also applied the filter name changes, added ‘filter off’ in each filter option and alphabetized the rest, and made the resources column wider.

She added back the collapse button and showed the first resource name in the resource column. When a user clicks the collapse button, they now see all the resources. The pictures below are related to this work.

Worked on Doing Code Cleaning and Refactoring for Reporting Feature Deployment

Robert Pioch (Graphic Designer) completed his 17th week helping with the new badges for the badges section on the Dashboard of the Highest Good Network. Robert completed the 100 volunteer hours in Highest Good Stewardship Badge and prepared the Highest Good Food, Economics, Society and Energy Badges for the Highest good Software.

Continued Helping With the New Badges for the Badges Section on the Dashboard

Mike Suarez (Software Developer) also completed his 7th week working on the Highest Good Network software. Mike wrapped up the new timer implementation. He fixed race conditions by saving unread only after at least 1 minute passed. Before he did this, every read was causing a save and was breaking Pause and Stop.

He started fetching the timer when the app opens too. This has as consequence that a new tab opens with the timer running up already if the other tabs were running. This improved the synchronization between multiple tabs open as well. The pictures below are related to this work.

A Complete Sustainability Model ” Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software

This week the core team continued edits and additions to the “Best Small and Large-scale Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options ” article. This week we made some additions to the “comparing plastic recycling options” table, made more changes in the google doc to get more consistent formatting, and transferred more sections including embedded videos to the live web page, most of them from the Precious Plastics section spreading the word about upgrading the traditional city. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Continued Edits to the Best Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options

The core team additionally continued double checking the Earthbag Village energy specifics for the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis. We double checked the time-of-day draws for everything, did additional research on water heaters and pumps, and wrapped up the energy work for this village. We then started organizing what will be needed to complete this same process for the Straw Bale Village. See below for related pictures.

Continued Double Checking the Earthbag Village Energy Specifics for the Solar Microgrid Design

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 48th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis researched information on the effect snow loads have on metal roofing.

The research helped gather the values of the loads needed to help determine the maximum size of the Net-Zero Bathroom’s exterior roof with and without external support columns vital to upgrading the traditional city. The depth of the snow was set at 30in and a density of 0.0041lb/in², with these values he calculated the weight at various roof sizes depending on the number of tangent support beams.

A graph and trendline was generated from these calculations and was added to the initial roof weight function. Based on the weight limit of the walls and the weight of the snow, the exterior roof would need external support in order to withstand the weight of snow in a snowy climate.

The weight function including the weight of snow was added to the calculations for the maximum roof size with external columns. The centroid of the radial beam was constrained to be 75% closer to the external support than the centroid of the wall.

With this parameter Jose Luis calculated an increase in roof area of 40%. With the calculations complete, he will add the findings to the Net-Zero Bathroom instruction/tutorial and elaborate for simplification. The pictures below show some of this work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Focused on Completing the Solar Incentive Research Report

Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 42nd week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacey completed the comments received for the wall section.

She worked on getting the correct boards and colors in each drawing and also tried to regulate many of the line weights and colors used throughout. All of this is to make the look more consistent overall so it will be easier to understand and widen the reach for upgrading the traditional city. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.

Continued Working on the Final Edits and Revisions to the Murphy Bed Instructions ” Click for Page

Vicente J Subiela (Project Management Adviser) completed his 21st week working on the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. Vicente has continued the supervision of the ongoing energy tasks and documents, resolving questions, making contributions and suggesting conclusions.

After the data collection by Jeson on the solar charges and credits comparison (see vertical bar graph) the best economic balance is expected for Rocky Mountain Power. This is the conclusion provided that the energy supplied to the grid is equal or higher than the energy taken from the grid (expected energy balance scenario).

Vicente then focused on the grid tie tutorial and short comments on the hot tub design and the grid tie tutorial. He also updated the Gann diagram for the timeline follow-up and confirmed the high energy needs of the electric car chargers as part of the energy analysis.

Continued Working on the Solar Microgrid Design, Sizing, and Cost Analysis Specifics

Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 16th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson focused on completing the solar incentive research report.

He quoted the program detailed in the report, fixed the citation issues, and rewrote some of the company solar rate descriptions. Jeson also added descriptions on the document and website links. He then numbered all the images and converted all solar incentive research resources into pdf files and added them to the dropbox folder. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Focused on Completing the Solar Incentive Research Report

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 12th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development.

This report requires various sections on pavement types such as those previously worked on for decomposed granite and porous asphalt. The new section focuses on porous concrete. Throughout this week Daniela researched and collected information regarding the design and functionality of porous concrete.

She then organized the information to better relay the research to the audience. Additionally Daniela wrote paragraphs on the structural design, maintenance, advantages, disadvantages and application of this pavement all important for upgrading the traditional city.

She researched for more properties concerning porous concrete in order to ensure that the information provided properly summarizes the pavement type. Lastly, Daniela reviewed the section and edited the material. Pictures of some of this work are below.

Continued Helping With the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 4th week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Katherine did research on transmission line cost on the grid-tie system a key component for upgrading the traditional city.

The costs vary largely depending on power voltage, design conditions, and land and environment requirements. Data was studied and analyzed in the report. Katherine also reviewed the whole report and wrote the introduction section. Pictures below are related to this work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Did Research on Transmission Line Cost on the Grid-tie System

Frank Roland Vilcapaza Diaz (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 3rd week helping with the Earthbag Village energy specifics. This week Frank worked on refining the areas on the atrium and researching on the thermal properties of the materials composing the tropical atrium. He also researched on the conditions necessary for the plants and trees to grow. The pictures below relate to this work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Continued Helping With the Earthbag Village Energy Specifics

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 3rd week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week he focused on completing research, writing the report section “what to expect from the county”, and sending emails to energy departments to gather information for the report. Below are some images related to this work.

Continued Working on the Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Nicholas K. de León (Project Management Adviser) completed his 3rd week helping with review of Highest Good Housing research and related tasks.

Nicholas dedicated this week’s work to primarily editing research documents, starting with the Solar Incentive Rate Research, Best Solar Hardware Research Report, and City Center Hot Tub Design.

In addition to this, Nicholas wrote a quick guide to help future researchers and document preparers, which he put up for use on Saturday. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.

Continued Helping With Review of Highest Good Housing Research and Related Tasks ” Click for Page

Last but not least, Wanda Field (Research and Review Assistant) completed her 2nd week helping with research and reports review and additional research for the Duplicable City Center and Highest Good Housing components.

This week, Wanda focused on power consumptions of the Earthbag Village and Straw Bale Village. She finalized her calculations and findings on the best water heating system for the Earthbag Village communal eco-showers, and came to the conclusion that tank water heaters will be the most power efficient option.

She then started the overall power consumption table for the Straw Bale Village. Finally, Wanda edited and reviewed a section of the Grid-Tie Energy Infrastructure Tutorials documents and revisited the comments she left on the documents she reviewed last week. See below for some pictures related to this.

Focused on Power Consumptions of the Earthbag Village and Straw Bale Village

This week the core team completed 24 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here. Also more testing and bug identification was done within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

TEKtalent Inc. (a custom programming solutions company) also continued with their 45th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Nithesh and TEK Talent team worked on the bug fixes and security vulnerability scan and fix for npm packages.

The bug reported in beta testing for assigning projects and teams has been fixed and a pull request is raised for the same along with the package version changes. Pictures below show some of this work.

Worked on the Bug Fixes and Security Vulnerability Scan and Fix for Npm Packages

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 28th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Chris worked on the auto blue square function for missing submitting a summary because there was a problem where someone submitted a weekly summary and didn’t get an email but they got an infringement.

Chris fixed this by changing the window for submission and auto-email sending so it was only 1 minute apart instead of 5. Pictures below are related to this work.

Worked on the Auto Blue Square Function for Missing Submitting a Summary

Yueru Zhao (Software Engineer) completed her 18th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week Yueru made some modifications based on feedback from last week. She made the resources column wider and showed only one user in the button.

Yueru also changed the filter name to”Filter Off” and made the “Filter Off”” the first option and alphabetized all the rest of the options. She also modified and capitalized the table columns to use Resources, Class, Start Date, End Date, etc. The pictures below are related to this work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software

Mike Suarez (Software Developer) also completed his 6th week working on the Highest Good Network software. Mike worked on fixing the timer. He added a field to the Timer collection in the db: started, lastAccess so start get’s set upon Start and Pause.

This is used to calculate the time passed instead of counting seconds in the app. LastAccess is used to timeout the user. Every 1 minute the app checks the time passed and automatically the last access gets refreshed.

If the app gets closed without stopping or pausing and more than 5 mins passes, the next time the timer starts, it gets picked from the Last Access value. The pictures below are related to this work.

Upgrading the Traditional City ” Worked on Fixing the Timer for Highest Good Network Software

This week the core team created a plan for compression testing aircrete and stabilized earth. These tests will make creating permitted structures for the Earthbag Village construction easier. We’re planning 275 tests covering 10 different mixes. The pictures below show some of the other planned details, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Created a Plan for Compression Testing Aircrete and Stabilized Earth

The core team also continued edits and additions to the “Best Small and Large-scale Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options ” article.

This week we made additions to the “comparing plastic recycling options” table, identified new areas we’d like to research, did some corrections to the placement of paragraphs in the google doc, transferred some sections, and embedded videos to the live page. The pictures below share some of this developing work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Edits to the Best Plastic Recycling, Reuse, and Repurposing Community Options ” Click for Page

The core team additionally continued double checking the Earthbag Village energy specifics for the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis. We brought on 2 volunteers to assist and continued to add calculation details to the energy needs tab, so others can update easily if necessary in the future.

We worked out water demand and greywater production and instantaneous flow rates for pump sizing and power draw. See below for related pictures, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Double Checking the Earthbag Village Energy Specifics for the Solar Microgrid Design

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 46th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis reviewed and completed his calculations and graphs. While reviewing his work he updated the dimensional properties of the calculations.

Values such as the surface area of the model’s roof and the density of galvalume were updated to the correct values. With these corrections the graphs and trend lines relating weight and the number of support beams were updated.

The total weight and the number of tangential supports were calculated by summing up the trendline functions and constraining the weight to a maximum value of 648lb and the number of supports being a whole number. The maximum number of support was calculated to be 12 and a weight of 583.5 lb.

The maximum weight was divided by the current model’s weight equaling a scaling factor of 1.31 or a 31% increase in surface area. The calculations for the maximum roof scaling factor with external supports was updated as well.

The solution to the maximum scaling factor with supports uses the total weight of the roof as a function of radial beam length derived from the calculations done when there are no external supports. With the updated calculations, the maximum scaling factor with external supports was 4.01 or a 400% increase of surface area.

The large increase was due to the low density of galvalume (3.75 gms/cm3) when compared to conventional galvanized steel (7.14 gms/cm3) which was being used in the previous calculations. The pictures below show some of this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Reviewed and Completed Calculations and Graphs – Click for Net-zero Bathroom

Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 41st week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacy focused on working through the feedback comments from the core team, one by one. Overall the instructions have been greatly improved.

She has been able to make adjustments to several different areas because when revisiting the areas she found small details that were missed or incorrect. The page keys and wood numbers have caused the most problems. It seems there are a lot of adjustments to wood sizes and positions.

We want to make sure we represent all the components accurately and the procurement list will have to get longer and more stylized. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress which can be used for creating a more enriching living experience

Continued Working on the Final Edits and Revisions to the Murphy Bed Instructions – Click for Page

Jeson Hu (Aerospace Engineer) completed his 15th week helping with research related to the solar microgrid design, sizing, and cost analysis specifics. This week, Jeson grouped the companies with less solar incentive information in the solar incentive comparison table, added more guidance and notes to the table, and color coded the table for easier visual rating.

He also reviewed the best solar hardware inverter sections, changed and corrected hardware descriptions, and added inverted images to the spreadsheet comparison table and the report. He then added the image numbering and names/captions. For the solar inventive report, Jeson fixed the title capitalization format, and finished the conclusion requested.

He then focused on rewriting the solar hardware descriptions and citation issue, and is halfway done with the solar hardware report. The pictures below share some of this developing work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Continued With Research Related to the Solar Microgrid Design, Sizing, and Cost Analysis Specifics

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 11th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela started out the week by returning back to the Earthbag Village street design that needed to be offset to 20 feet.

Initially there was a problem with the shape of the street when offsetting the outer ring. A solution was found and Daniela made edits through AutoCAD so that the street now measures 20 feet. Daniela also continued watching and annotating the videos regarding the grey and black water systems.

Once completed, she cleaned up these notes so that others could read and understand the material without referring back to the videos. Additionally, Daniela added images that would visually aid others referring to the work. Lastly, in order to ensure better understanding of a paragraph, she created two tables for the Aquapini and Walipini project.

Pictures of some of this work are below, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Helping With the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping Tutorial ” Click for Page

Katherine Cao (Chemical Engineer) also completed her 3rd week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs and contributing towards creating a more enriching living experience. This week Katherine did research on the general cost for building a solar farm grid-tie system.

She researched the per-mile cost on different power needs and overhead and underground options. Katherine read reports and articles, wrote the costs section, and corrected some figures and makes them more clear. Pictures below are related to this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Working on the Grid-tie Connection Details for Our Solar Microgrid Designs – Click for Page

Frank Roland Vilcapaza Diaz (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 2nd week helping with the Earthbag Village energy specifics. This week Frank worked in creating a report on the water heater selected for the eco showers. He read through information regarding the heating losses and gains produced inside the system to start on the design of an auxiliary heating system for the atrium.

Dimensions on the atrium were determined using the Sketchup program and they will be used to find the loads needed in the HVAC system. The pictures below relate to this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Creating a Report on the Water Heater Selected for the Eco Showers – Click for Earthbag Village

Prabhath Ekanayake (Electrical Engineering Assistant) completed his 2nd week working on the grid-tie connection details for our solar microgrid designs. This week Prabhath continued development of the grid tie energy infrastructure tutorial by adding permitting fees for the step-by-step construction section, writing the overview, and researching and emailing a few energy companies for relevant information.

Below are some images related to this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Continued Development of the Grid Tie Energy Infrastructure Tutorial – Click for Solar Energy Page

Last but not least, Nicholas K. de León (Project Management Adviser) completed his 2nd week helping with review of Highest Good Housing research and related tasks. This week, Nicholas finalized the cylinder mold order, obtaining a competitive price lower than other sellers previously contacted.

In addition to this, Nicholas worked on editing research documents and providing feedback for the solar team. This included, most importantly, the need to cite properly, something that will need attention before these documents are ready to be published to One Community’s website.

In aiming to reduce the time spent on backtracking research citations and suggesting edits that will delay publication, Nicholas also worked on a template for writing, one that can be used to make future documents more uniform as well as provide suggestions for citations from the outset.

Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Continued Helping With Review of Highest Good Housing Research and Related Tasks – Click for Page

This week the core team completed 27 hours managing One Community emails, social media accounts, interviewing potential new volunteer team members, and managing volunteer-work review and collaboration not mentioned elsewhere here. Also more testing and bug identification was done within the Beta version of the Highest Good Network software.

TEKtalent Inc. (a custom programming solutions company) also continued with their 44th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Nithesh and TEK Talent team continued working on the bug fixes. It is now possible to enter hours up to 40 and minutes up to 59 only.

Phone number formatting was added too, including international numbers in the add new profile screen and the edit profile screens. The watermark for total committed hours was also corrected. Pictures below show some of this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Continued Working on the Bug Fixes for the Highest Good Network Software – Click for Page

Jaime Arango (Graphic Designer) completed his 30th week helping, returning to creating images for the One Community Updates Blogs like this one. This week Jaime created images for weekly progress updates #497, #498, #499, #500, and #501. You can see all these new images below, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Created Images for Weekly Progress Updates #497, #498, #499, #500, and #501

Chris Weilacker (Software Engineer) completed his 27th week working on the Highest Good Network software. This week, Chris completed Parts 1 and 2 of the proposal for the badges and materials tracking components. You can see some of his proposal below, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Completed Parts 1 and 2 of the Proposal for the Badges and Materials Tracking Components

Mike Suarez (Software Developer) also completed his 5th week working on the Highest Good Network software. Mike started the week fixing CircleCI. We were pointing to the latest nodejs docker image to run our project and they (CircleCI) switched the latest from node 14 to 16. Since our project requires node 14 we were not able to build.

The image set was cimg/node:14.17.0. Then Mike started tackling different issues from the bug report. He fixed the behavior of blue squares, allowing them to autosave the changes. He also fixed the Total Effort calculation which included the Intangible Effort. And he found the problem with the Timer not accounting for the right amount of time.

This was an implementation problem in the feature for which he proposed a solution and is looking forward to implementing it next week. The pictures below are related to this work, an excellent example of creating a more enriching living experience.

Continued Working on the Highest Good Network Software ” Click for Page