Thinking beyond climate change, how can we create solution-models that address this existential threat and create a more enjoyable and abundant life for those who participate? One Community’s answer is evolving sustainability beyond just food, energy, and housing. We can create a lifestyle most would consider luxurious and immensely fulling by including fulfilled living models, education, for-profit and non-profit economic design, social architecture, global stewardship practices, and other key elements that address the six foundational human needs.
Click on each icon to be taken to the corresponding Highest Good hub page.
One Community’s physical location will forward this movement as the first of many self-replicating teacher/demonstration communities, villages, and cities to be built around the world. This is the April 17th, 2022 edition (#473) of our weekly progress update detailing our team’s development and accomplishments:
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One Community is thinking beyond climate change through Highest Good housing that is artistic and beautiful, more affordable, more space efficient, lasts longer, DIY buildable, and constructed with healthy and sustainable materials:
This week the core team reviewed the report that the first group of students wrote on all the work they did around compression testing and efforts towards solving the aircrete collapsing issue. We provided significant comments to improve the content. We also had meetings with the Compression Testing team and the City Center Center Hub team, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this.
Dean Scholz (Architectural Designer) continued helping with the Earthbag Village (Pod 1) 4-dome cluster designs. This was week #244 of Dean’s work and he is finishing up the actual renders, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The picture below shows a series of lighting updates leading the the almost-final render at the bottom.
Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 90th week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis continued working on the design of the rain barrel support structure of the net-zero bathroom. He added additional support columns composed of 3 sided unistruts to the other end of the outer part of the structure. The additional supports were necessary as the earthbags were not capable of supporting the weight of a filled rain barrel. To assure the orientation of the columns were sufficient he conducted a static and buckling FEA.
The von mises stresses were well below the yield strength of the structure and the maximum deflection was estimated to be 0.8mm, much lower than the 3mm maximum beam deflection allowed. The buckling factor was found to be 41 indicating that buckling is not predicted to occur. The next steps will involve the design flexibility of the structure, which would allow the user to know the limitations of structure modifications. The designs and analysis will be the main focus and the rendering can now be passed to an additional team member, allocating time to the external water catchment and storage details, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The pictures below show some of this work.
Stacey Maillet (Graphic Designer) completed her 70th week working on the final edits and revisions to the Murphy bed instructions. This week Stacey continued to make updates mostly focused on screw sizes and numbers, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Screenshots below are related to this latest progress.
The Compression Team consisting of Dominick Banuelos (Civil Engineering Intern), Jarot Tamba (Civil Engineering Intern), John Paul D. Matining (Civil Engineer Intern), and Marcus Nguyen (Civil Engineering Intern) completed their 29th week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week the Compression Testing Team completed the rough draft of the Compression Testing Team’s Final Report. The team started by dividing the work to address all topics needed in the report, then held meetings to recall all that they did during this project, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 27th week, now focused mostly on the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development. This week Daniela worked on reviewing and responding to comments and double checking information and doing additional research as needed. She also made a list of action items that needed to be completed based on what she had been working on the previous weeks.
She completed writing the answers to the FAQs, made final edits to the cover sheet of the Roadways and Parking lot excel sheet, and began inputting images of various cost analysis roadways excel sheets into the report and started writing the narrative that explains the new images, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 21st week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. This week Shreyas worked on new tables and added more content by creating a case study regarding the EV v/s Gasoline costs. He found reliable sources for all the parameters in the cost analysis for the fuel v/s battery comparison.
Shreyas also converted all the tables in the document to standard and more visually appealing formats, researched Tesla solar panels and the type of charging infrastructure that is required to charge EVs using solar panels, and made a case study for solar panel sizing for EV charging for a 500 kWh configuration. He additionally added more information to the conclusions paragraph and addressed comments in the document, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Yuran Qin (Volunteer Web Editor) completed her 21st week helping with web design. This week Yuran continued updating and adding content to the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping page. She fixed the problems in the feedback notes of the page and revised the lists, tables and images in the page. Yuran also fixed the code of the page according to the code of Jae’s backup edition, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Maya Callahan (Sustainability Researcher) completed her 14th week helping with research and web design, now focused on review and editing of the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial. This week, Maya began a new task which entails proofreading and editing the Roadways, Walkways, and Parking Lot webpage. She began from the beginning of the webpage and changed any minor grammar and punctuation issues.
For more complex issues she made comments on the respective google document for additional clarification and feedback from others working on the webpage. Finally, Maya checked the hyperlinks and hover text of the webpage site map to make sure they were consistent and opened in the correct tabs, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The pictures below are related to this work.
Ming Weng (MS Geography & Environmental Engineering) completed his 4th week helping with the Best Small and Large-scale Community Options for Sustainable Processing and Reuse of Non-recyclables research, report, and tutorial. This week, Ming tried to resolve three things. First, additional information from Cogent Energy System was requested. However, details regarding HelioStorm Gasifier (primarily costs) are commercial and confidential, so he tried several ways of getting in touch with a representative. Their email address has been acquired (not on their website), so the next step is to clarify the purpose to continue the communication. Second, Ming read Jae’s comments on Week 2 and 3, and reviewed the existing non-recyclables document for applicable materials.
Ming worked on organizing all these materials, addressing the feedback, and adding additional sources to connect information. Third, Ming is looking for alternative gasifier systems provided by other companies, focusing on solutions for small communities. Multiple sources show gasification as a better system for small-scale waste-to-energy plan, though their costs of operation and maintenance are considerable. Some companies did not mention whether they are suitable for small scales, and some did not mention their daily capacity. Therefore, more consultations have to be made before making comparisons, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
Yushi (Zoey) Cai (Electrical Engineer Researcher) joined the team and completed her 1st week helping with research focused on Sustainable Lightbulbs and Light Bulb Companies. This week Yushi completed her orientation and initial setup. She also started her research on the most sustainable light bulbs. She searched many kinds of LED lighting bulbs and compared the energy efficiency, lifetime, application, pollution, and customer reviews. Yushi also searched for several lighting bulb companies to compare and evaluate their commitment to sustainability, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. See below for some pictures related to this.
One Community is thinking beyond climate change through a Duplicable and Sustainable City Center that is LEED Platinum certified/Sustainable, can feed 200 people at a time, provide laundry for over 300 people, is beautiful, spacious, and saves resources, money, and space:
This week Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 32nd week helping finish the Duplicable City Center designs. This week, Venus completed section H’_H’ and started section H”_H”. She added new furniture, new walls and columns, and changed the position of some columns and walls to match the new floor plans, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. See pictures below.
Xuanji Tang (Architectural Designer) completed her 29th week working on Duplicable City Center updates, now focused on the City Center Lighting updates. She updated the section of the North vehicle entrance to the basement space and the floor plan of this area on the landscape drawings. Xuanji also continued making the roof model, including some structure in the sketchUp model, and reviewed the section drawings Venus created, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Huiya Yang (Volunteer Architectural Designer) completed her 27th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week Huiya finished modeling the new SketchUp model for Window 5 and Window 6. She also accomplished the work of finishing updating all the windows on the first floor in the SketchUp model, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Yuxi Lu (Architectural Designer) also completed her 24th week working on the Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week Yuxi met with the team to discuss her progress for the past 2 weeks. Doors other than D11 and D15 have been finalized after discussion and approval. D15 door selection is reconsidered due to wanting color coordination with exterior walls of the central atrium area. Options for D11 were explored further due to its need for high thermal performance. Options were presented for review, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Raj Patel (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 17th week helping with the Duplicable City Center hub connectors design and testing. This week Raj simulated the difference in stresses if we filled epoxy in the hubs, it did show lower stresses as seen in the pictures, but it would also add 6 lbs of weight to every hub, which isn’t ideal. After consulting with the team we came to a conclusion that the shape of the dome will distribute most of the loads in the front of the beams instead of the sides, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
Prathik Jain (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 10th week of work on the Duplicable City Center hub connectors design and analysis. This week Prathik tried different design methods to create the complete model of the dome in SolidWorks with all the center hubs to perform the stress analysis and check the stability of the dome, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below show some of this work-in-progress.
Diwei Zhang (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 4th week of work on the City Center Eco-spa 3D modeling and analysis review. Diwei checked the calculation of the hot tub design including the heat convective evaporation, the water head loss of the plumbing, the water mass diffusion, and the covered and uncovered hot tub heat losses. He created an excel sheet for the calculation of the waterfall. Diwei also created bills of materials to analyze the cost of the hot tub and the waterfall, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below show some of this work.
One Community is thinking beyond climate change through Highest Good food that is more diverse, more nutritious, locally grown and sustainable, and part of our open source botanical garden model to support and share bio-diversity:
This week the core team worked on revising, edits, and answering and making more comments on the Chicken Coop Building Instruction document. After reviewing the section on standing seam roofing, then reviewing multiple standing seam videos, we were unable to find a proper instructive video that thoroughly explains the initial application of the first panel.
If we don’t have a better option by the time we build this, we will hire a qualified standing seam roofer and document the step-by-step approach by video, and then create text that is very detailed to assure our viewers that the proper installation steps can be successfully carried out, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
A different core team member also continued working on updates for Chicken Coop Assembly Instruction images. After discussion with another team member options for the edge of the roofing we decided to have bending edges on the east and west ends of the coop. Changes were also made to the diagonal bracing of the entry door, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. All images related to changes were updated.
Adam Weiss (Chef) completed his 9th week helping with the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan and related menu and meal plans. This week, Adam worked on putting together more recipe cards. These are taken from Anna’s recipes and week-long menu sheet. A test week is needed. These will be used in conjunction with the master items list to make a cost out for the week as well as a shopping list. These recipe cards will be scalable, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The pictures below relate to this work.
Marilyn Nzegwu (Culinary Volunteer) completed her 2nd week helping with the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan and related menu and meal plans. This week Marilyn continued recipe development and menu plans and researched recipes that would work with food ingredients for the two month meal plan, adding into consideration the perishable by substituting vegetables from the original recipe with vegetables that are available in the kitchen. She also developed recipes without too many dietary restrictions that will also serve vegetarians, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The pictures below relate to this work.
Lam (Dave) T. Nguyen (Mechanical Engineer) also completed his 2nd week of work, this week focused on the Climate Battery designs. He studied and reviewed all the provided sources and our extensive research on the subject to have a better understanding of the project, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below are related to this work.
One Community is thinking beyond climate change through Highest Good education that is for all ages, applicable in any environment, adaptable to individual needs, far exceeds traditional education standards, and more fun for both the teachers and the students.
This component of One Community is about 95% complete with only the Open Source School Licensing and Ultimate Classroom construction and assembly details remaining to be finished. With over 8 years of work invested in the process, the sections below are all complete until we move onto the property and continue the development and open sourcing process with teachers and students – a development process that is built directly into the structure of the education program and everything else we’re creating too:
This week, Adolph Karubanga (Certified Project Manager & Civil/Structural Engineer) completed his 5th week helping with the Ultimate Classroom structural engineering. Adolph executed the following tasks: He collected technical data on ROCKWOOL Comfortbatt® insulation material and used it to estimate additional structural loads, replacing polystyrene insulation material. This was preceded by computation of top and bottom cord loads on the roof structure respectively. A FINK_type truss structure was selected and AutoCAD drawings prepared.
He idealized the plan and identified the most critical truss (the one with the longest span) for detailed analysis. Adolph came up with an FEM model of the truss system, applied ABAQUS® software and modeled the structural response of the roof under varying prescribed loading scenarios, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. See the related pictures below as examples of this work.
One Community is thinking beyond climate change through a Highest Good society approach to living that is founded on fulfilled living, the study of meeting human needs, Community, and making a difference in the world:
This week the core team completed 28 hours managing One Community volunteer-work review not included above, emails, social media accounts, web development, new bug identification and bug fix integration for the Highest Good Network software, and interviewing and getting set up new volunteer team members, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures below show some of this.
Miguel Fernandes (Full-stack Developer) completed his 6th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week, Miguel worked on solving errors on the build of PR #384, the added logout modal. After that, Miguel started to refactor other components. Miguel refactored the Timelog component, and pushed the code to GitHub, raising the PR #387, making that component loading much faster on the dashboard. He also started refactoring the Login component (and the Form component). Contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Elyse Lam (Software Developer) completed her 5th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. For this week, Elyse worked on a bug related to creating a new user. It should be indicated ahead of time what fields are required. We’d like to make those fields outlined in red and then have them turn black once they are filled. Then we wouldn’t need to clutter the area up with additional words, and we’d still have the (already working) popups we have that tell people what to do if they left a field blank, which they’d only do once and then they’d have learned what the red outlines mean.
Elyse thinks there is a built-in solution with Reactstrap that can display the red border around those missing fields. Currently the UserProfileAdd component is displaying the error message with formErrors. She will continue trying, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Phu Nguyen (Software Developer) completed his 4th week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week, Phu contacted Chris to get help fixing bugs in the Report’s Component. Chris suggested adding optional chaining (“?.”) for undefined or null objects and told Phu to check his Dev version versus other developers. Phu also fixed Rachit’s bug in the Report Component by researching jest and d3, and continued working on 4.4.1.4, planning to get it done in a few more days, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Yiyun Tan (Software Engineer) completed her 2nd week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Yiyun spent most of her time researching previous work done on the Management Dashboard Component. She went through all the code changes, images, videos and weekly reports from Jerry, understanding the logic and priority of implementing this component. She then documented all her learning and understanding to make all the information more understandable and ready for another team member to lead development with her on it. Yuyun also spent a bit of time helping the team review a PR, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. Pictures of some of this work are below.
Nicky Chen (Full Stack Developer) joined the team and completed his 1st week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week, Nicky started with onboarding and reading through all the Google Doc action items. He also picked up a bug to start on, with adding Location to the basic information portion of the profile page. He additionally helped out various team members with code review, solving build issues and familiarizing himself and them with the repos more, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. The pictures below relate to this work.
Ron Magpantay (Software Engineer) also joined the team and completed his 1st week helping with the Highest Good Network software. This week Ron worked on supporting the team by reviewing pull requests. Changes that were made to the front end had resulted in some errors and they had been looked at. More instructions were also added to the React Local App setup document to clarify how to access API endpoints for the HGN application. In addition, the duplicate user bug required further review of Redux so time was spent conducting research on Redux and how it affects the front end application, contributing in One Community’s motives by thinking beyond climate change. See pictures below for some of this work.
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