For the month December 2021

And Now for Something Completely Different.

To My Critics…

I bet you can guess where this is going. Due to some unplanned surgery this month I decided to focus on a blog of just the things I was able to accomplish during my recovery. After all, no lifting of anything over 10 lbs for 6 weeks doesn’t leave much that you can do. But instead, I thought I’d write to all my fans in the peanut gallery who, like my mother-in-law used to say, “You know what you need to do?” God rest her soul, she drove me crazy, although she also drove me to raise the bar a little more for fear of criticism or Monday morning quarterbacking. So, to my critics, this Bud’s for you!

The First Draft

If I didn’t mention it before, let me remind everyone…”THIS IS A PROTOTYPE”. And it’s barely that. It’s not an MVP, minimum viable product. It’s not even a Beta, an Alpha, or a “Limited Candidate Release”, it’s a First Draft, at best.

This first draft, or Proof of Concept, is meant to test one thing and one thing only. The Functionality of many interconnected solutions. It ain’t gonna be pretty. We’re not going to waste any time on a look and feel that’s likely to change anyway. All of It’s parts aren’t going to work perfectly together the first time out. We’re on a shoe string budget using bailing wire and bubble gum to prove a point. And if we choose a cheaper solution that’s not 100% safe but it’s a LOT cheaper so we can prove the concept, we’re going to do it. Even if there’s a risk we’ll “burn down the house”. Thanks for THAT input, you know who you are.

That said, we will take precautions and we won’t take unnecessary risks. That’s why they’re call “Calculated Risks” people! We are fully aware that we will have to provide eventual solutions that are “Idiot Proof”. The public requires them because the vast majority are sheep that often don’t think twice about safety, assuming someone else has done the thinking for them. But Bless their Pea-Pickin’ Hearts, they want to reserve the right to sue you because you didn’t think of all the creative ways they could use your product to injure themselves. Did you know there are no less than 7 safety stickers on most step ladders? Why? Stupid People.

We’ll be designing at break neck speeds so we can find the right solutions in the shortest amount of time, without fear of failure. And if we DO burn down the house, we’ll be sure to break out the marshmallows and make the most of it. But most importantly, we will learn from each failure.

Fail Fast. Fail Early. Fail Often

Elon Musk

Besides our other rules of modularity, DIY, and inexpensiveness, we’ve come up with a few more, the most important of which is “If an addition is being made that is purely aesthetic, it gets cut out.” And we didn’t stop there. All solutions must serve at least TWO or THREE of the following capabilities or it’s a No-Go:

• Every solution must serve a functional purpose first.
• Every solution must be modular so one can add more down the road as money, time, or needs change.
• Every solution must be upgrade-able without throwing away the old work.
• Every solution must be scalable
• Every solution, functionally speaking, must be interchangeable. Ideally, each solution choice should be agnostic and not effect the decisions of the other solutions.
  Remember the Amstrad computer? Probably not. Among other dumb decisions they put the monitor’s power supply in the main computer case so you’d be forced to buy their monitors. Brilliant!
• Every solution must have a “generic” or inexpensive option to remove barriers to entry.
• Every solution can be assembled by one person working alone with little to no experience.
• Every solution must be able to use the simplest technology available first.

And at every major milestone we will stop and look at what we’ve built and ask “What could we have done better?” or to quote from Elon again, using his 5-step Engineering Protocol, “What can we delete?”

The Best Part is No Part

Elon Musk

5-Step Engineering Protocol by Elon Musk

Here’s the Link for more details on each: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/16/elon-musk-reveals-his-5-step-engineering-protocol/

1. Make The Requirements Less Dumb
2. Try And Delete Part of the Process
3. Simplify or Optimize
4. Accelerate Cycle Time
5. Automate

Pretty is Slow, Expensive & Painful…
Ugly is Fast, Functional, & Fun!

Nothing good ever followed the words, “Ooh ooh, you know what we could add that would be neat?” Just haul off and smack them in the mouth before they finish that sentence.

When Elon Musk started designing a new heavy-lift, 100% re-usable rocket, now known as Starship, he started with a team of Water Tower welders with stainless steel experience and they created the UGLIEST little rocket the World has ever seen. It was called Starhopper. Less than a year later it flew up to 150 meters, moved laterally, and then landed safely on it’s legs. And all with a brand new full-flow, staged-combustion-cycle rocket engine, that had never flown before! It couldn’t have been any more impressive had they made it blare through loud speakers the Theme to 2001, a Space Odyssey.

Less than 2 years later and with many, many, many iterations on how they welded the different variations of stainless steel (they invented their own blend of that too) to how they found ways to automate the process later with robots, they flew a prettier, but incredibly functional, Starship up to 10 kilometers and landed it on its hind legs too.

Yes, they had MANY failures along the way. Several crashed. One exploded on the pad in what they now call an R.U.D., a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. They even had one that landed hard, tilted to its side like the leaning tower, caught fire, and THEN exploded. To which SpaceX said, well at least we don’t have to take it apart now.

To my critics I say, we plan on Musk’ing things up a little, we plan on more Doing and less “Fixin’ To”. And we plan on failing early and often because it’s the only way to iterate and to find the best solution. Thanks but you can all keep your ideas and opinions to yourselves. I know you mean well, but we all know why you do it anyway. If you don’t fill your days with telling other people what they should be doing you won’t have an excuse for why you don’t get anything accomplished yourself. At least that’s been my experience. Now, if Elon showed up and said, “Why don’t you try…” you bet your bippy I’d try it. So if you’re not Elon, sorry.

Next month we’ll be posting our recent progress, including the mostly functional:

• Pex plumbing throughout (still no leaks, knock on wood)
• On demand and efficient propane hot water heater
• Installed shower pan with a dual valve rain shower head and hand held main
• Drainage system that provides gray water to the lawn
• 100% of the electricity provided by the 6kW solar panels and the Sol-Ark 12K
• Fully tested and ready for assembly 1600-cell, 200Ah, 12kWh battery pack
  Don’t worry T.B., we’re not going to charge or discharge them anywhere near 1C.

Happy Holidays and We’ll see you 2022!