World-changing Cooperatives – One Community Weekly Progress Update #443

This week the core team continued working on the “Earthbag Construction Footers, Foundation, and Flooring” review for finalizing the live page. The focus this week was discussing Rockwool insulation placement under the floor of the earthbag dome, correcting some images to better explain alternatives, answering related comments for this and the new Floor Construction document, and continuing proofreading. The pictures below share some of this work.

Jose Luis Flores (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 61st week helping finish the Net-zero Bathroom component of the Earthbag Village. This week Jose Luis began working on a flow rate analysis of the water storage system of the Net-Zero Bathroom. The flow rate analysis is being conducted to ensure that there is sufficient flow rate and pressure in the water storage system for proper use. He began by first measuring the pipes and bends and making flow diagrams. A spreadsheet was constructed with all the necessary labeling and diagrams to comprehend the flow rate and pressure of the system. The analysis will take into account the losses from the bends and tees attached to ensure a fully functioning water storage system. The pictures below show some of this work.

David Na (Project Management Adviser/Engineer) completed his 27th week helping with input and management of the Parking Lot and Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, now mainly focused now on the Earthbag Village aspects of this. This week, David emailed Daniela with the week’s action items and also provided redlines to her drawings for edits to make for the Earthbag Village drainage plan. The redlines made were for a preliminary sketch and pipe network system layout for the village design. He also did some research for gravel roads and their relationship with ADA compliance. David is thinking if the proposed gravel road doesn’t not meet the requirements set by the city, we will utilize a portion of the road for gravelpave2 (an ADA compliant structural grid system that uses gravel for drainage purposes) in order to achieve ADA compliance. Pictures below are related to this work.

Aidan Geissler (Sustainability Researcher) completed his 20th week helping with 2nd-to-final review, feedback, and content editing that is now focused on the Most Sustainable Insulation tutorial. This week Aidan finished the research and wrote and added (on his non-live page that he’s developing) the new introduction paragraph for the top-rated product ROCKWOOL’s Comfort Batt. He also worked on a task in the Society section below.

Daniela Andrea Parada (Civil Engineering Student) completed her 14th week helping with the Sustainable Roadways, Walkways, and Landscaping tutorial development, mainly focused now on the Earthbag Village components. This week, Daniela continued working on the drainage plan for the Earthbag Village. She included new aspects to the design such as a subsurface perforated pipe for overflow, also cleanouts and flow arrows. Labels were placed to clearly indicate where catch basins and other features are located. A legend was also included for better visualizations. Daniela then revised the excel sheet calculations for the roadway unlimited expense plan and the roadway minimized expense plan. Some values were found to be too large, so once adjusted, the overall costs were reasonable. Lastly Daniela transferred her finalized paragraphs on the Earthbag Village roadway to the Roadways, Walkways, Gutters, and Parking Lot Report. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Shreyas Dayanand (Battery Research Engineer) also completed his 11th week helping with the solar microgrid design specifics related to electric vehicles and battery sizing. This week Shreyas researched Commercial EV Charging Stations. He found the original equipment manufacturers for EV chargers in the USA, charging solutions, and inputs required for appropriate selection of chargers and EV charging stations. He also continued with his report editing: rephrasing sentences, picture alignment, tables, figure names, and adding additional explanations to make the content more clear. Shreyas then read more on the previously studied cases for solar farm battery storage options to consolidate information to choose the appropriate battery option for our case. Pictures below are related to this work.

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 11th week helping with the Aircrete and earthbag compression testing. This week the team coordinated with Sangam to go over the plan for this week and next week. The team has new limited hours of availability, about 5 per week, due to resuming the school year. The team was able to work on organizing the materials and making sure everything was in order. The team worked on the jar testing to find the amount of clay in the soil and edited the calculations for the Stabilized Earth Sheet. The team also ran some errands to pickup foaming agents such as Dawn and Suave shampoo to test against 7th generation dish detergent. Pictures below are related to this work.

and Tiffany Gao (Sustainability/Plastics Researcher) completed her 8th week as a researcher, reviewer, and web developer. This week, Tiffany further increased her understanding of waste-to-energy plants, specifically what other countries have been doing in terms of waste management. After reading up and watching numerous videos of zero-waste communities, additional waste management strategies, gasification plants turning waste into energy, and even one about the potential of biogas as a waste solution, she began drafting up a basic proposal on what One Community could attempt to do in terms of non recyclable waste management. The pictures below share some of this developing work.

Venus Abdollahi (Architectural Designer) completed her 10th week helping finish the Duplicable City Center designs, now focused on the dormer window designs. This week Venus completed the first-floor and second floor dormer window designs. She included window details to the AutoCAD Master file for both the first-floor and second-floor dormer windows and double checked all files met the International Building Code fire code/egress. Venus also created an illustration guide for the final report. See pictures below.

And Carlos Lillo (Engineering Technician) completed his 9th week helping with the pallet furniture designs for the Duplicable City Center guest rooms. This week, Carlos continued generating the Duplicable City Center render videos. So far everything is coming together pretty good. All the furniture have their animations but the Pallet Bed still needs to be improved with some additional camera angles to help the viewers notice the elements that need their attention. For the Wardrobe new videos were uploaded for review, and all that is left are Bottom Cover Screws and Doors Screws Animation. Pictures below are related to this work.

Andrew Wilbert Vidianto (Mechanical Engineer) completed his 8th week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors we’ll use to build the domes. This week, Andrew re-researched and re-understood the concept of the hub connector for the City Center. He was also part of an introductory meeting for George with Sangam. During this meeting George was introduced to the project. He participated in several discussions with George regarding the project goals and the results up to this point. Pictures below are related to this work.

Ibukun Shogbamu (Junior Mechanical Engineer) completed his 7th week working on the City Center HVAC Designs. This week, Ibukun created an initial task list for the Ultimate Classroom HVAC design and he assigned estimated time durations for the completion of each listed task. He also began the calculations for the ventilation requirements of the Ultimate Classroom according to ASHRAE standard 62.1 2019 using a spreadsheet/table. The pictures below share some of this work.

Xuanji Tang (Architectural Designer) completed her 3rd week working on Duplicable City Center architectural review and updates related to the structural code. This week she revised the plumbing fixture table and calculated the needed number of exits, doors and stairs on each floor. Xuanji also redesigned the restrooms and exits according to the code. The pictures below relate to this work.

And George Koshy (Design Engineer) joined the team and completed his 1st week working on the Duplicable City Center connectors we’ll use to build the domes. This week, George completed his orientation procedures and got familiar with the project goals and his duties. He took time to understand the geodesic dome design and reviewed work up to this point to get up to speed. George researched FOS and reviewed the FOS used for this particular project. He also spoke with a structural engineer to understand the load analysis and he started analysis of the Geodesic dome loads. The pictures below relate to this work.

This week the core team continued working on the Chicken Coop Assembly document. One team member reviewed two videos regarding rafter design and made decisions on the best approach. They also made changes to the south wall due to placement alterations of the OSB which ultimately add strength to this wall.

Another updated the south wall sheeting placement in 3D SketchUp and produced and added the related images into the Chicken Coop Assembly document. She also redesigned in SketchUp and started generating images related to assembly of the room frame, updating it to add overhang on east and west walls.

Qiuheng Xu (Landscape Designer) also completed her 50th week volunteering, now helping with the Aquapini & Walipini external landscaping details. This week Qiuheng continued working on the SketchUp model based on previous weeks’ comments and feedback. She revised the central area landscape topography and structural details around the doors. Also, the walkthrough video path in Lumion was updated into clockwise circling around and scenes with a pushing in and push out in specific areas were shortened. Pictures below are related to this.

And Brian Storz (Culinary Project Manager) joined the team and completed his 1st week helping lead the completion of the Transition Food Self-sufficiency Plan, Transition Kitchen designs, Food Procurement and Storage plan, and related menu and meal plans. Brain started the week off with a virtual meeting with Jae. After discussing the goals, he read through the notes, plans and recipes. With the anticipation of Culinary Interns working with Brian, he created an initial draft of the weekly goals that would be expected from each volunteer, and then set out compiling a list of healthy and nutritious options that would be the building blocks of the menu design, while keeping in mind budgetary needs. Brian then reviewed the plan and came up with and submitted for feedback a revised approach that was more of a buffet style. Below are some images related to this work.

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