18th Week, Invention, intellectual property, and income
Invention
In this research I am focusing on kinetic architectural elements and experimenting with the interaction of the human with the architectural shell. The interest is set on achieving low-energy movement by using a smart geometrical configuration, and on fabricating almost all the necessary parts inside the FabLab.
In other words, I am trying to come up with ways to achieve kinetic architecture with simple and cheap means inside a fabLab, so that both their fabrication and operation can be affordable by anyone.
For this I am developing a kinetic shading panel that that consists of two arms and uses spring forces as counterweights to minimise energy requirements and reliance upon the actuators. The user can interact with it with his phone via bluetooth using the project's application.
What happens next?
This project explores but a small fraction of the countless possibilities in which the same mechanism and logic can be applied. Therefore I do not consider my project to be a final product, but rather a first experimentation that could then lead to other bigger projects concerning kinetic and interactive architecture. There is a great variety of ways in which this research could be applied.
Maybe I will be the person who continues this research, or maybe somebody else.
If I were to continue working on this project, I would open a company that works with other companies, offices or FabLabs and offers advice on projects concerning kinetic architecture.
Intellectual property
Throughout the process I found countless online sources that were free, and helped me immensely. In a way my project is a creative combination of all those sources, I didn't invent anything new. So, my "output" should go back to where it took most of its "input" from: the open source online network. That is why I tried to document everything as well as possible, so that I can also contribute something in the open-source community.
My project, like all products that have been generated under the framework of the Fab Academy, is under an open license.
This license is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license gives people the right to share, use, and build upon a work of the author. CC provides a flexibility to the author(for example, he/she might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of his/her own work) and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.
In this link you can find with details the legal code of this licence.
Another license I looked into is the GNU general public license . The basic difference between this and the Creative Commons licence is that with the GNU everybody can use and make my prototype, while with the CC License everybody can also make changes to my files. This is why I prefer the CC license.
Income
To begin with my advising company, I would consider using crowdfunding, a way to fund a project by raising contributions from a large number of people in an online community.
Kickstarter is a big funding platform that helps creative people find the resources and support they need to make their ideas a reality. Using kickstarter, it is easy to begin a project, and apart from raising money, it also helps build a community around the project.