December 14th, 2011 - Since the ideas around European cooperation, which were born during an Earthship Belgium expedition in the summer of 2010, quite some things happened in Europe.
The organizational blue print of Earthship Belgium, after our reorganization in the spring of 2010, became a non-profit export product made in Belgium. After this Sweden, Spain and Moldova joined in. And there is some movement spotted in Denmark as well.
But it doesn't stop there. European cooperation has taken things to a higher level. Local developments suddenly get a greater acceptance and get picked up and carried at a European level.
Like the project for an ecological society based on earthship concepts and Permaculture in a community of people became to be an open source product exported within Europe. The research of the performance and answers to the problems applied in a custom model, by Flagship Belgium resulted into the Euro model which, with cooperation of EEBU, is being further developed.
Flagship Belgium is working on the Euro model. Willy, our chairman, is working on the EEBU Basic manuals, a series of step by step DIY manuals helping with selection of land. Design, excavation and so on until the final finishing touch. Discussions and experiences of EEBU members are a part of the input to obtain a better working model. Dries, our illustrator, is working on a 3D animation of the model and illustrations in the manuals. EECO and EEBU members take care of translating the manuals to various European languages. Both series of manuals and the 3D animations will be published under an Open Source license and will be freely available for anyone who wishes to use them. Another made in Belgium export product we could presume.
To complete the package we are working on an Earthship Calculator. Aim is to, together with manuals and 3D animation, have all tools available for the own design and realisation of a Euro model. In addition to the European model, you can also calculate other models.
EarthshipCalc version 0.0.0 - Screenshot: W. Raets
Willy, our chairman, therefore started the development of this calculator called EarthshipCalc. We didn't want to withhold you some of the behind the scenes developments that are ongoing.
After clicking Euro model - Screenshot: W. Raets
If you click on one of the models shown in the application, you can do a calculation on the number of tyres needed. The illustration explains how to gather the data necessary to make the calculation.
Screen to input data - Screenshot: W. Raets
Once all data collected you click Start.. for further calculations.
After entering the data you will get a result - Screenshot: W. Raets
Once tire size,the length and the number of rows for the different wall segments is entered, the application returns the exact number of tyres needed for building the walls.
Calculations for the other models still needs further development. In addition it will be possible to calculate slope angles, depth of an earthship, water catchement and size of water tank, electrical needs and any further ideas pass along the road.
EarthshipCalc will be made available for Linux environments and under a GNU General Public license. Again made in Belgium for export. It will work with the EEBU Basic manuals and the 3D Euro model to allow people to get started with a Euro model themselves from A to Z.
And yes..we are all about Open Source Earthship Building...no profit interests...just people's interests...
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