There are many ties between the Open Source movement and OpenFarm. Although our intention is to empower anyone to be able to grow the plants they desire, there is a larger concept that we have adopted as an organization. Many people have vague notions of what Open Source is (and isn’t) and I hope to expand the understanding of Open Source, especially as it pertains to OpenFarm, to Freedom, and to Accessibility. In other words, I’d like to explain why we put the “Open” in OpenFarm. 

This is take two of my track bike dropout prototype. 

I want to build a custom bamboo bike frame. The essential pieces for the frame besides the bamboo includes a metal head tube, a metal seat post insert, a metal bottom bracket tube, and the metal rear tire dropouts. To keep things simple, I will make a track bike which has different styled dropouts than a road or mountain bike. Since my bike frame geometry may be unique for a track bike, and since the dropouts have to be longer than average in order to attach them securely to the bamboo seat and chain stay tubes, I decided to make my own dropouts.

I was approached by a local artist who needed a 3D print of his artwork to make a negative mold that could be used for glass art. He had a few drawings (ink on paper) and wanted a 3D digital file made from his 2D drawings.

Without community participation, OpenFarm would be a mere shell. It must be fleshed out by the people it is designed to serve. So who are these people and how do you connect with them?