[ Backlog - This log was adapted from my Patreon, to fill in the details about how this project has developed over the years. Check the link for the full post, and if you appreciate this project, consider supporting it! ]

I made a lot of progress this year, and reached a few major milestones. I've done my best to document that work as best I could, so that it can be resource for others. But the resolution of my documentation is still lower than I would like it to be.

With open source hardware, the proof is in the pudding. Are people actually replicating your design? Because it's not really open source until other people can build it, and actually do.

This year, my goal is to increase the resolution of my documentation.

To that end, I've just created two shared Google Photo Albums, one for photos and one for videos, covering all of the major milestones of the project in 2021. Feel free to dive in to the nitty gritty. If that's what you're into, then here you go. It's raw and un-edited, but if you want details about how I'm doing this stuff, start there.

If you've got questions about how it all works, I've also been working on finally building out a Patrons-only Discord server, where patrons can ask me questions about the systems and help me improve the documentation.

This is something experimental that I'm trying out, and I may or may not have the capacity to answer every question, so don't subscribe if you want my undivided attention. But my goal is to have a place where people who are genuinely interested in learning about how these machines work and how to build them can talk shop and ask me questions, or offer ideas and solutions, and help me fill in the gaps in my existing documentation.

My goal for 2022 is to start using the Discord server as a platform for streaming runs of the Metabolizer and Trash Printer on Twitch,  so that patrons can join the voice channel and ask me questions live while I work, but everyone can watch. Not sure how that will work, exactly, but that's never stopped me before!

In September, for the first and only time this year, I ran the entire Metabolizer system, entirely off the grid, on solar power and trash power, for about 4.5 hours. The battery pack powered the reactor, which turned waste cardboard, wood chips, and amazon packaging into biomass gas, which I used to run a generator, and used the power generated from the gas to power the Precious Plastic shredder, to shred up waste #5 plastic, and then 3D print it into this cup. You can watch the 5-minute abridged video of that run HERE.

This is the cup I printed off the grid, made with real trash, shredded with an biomass power, dyed black by a handful of char dust I threw into the hopper of the printer. Not my best work, but that's the first time I got it to work at all!

In November, I accidentally broke the sieve plate on my Precious Plastic shredder, which filters the size of the shredded plastic.

Without it, I couldn't shred up plastic fine enough to print with, and I was running out. So I took the last bit of shredded plastic that I still had and I designed and printed a custom sieve plate out of trash, just to see if I could. It took me 3 tries to get it just right, but it not only works at least as well as the old metal one, but it just press fits right in there! And now if I want a finer shred, I can just make another one and drill smaller holes.

That was a really good feeling. It was one of the first times I was able to make something that I actually needed, that actually works, out of actual trash. It really does actually work, at least that well. It may not be disruptively useful just yet, but it is definitely increasingly useful, and that's good sign.