>Need a Place 2 Stay > + more Stuff just 4 U <
#1
03-06-2015, 06:34 AM
>Need a Place 2 Stay > + more Stuff just 4 U <
Everyone needs their own 'Space.
What do you think of the below ? Do you want one ? Post & let us know what you think ?
This Square-Topped Space Egg Is the Disaster Shelter of the Future
The Exo shelter may look like a sci-fi porta-potty, but it could be the smart solution for people displaced by disaster
By Neal Pollack
Jeff Wilson
The generator in the Exo went down at midnight. One second I was sleeping in my bag on my cot, the space heater and minifridge soothing me with their chorus of electric hums. Suddenly the whole pod shook. My phone, plugged in beside the cot, emitted a little squirt of noise. There was a thunk as the electronic deadbolt unfastened. Then it was dark. Without power, the pod's LED-illuminated, capacitive-touch panel, which operates the lights and locks, had gone blank. The digital readout—a four-digit number like an address—on the pod's exterior, which sent a little glow through the top of the skylight when it had power, had also been extinguished.
I considered not doing anything. It was snug in my bag, and the food in the fridge would keep for a while. But then I felt the wall next to me. A molded composite shell gets pretty cold at night in December, even in Texas. I touched the floor. It was also chilly. The heater had been on high, and it had kept the Exo just warm enough. In another hour my pod would be an ice bucket, and I would be very uncomfortable.
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I got off the cot, groaning like the middle-aged man I am. Lumbar support isn't a high priority for disaster-relief bedding. I pulled on my sweater and hiking boots. Hot pain stabbed across my sacrum. Flashlight in hand, I stepped outside into the Texas Hill Country and trudged the fifty or so yards to the generator. The gas cans had those protective spouts on them. It was a two-person job. But I didn't really have a choice. I was alone out there.
Jeff Wilson
Thirty-six hours earlier, I'd driven onto the field in the middle of the game preserve where I'd be living for the next two days. There sat the Exo Mark 4 disaster-housing prototype, looking like a giant space egg with a square top, or a distended version of the orgasmatron from Woody Allen's Sleeper, or perhaps a porta-potty from the future. An actual porta-potty had been set up a few hundred yards down the road, past a cattle guard, just far enough so that there'd be no way for me to reach it after dark without spraining an ankle.
Michael McDaniel, the CEO of Reaction, the Austin, Texas–based company that makes the Exo pods, was waiting for me, along with the preserve's owner. They were laughing. I'd driven up in a Prius. A camper I'm not. But this made me a perfectly good test subject for the Exo. It's designed for ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Since I was the first noncompany employee to ever spend the night in one, my circumstances were extraordinary enough.
It was a two-person job. But I didn't really have a choice. I was alone out there
Emergency housing is in a wretched state. Millions of refugees who have fled the Syrian crisis live in makeshift dirt-floor tents held together by duct tape and cardboard. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, years after a horrifying earthquake, displaced people are still squatting in scrap huts. Our domestic solutions—stadium housing and FEMA trailers—are only marginally better.
Jeff Wilson
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McDaniel says he dreamed up the Exo after Hurricane Katrina, when he saw how shoddily the refugees had been treated and housed. He cut a "door" out of the bottom of a Styrofoam cup, and then spent the next decade madly working on a unit in his backyard and garage, obsessed—like Richard Dreyfuss sculpting a Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes—with creating stackable, modular, efficient disaster-relief housing. Now he has millions of dollars in seed funding and a growing staff highlighted by a chief engineer who most recently worked at Boeing on numerous airliners and who had previously designed satellites for NASA. Before the molded composite has even dried on the prototypes, Reaction is preparing Exo for mass production.
The pods come in two pieces: the shell, which is made out of a proprietary mix of materials as secret as a Texas pitmaster's barbecue rub, and the floor. The Exo's base measures 9 feet 6 inches by 8 feet 4 inches, and the structure stands 8 feet 4 inches tall. Altogether it weighs 400 pounds, though McDaniel says they can get that down to about 300 pounds. Regardless, the Exo can easily be lifted into place by four people and assembled in about five minutes, and it comes as wired as the smartest of smart homes.
McDaniel handed me a radio-frequency-identification (RFID) bracelet, like what I'd get for admission to a music festival. All Exos, even in the most extreme scenarios, will have personalized digital security, access to a power source, and built-in LED lighting. I walked up to the pod and swiped the bracelet across a lit white circle next to the front door. The circle swirled and turned green. The bolt unclicked. I opened the door and stepped inside.
It looks like a giant space egg with a square top ... or perhaps a porta-potty from the future
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The Exo is fully modular, almost like Lego housing. There's a desk attachment available so it can become a field office, and there's even a version in the works that could house a mobile surgical unit. Mine was more of an extreme bachelor edition. Bunk beds had been clipped to both side walls. The beds on the east wall were folded up to fit a space heater and minifridge.
The pod's interior felt generically futuristic, very Starship Troopers. It could have used a nice print or two, or even a One Direction poster. I turned on the LED lighting, which gave the space a dystopian, interrogation-room glow. There were electrical outlets on either side of the rear wall. I plugged in my phone, put my stuff down, and sat on the bunk.
Well, here I was.
Jeff Wilson
On the first night I drank a few beers, read, and ate dinner. It was lonely, but I felt strangely comfortable, securely locked inside my pod. The next morning was damp and chilly. I drank some coffee and stretched out on the floor, which was freezing to the touch and covered with a coat of fine Texas dust. Fortunately, Exos are designed to be easy to clean.
After a nice three-hour hike around the ranch, I returned to the pod, swiping my RFID bracelet. The shelter was now sweltering. McDaniel says he's working on a version of the Exo that has a built-in air conditioner, as well as louvered vents in the front. That also seems like a needed innovation. It was only 65 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
It could have used a nice print or two, or even a One Direction poster
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But these are just prototype observations. The Exo has enormous potential. The units can be fit together to form a multiroom home of sorts. A wet unit, containing running water, is also in the works. Beyond its intended relief mission, it could, and most likely will, be used for other purposes: for workers in the North Dakota oil fields, campers at a music festival like Bonnaroo, or in dozens of other scenarios. The pods aren't fancy, and they're not cozy, but they're secure, fully wired, and they have access to power. If I'd just lost my house in a disaster, I'd be thrilled to get one. It sure beats a tent.
I tried to keep that in mind on my last night as I stumbled grouchily in the dark toward the generator, lifted the heavy gas can, and dribbled fuel all over myself. McDaniel says multiple Exos can run off a generator truck, portable solar panels, or can be hooked into a power grid, if available. That would have been nice.
After twenty minutes or so of incompetent maneuvering, I got some gas into the tank. The generator roared to life and the Exo lit up in the field, glowing like it was ready to be carried back to its home planet. It looked oddly beautiful and delicate. I imagined hundreds of them strung together, forming a village of temporary modular housing, linked by a central computer system, shining in the night. That could happen. McDaniel says that by the end of 2015 Reaction will be making 500 Exos a month. Demand is that high.
Jeff Wilson
What do you think of the below ? Do you want one ? Post & let us know what you think ?
This Square-Topped Space Egg Is the Disaster Shelter of the Future
The Exo shelter may look like a sci-fi porta-potty, but it could be the smart solution for people displaced by disaster
By Neal Pollack
Jeff Wilson
The generator in the Exo went down at midnight. One second I was sleeping in my bag on my cot, the space heater and minifridge soothing me with their chorus of electric hums. Suddenly the whole pod shook. My phone, plugged in beside the cot, emitted a little squirt of noise. There was a thunk as the electronic deadbolt unfastened. Then it was dark. Without power, the pod's LED-illuminated, capacitive-touch panel, which operates the lights and locks, had gone blank. The digital readout—a four-digit number like an address—on the pod's exterior, which sent a little glow through the top of the skylight when it had power, had also been extinguished.
I considered not doing anything. It was snug in my bag, and the food in the fridge would keep for a while. But then I felt the wall next to me. A molded composite shell gets pretty cold at night in December, even in Texas. I touched the floor. It was also chilly. The heater had been on high, and it had kept the Exo just warm enough. In another hour my pod would be an ice bucket, and I would be very uncomfortable.
We Recommend
The Non-Paranoid Man's Guide to Preparing for Disaster
I got off the cot, groaning like the middle-aged man I am. Lumbar support isn't a high priority for disaster-relief bedding. I pulled on my sweater and hiking boots. Hot pain stabbed across my sacrum. Flashlight in hand, I stepped outside into the Texas Hill Country and trudged the fifty or so yards to the generator. The gas cans had those protective spouts on them. It was a two-person job. But I didn't really have a choice. I was alone out there.
Jeff Wilson
Thirty-six hours earlier, I'd driven onto the field in the middle of the game preserve where I'd be living for the next two days. There sat the Exo Mark 4 disaster-housing prototype, looking like a giant space egg with a square top, or a distended version of the orgasmatron from Woody Allen's Sleeper, or perhaps a porta-potty from the future. An actual porta-potty had been set up a few hundred yards down the road, past a cattle guard, just far enough so that there'd be no way for me to reach it after dark without spraining an ankle.
Michael McDaniel, the CEO of Reaction, the Austin, Texas–based company that makes the Exo pods, was waiting for me, along with the preserve's owner. They were laughing. I'd driven up in a Prius. A camper I'm not. But this made me a perfectly good test subject for the Exo. It's designed for ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Since I was the first noncompany employee to ever spend the night in one, my circumstances were extraordinary enough.
It was a two-person job. But I didn't really have a choice. I was alone out there
Emergency housing is in a wretched state. Millions of refugees who have fled the Syrian crisis live in makeshift dirt-floor tents held together by duct tape and cardboard. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, years after a horrifying earthquake, displaced people are still squatting in scrap huts. Our domestic solutions—stadium housing and FEMA trailers—are only marginally better.
Jeff Wilson
We Recommend
What Special Forces Eat When They're Starving
McDaniel says he dreamed up the Exo after Hurricane Katrina, when he saw how shoddily the refugees had been treated and housed. He cut a "door" out of the bottom of a Styrofoam cup, and then spent the next decade madly working on a unit in his backyard and garage, obsessed—like Richard Dreyfuss sculpting a Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes—with creating stackable, modular, efficient disaster-relief housing. Now he has millions of dollars in seed funding and a growing staff highlighted by a chief engineer who most recently worked at Boeing on numerous airliners and who had previously designed satellites for NASA. Before the molded composite has even dried on the prototypes, Reaction is preparing Exo for mass production.
The pods come in two pieces: the shell, which is made out of a proprietary mix of materials as secret as a Texas pitmaster's barbecue rub, and the floor. The Exo's base measures 9 feet 6 inches by 8 feet 4 inches, and the structure stands 8 feet 4 inches tall. Altogether it weighs 400 pounds, though McDaniel says they can get that down to about 300 pounds. Regardless, the Exo can easily be lifted into place by four people and assembled in about five minutes, and it comes as wired as the smartest of smart homes.
McDaniel handed me a radio-frequency-identification (RFID) bracelet, like what I'd get for admission to a music festival. All Exos, even in the most extreme scenarios, will have personalized digital security, access to a power source, and built-in LED lighting. I walked up to the pod and swiped the bracelet across a lit white circle next to the front door. The circle swirled and turned green. The bolt unclicked. I opened the door and stepped inside.
It looks like a giant space egg with a square top ... or perhaps a porta-potty from the future
We Recommend
Where I'm Meeting My Family After the End of the World
The Exo is fully modular, almost like Lego housing. There's a desk attachment available so it can become a field office, and there's even a version in the works that could house a mobile surgical unit. Mine was more of an extreme bachelor edition. Bunk beds had been clipped to both side walls. The beds on the east wall were folded up to fit a space heater and minifridge.
The pod's interior felt generically futuristic, very Starship Troopers. It could have used a nice print or two, or even a One Direction poster. I turned on the LED lighting, which gave the space a dystopian, interrogation-room glow. There were electrical outlets on either side of the rear wall. I plugged in my phone, put my stuff down, and sat on the bunk.
Well, here I was.
Jeff Wilson
On the first night I drank a few beers, read, and ate dinner. It was lonely, but I felt strangely comfortable, securely locked inside my pod. The next morning was damp and chilly. I drank some coffee and stretched out on the floor, which was freezing to the touch and covered with a coat of fine Texas dust. Fortunately, Exos are designed to be easy to clean.
After a nice three-hour hike around the ranch, I returned to the pod, swiping my RFID bracelet. The shelter was now sweltering. McDaniel says he's working on a version of the Exo that has a built-in air conditioner, as well as louvered vents in the front. That also seems like a needed innovation. It was only 65 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
It could have used a nice print or two, or even a One Direction poster
We Recommend
Why You Should Learn to Love Ham Radio
But these are just prototype observations. The Exo has enormous potential. The units can be fit together to form a multiroom home of sorts. A wet unit, containing running water, is also in the works. Beyond its intended relief mission, it could, and most likely will, be used for other purposes: for workers in the North Dakota oil fields, campers at a music festival like Bonnaroo, or in dozens of other scenarios. The pods aren't fancy, and they're not cozy, but they're secure, fully wired, and they have access to power. If I'd just lost my house in a disaster, I'd be thrilled to get one. It sure beats a tent.
I tried to keep that in mind on my last night as I stumbled grouchily in the dark toward the generator, lifted the heavy gas can, and dribbled fuel all over myself. McDaniel says multiple Exos can run off a generator truck, portable solar panels, or can be hooked into a power grid, if available. That would have been nice.
After twenty minutes or so of incompetent maneuvering, I got some gas into the tank. The generator roared to life and the Exo lit up in the field, glowing like it was ready to be carried back to its home planet. It looked oddly beautiful and delicate. I imagined hundreds of them strung together, forming a village of temporary modular housing, linked by a central computer system, shining in the night. That could happen. McDaniel says that by the end of 2015 Reaction will be making 500 Exos a month. Demand is that high.
Jeff Wilson
Last edited by BeachBumMike; 03-06-2015 at 06:40 AM.
#2
03-06-2015, 06:34 AM
Bonus
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Last edited by BeachBumMike; 03-06-2015 at 06:38 AM.
#3
03-06-2015, 03:15 PM
Here's a Place 4 Admin 'Mike & Wife ?
INTERIOR DESIGN & LAYOUT
1
The interior configuration of our domes have almost endless possibilities.Read More
2
Our portable domes can be erected as a single dwelling or connected to create a multi-unit structure.Read More
Instant portable shelters for hunting camps, natural disaster, migrant housing, homeless shelters and military command centers | InterShelter Domes
#5
03-06-2015, 04:56 PM
Hi 'Tadd,
I also like them. They would be great for hurricane states like Florida & also for camp sites. Space's grandfather was looking in2 something like that to put up along Interstate off ramps. For driver's to take a break & rest + + +.
They would also be great for the beach > for private, relaxing times. I would invest in them. They also would be great for the islands that I've worked. They are much better then I've seen many that live full time in hand built shelter's.
Thanks for being the 1st to post on this thread
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