Projects

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This page lists ideas for projects to improve camp we could take on during the year. If you're looking for a way to contribute, this is a good place to start. Projects are separated by category and ordered (roughly) by decreasing importance.

See also the #projects slack channel.


Infrastructure

Shade cloth improvements

This entails replacing the plastic quick-connect grommets with permanent grommets, and cutting the shade cloth into smaller pieces.

Note that if we want to cut the cloth into 10'x10' squares to match the conduit cells we'll need to figure out how to connect them in such a way that light doesn't shine through the cracks between segments.

Storage expansion

Our 10'x20' storage unit in Reno is bursting at the seams. If we want to keep adding to the camp infrastructure, we're going to need more storage space. This is the year we move the Little Saratoga yurt into camp storage.

Our options include:

  • Renting another storage unit in Reno
    • Emigrant storage has other open units, but none near our current unit. We have the largest unit plan already.
  • Renting a storage unit in the bay area
  • Moving some permanent infrastructure into a BMorg storage unit
    • Expensive, ~one-year waitlist, no access during the year
  • Moving everything into one or more shipping containers, storing those shipping containers somewhere

Moving into a shipping container is the most ambitious option, and gives us the most room to grow. It solves many problems, but causes many others.

Water improvements

Replacing our collection of 55G and 15G drums with two 275G IBC totes would free up space in the truck, simplify water management on playa, reduce the number of touch points to fill up personal/kitchen/etc. containers, and increase our water storage capacity to boot.

Cons:

  • With one or two large reservoirs we're more vulnerable to contamination and catastrophic failure. We've never had a 55G drum fail on playa, but we've had some close calls. We generally try to bring enough water that everyone will survive the week even if a 55G drum breaks. With 275G totes this is impossible.
  • There's some plumbing work we'd have to do off-playa to limit the flow rate and prevent a disaster in the event of a leak. This gets more complicated if we want to combine multiple totes.

Replace/upgrade fridge, freezer

Replace our mini-fridge with a full-sized fridge, ideally one with a transparent door.

Determine if we need to replace our chest freezer. Build/get whatever we need to store the freezer in the truck/container during the week. Look into dry ice, etc.

Move to yurts

We had fewer tents in 2016 -- and more people sleeping in yurts and vans -- which freed up some shade structure space and let us expand our public area an extra row of cells towards the back of camp. Hack-a-cola had some success this year moving everyone into yurts, and we should consider doing the same.

Right now the camp yurts sleep 5 - 9 people each. This is great for space efficiency, but not so much for privacy. We'll probably want to build several different types of yurts to account for different preferences.

Right now the camp yurts are (largely) personally owned, and people that sleep in yurts pay extra dues proportional to the space they take up in the storage unit and truck. We'll probably want to change this model going forward, and treat yurts as a camp-owned commodity.

Note that we've got to solve the storage problem before building more yurts.

Dome upgrades

Upgrade the big dome from 3/8 to 5/8. This would also let us (read: Greg) expand the Wonderdome to e.g. the top 3/8 of the dome.

This is probably a one-weekend project given enough people. Note that the dome is currently in Seattle.


Art

Wonderdome improvements

New modes and features for the Wonderdome. Ian is particularly interested in running a javascript interpreter(?) on the JVM(??) so the unwashed masses can contribute modes. Or possibly transpiling the whole project to javascript and running it in a web browser(???).

Beacon

Sometimes it's hard to find camp -- despite our central placement, huge frontage, and large sign. A beacon may make that easier. Even if it doesn't help anyone find camp, it may be worth building a beacon for the joy of building a beacon.

Camp Stickers

Let's make a sticker for camp! Costs are relatively low ($80 - $150) but we need artists to make something the people would want. Contact Sabina for organizing.

Digital Infrastructure

Wiki organization and content

This wiki needs some love. Content, categories, templates, plugins, removing the ugly index.php/ from the url, you name it. This is largely Chris' responsibility.

Update/improve public presence

Our public face is out of date, and few people know how to update it. Heads up webmasters.

Manage incoming email

Our external contact address (contact@playasophy.org) forwards all mail to a few people (Chris, Sabina, Greg). We should figure out how to archive this mail and let members opt-in to receive it.

Public email list

A mailing list for public announcements, for anyone interested in the camp but not on one of the private lists.

Music server/bot improvements

Talk to Dan and Chris.