IPO is a search engine and collaborative knowledge creation tool for sustainable products and product making. It offers a simple way to collaboratively document basically everything and connects the data for sustainable design decisions in favour of reuse and recycling.

How It Works

The IPO-Software is a simple text editor allowing you to create documents (pages) about hardware or hardware like things. It has two basic page types:

1. modules
2. things

The user uses the software by creating a “module” page. A module is in its core a simple table with three columns: Input, Process, Output.

The table is empty and you are invited to describe anything you want using the table, like for example how to make a cup of coffee:

Everything in the input & output column gets automatically created their own page – “things“-pages. On that page you can find all other IPO modules that have this thing in their input or output-column. Here the thing page for „Water“.

You can click on the modules to enter them. You can see the next module with all its inputs and outputs and follow them.

… module → thing → module → thing → module → thing …

That’s it.

Why is this cool or interesting? Continue reading:

Effects, or Why?

1. any depth of documentation: if you create a tutorial, you always assume certain things. People know what nails are, right? IPO automatically connects knowledge and steps from everyone. “Nail” points to a module “Nail production”, the module “Nail production” points to a module “Iron production” and so on. You can go as deep as you like. As a documenter you can focus on what is important for you.

2. Sustainable Circularity! For each thing use and re-use possibilities become visible. And everyone can add new possibilities. So it quickly becomes visible what can be reused and reused over and over again and what quickly leads to a dead end (something that only occurs as output but nowhere as input.) Ideas and ways how to save things from garbage are collectively collected.

3. Tool for sustainable design. Building on point 2.: IPO shows what choice of materials and construction methods enable reuse and recycling. So it helps designers to make the right decisions for sustainable products.

This is just 3 effects or ideas. We have more. And usually people very quickly have their own ideas when they have understood the possibilities of IPO. What are yours? Share them with us!

IPO is a tool idea for the Open Source Circular Economy! 

Yes. The full alpha version gives you the possibility to edit and delete your modules at any given time. But it also enables you potentially to delete the content of others as well. For that reason we only have a small group of alpha-testers. But if you think you can deal with that responsibility shoot us an email and ask for access. We are happy to hear about your interest.

[INSERT: INVITATION EMAIL TO ALPHA-TESTERS]

We are happy to receive your feedback and also your ideas as an online comment or personal email here. 

Yes. We are looking for:

• financial and institutional support (contact)
• Node.Js-Developers (contact)
• Designers (contact)
• Testers (send feedback here, ask for access to the full alpha prototype via email. 

The IPO code is on GitHub. Feel free to contribute cool stuff to the code!

Here are some links and other resources relevant for the project

• Current GitHub-Repo (MIT-License)
• Requirement Document PDF – Vs 0.9 (December 2014) | Vs 0.5 (October 2014)
• Old Prototype: Doesn‘t have an option to save data. Someone deleted all data that was collected for example at OSCEdays 2017. So we are now on our way to a new prototype!
• GitHub Repo for the Old Prototype
• Blog with posts about progress
• Former but now less useful documents: Frontend: Basic Wishlist 2.1, (January 2019) & Design Wishlist 1.0, (January 2019); for Prototype 2, Old About Page (2014-2018) in English & German

The current team of IPO is

• Enrico, code, mostly frontend
• Lars, concept & communication
• Hülfe, code, mostly backend

There have been other people that contributed to this project in the past! Thank you Pavlik Elf,  Ramin Soleymani,  Sarah Haselsbauer (Rose),  Sebastian Herrlinger,  Christoph Guttandin, Sonja Heinen

Yes

• List all outputs! Document something and add all outputs of your project. If you are making carrot soup your output is not just carrot soup but also carrot peels, steam from the cooking and so on …
• Add reuse ideas! Look at some of the things. Try to find tutorials on the web that use these things. And create an IPO version of it. Link to existing tutorials in the process column. You don’t have to write down everything there.

Yes. This is because we are in the alpha version. You can ask us to have access to the full alpha version that gives you the possibility to delete and edit content any time. Send us an email.