Open Design Engine KickStarter Logo

We are very excited to announce the launch of the Open Design Engine (ODE) Public Beta. The road to get here ended up being a little longer than we expected, but we’re happy with the results. We could not have made this push to the finish without the help of Kevin Bouwkamp, Bryan Christian, and The School Factory, and we are grateful for their help in getting ODE safely off the launchpad. Self-registration for user accounts is now active, and we are ready for our next round of promotion for Open Design Engine. Please share this news on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and your own personal blogs (be sure to link to this post).

If you have not signed up for an account yet, please do so. Then, start a project on ODE to document one of your own Open Source Hardware creations. Don’t have a project yet? No problem. You can start one, or join one of the projects already in progress. Mach 30 currently has two projects that are active on ODE, the Shepard Test Stand and the Far Horizons High Altitude Balloon (HAB) project. We’re always looking for help, so feel free to Contact Us to see how you can get involved.

And this is just the beginning. We are already actively improving the site. For example, within the last 2 weeks Kevin completed the funding plugin, allowing users to insert Kickstarter badges and PayPal buttons into any field which supports wiki-syntax. What this means for you is that you can ask for help to fund your projects right from your ODE project pages. Future plans include adding support for integrated git repositories and major improvements to the user interface. As always, watch the roadmap to keep up with our plans and progress.

Thanks to all of our supporters, backers, kickstarters, and volunteers. We are looking forward to growing Open Design Engine into a great site for hosting open source hardware projects. And remember, Makers, document what you make.