WIKISPEED projects… what a joke!
A while ago, I was watching Translogic on my smart TV and they mentioned a 100MPG car from Wikispeed. I thought that was cool, but what really caught my eye was the $100 “Micro House” project. Since I purchased 40 acres with the idea of building a Earthship inspired house, I thought it would be nice to see what kind of stuff they had going on. So, I joined the Wikispeed team to investigate.
Well, it took me about two weeks to pry the information out of them and two seconds to understand that it was a joke. They use the term “house” very loosely for the project. It should be called a $100 “Micro Shelter” as it is NOTHING more than a 4 foot high by 8 foot long 2″ thick insulation box. Besides the fact that the current design doesn’t meet ANY of the posted requirements.
1) Clean Bedroom
2) Clean Bathroom
3) Lockable Front Door
4) < $100 USD
So, you have a 2″ thick insulation box made out of 5 pieces of 2″ thick 4’x8′ insulation. Just for fun, let’s take a look at home depot. The cheapest available 2″ rigid insulation is $21 each. So, needing 5 of them, you are already at $105 and that barely (if at all) meets the “clean bedroom”. So, now that the budget is blown, let’s take a look at the other requirements. Clean Bathroom? Not going to happen. Unless you plan on spending another $105 on 2″ rigid insulation to build an upright cube so there is enough room for you to comfortably sit down on a bucket. And then maybe add a window to toss it out of.
Lockable front door? Really? The rest of the “house” is made out of 2″ rigid foam! You can PUNCH A HOLE through it.. what’s the point of a lockable front door? As for being less than $100.. yeah.. unless you can get all the materials you need for free.. not even close.
By joining the team, I also received information on the Wikispeed “100MPG” car.. It didn’t take me long to realize that the expertise needed to design, engineer, and manufacture a car was no where to be found.
It wasn’t till the discussion on the tail lights and what was needed to add a third brake light to a trailer harness, did I realize just how far off the project was going. When I realized that Joe intentionally chose to implement a solution that was completely the wrong solution because he didn’t want to do it “the right way”…