Boeing DIY inventor shows new ultra-cheap houses to nomad shepherd

can you guys take showers every day yeah very quick I mean I sure you don't want to take long showers but for years now we've been seasonally nomadic and for the past few years we've been filming a lot for a documentary on homelessness but we understand that itinerancy and life on the road can feel very different when one has the safety of a credit card I've wasted two thousand dollars in Wheels no one I don't know anyone else that has lived in a bicycle camper like this and has experienced so many wheel feels I'm interested in one of the things that I know two of the people we keep bumping into who have spent years thinking about these issues are Aaron Fletcher and Paul Elkins that's cool with your car all right yeah yeah we first met Aaron Fletcher in Ashland Oregon with small pasture by the side of the road where he parked his sheep to graze for the evening it's beautiful out here hello hi nice to meet you finally we'd already been emailing for two years when we finally met in person I've been trying to get some document somebody else to document it besides my little YouTube channel for uh three years now I've been a homeless by choice for like 12 years now this Roofing has lasted a year and a half opening at thousands and thousands of times yeah they call it chloroplast we have a friend Paul Elkins who makes a lot of stuff yeah I really appreciate him you and him are the people with the the most reach that have helped me it's not just helping me it's all this information needs to get out there yeah let's make a popular video so that's a way right you got water this is bad oh you got a lamb Aaron's video did go viral and soon his YouTube channel would push past those 1 000 subscribers and I literally have to move along I just have to throw out prototypes these days Aaron's being recognized by more media than just Paul and I I don't know filming game okay because this is n't from your channel and I was like we gotta do this story so and you're doing it for Business Insider I am yeah okay you're staying out here for a few days yeah I'll be out here until Thursday okay this is pretty nice back in here now it's just like it's like a little cave when it's yeah our videos also started a design conversation between Paul and Aaron Paul commented on one of the videos that Aaron had complained about his Nomad bicycle camper a while back so he reached out and apologized he's indeed the master at Living free Paul wrote unlike most of us including me he walks the talk I'm gonna go uh visit Aaron Fletcher I think chat about the idea of nomad living micro mini Style okay things that I can improve with this thing shortly after our last video Paul and Aaron finally met and swapped ideas thank you the things that I would like to um improve with my design I would make the whole wagon from from upright to Upright instead of six feet long I would make it eight feet long so that I could have four of these 24 inch by 24 inch bed boards the middle bed board right here is the is the table so that I had four of them so that you could have two benches and a table but that you could cook at the same time right now when I have my stove underneath this guest chair because I have to lift up my legs I have to lift this up and I have to feed the fire I'm just like wow there's so much exploration to be done with these tiny campers here how tall are you you're taller than me so you gotta imagine it being a little bit taller for your perfect fit is it comfy this is very comfy Paul doesn't live in one of his designs like Aaron but he's spent years developing plans for ultra light Ultra cheap shelters so this is made out of two pallets 48 by 40 inch pallets this is made of four sheets of four millimeter chloroplast again recycled campaign signs you wouldn't know it got to wait on this one 60 pounds 60 ounces yeah soon after our last video with Aaron we decided to visit Paul at this new island home north of Seattle that's Mount Baker okay we live just right over there right across the water before we filmed you last yeah yeah yeah I brought all my stuff oh my gosh I'm seeing it now no it's it's laid out for you it's laid out for you I've mellowed out a bit but I still I still make things it's more for the homeless remedies for the homeless something better than a tent something more solid the the idea of solid walls and shelves and a counter inside this was a a little different color I painted it and I shortened it about 19 inches it's coming together you may ask why welds because I realized I sleep that way I sleep curled up so I don't need a full six feet so on this version I moved the wheels forward so it doesn't pitch forward like it used to well and I always wanted a shorter version because I thought it looks cuter and it's more mobile yeah so I lost quite a few features shortening it of course but I have about the same storage from here it's kind of like that that's how I sleep and that's so that's all you're just getting more and more minimal like just what you need you thought okay I don't need the extra length it's the ultimate and minimum yes ultimate and minimal it's more intimate yes a little more claustrophobic but I don't get claustrophobic so and it's easier to pull it is it's like it lost a few pounds for sure so yeah I went ahead and added some storage above the wheel well instead of having a shelf here like the old version use these same guys here a little more storage here this is a whole storage wall at a pair of Levi's create a little storage areas these guys here miscellaneous things top there there's your oxygen smoke sensor which is the small shelf you can see with my hand how big it is not huge here you've got enough space for some socks I have cycled easies from the old camper out of this big window this lets a lot of daylight in so when you're laying down you get the Skylight effect it's a lot of light that comes in you definitely wouldn't want to go more minimal than this and I moved the stove out I kind of decided that might not be a grand idea I played with a few stove ideas I had a couple flare-ups not that it caught anything on fire but it just kind of made me question the idea of a small DIY stove inside the camera so the other shelter I built here the Calistoga yeah I really enjoyed making this this is how this works I just wanted the old wood look right and it kind of creates a table too so you can stand up eating food preparation whatever laptop computer and it gives you a little sun shade look at those sightings yeah it's just kind of like a canvas tent this is actually a quilt that's on the interior part here I wanted to create a bicycle camper it was just simple and free form I made a little test shelter using branches and canvas the base frame was made very similar to my Nomad bicycle camper but instead I used paneling for the floor I caught the bamboo from my neighbor across the street and had a lot of fun making the interior framework while it was green it took on the shape unfortunately you will see that all of this is kind of deteriorated and molded and dried up so I learned something maybe there's a proper way to dry bamboo out before you use it but this is what happened foreign so when you're traveling you don't have to fight the wind that is a thing you really want a pretty teardrop front end on a bike camper it's like a giant potato to me it's like a Pioneer Caravan meets uh you know some sort of futuristic Almost Is it supposed to be a Conestoga wagon yes I mean I named it the Conestoga bike camper so it's breathable because you have a garment tarp I mean it's breathable so it's probably going to feel very natural or that was the idea of it's just kind of like a canvas tent yeah you might throw a Scotchgard on there but yeah I wanted to be semi breathable and let's a little light in here too that was kind of a nice part about it also heater well it's kind of fun I went to the glass shop and had them cut me up some two inch by three inch rectangles of fire retardant glass cut an opening into the uh propane tank welded that into there drill the hole on the side to use for my lighter and then to close the hole little magnet fits right over the hole closes that up so I try to create a system where it's not taking any oxygen from the inside of this structure and also venting out the fumes from the chimney outside and that's just a two inch drain pipe so these two are burning man shelters it's probably cool in here yeah so we would shove five people in here you can come on in there's some chairs so yeah this was made specifically to stay cool during the hottest times of Burning Man and it worked we at one time had about five people in here hanging out during a windstorm well this is the whole idea behind the thick insulation it reflects the sunlight right and what are these this is this is one and a half inch thick foam board it's just insulation board that's all and then I'm using three inch Gorilla Tape to tape the edges right by having this on the ground the sun can't heat the ground up so it kind of keeps you about 10 degrees 15 degrees cooler than the outside I had these holes that had little solar lights two dollar lights so at night didn't even light up and then I have a wooden platform up there you can actually sit up there with the chair it's that strong and it folds up into a four by eight thing just that's the whole reason behind the design so these seams are foldable right just like an accordion yeah so I made the foam one first and then afterward I thought could this be made out of coroplasts so yeah that's that one there so it started with this one and then no it started with the TP which doesn't exist anymore I remember that one yeah the uh 12 foot TP yeah yeah this was an experimental of just hey what can I do with one two three sheets it's kind of a sheet count a little less money but in here I'd figure you could get two people that can be in comfortably so it's kind of like a tent it's like a tent yeah and you know two people can hang out here and have their goods on the side very small but uh very sturdy again you can put a chair up here and sit on the darn thing is that strong if it's taped up well and you're doing these because instead of a tent as a way of insulating yeah it's these do help out in keeping the uh interior of this about 10 or so degrees uh cooler it gets you know up to the upper 90s that's yeah it's desert I love it so the tape that's the tape you use yeah this is it that's your seam wow gorilla uh it's good stuff oh man it's good stuff yeah so funny it's so interesting you're using these same materials and just continue to just sort of iterate yeah it's just playing playing on paper playing with models and what about this one what about that one you know so this was my favorite as far as material it's four sheets each sheets could diagonally and it's like literally no waste and the waste that I have makes the door so there's literally no waste on that that's the scraps that came off of the bottoms this is my favorite if you go inside you'll see it's got a little space to it and I had a single bed one of these white wicker chairs in there and a counter with the stove and a sink it was perfect I had a little bathtub that you could pull out from under the chair all kinds of storage and this is about eight sheets the four by eight sheets at least right now this is eight foot from here to here this is a little different than the TP in that because it's domed you get a lot more head space to walk around in whereas in the TP you're really can only stand in one spot voila running water cooler they've got Villages for homeless that they're making these little sheds just enough for a bed some shelves it's like a shed but they cost a lot of money so I'm thinking of Alternatives I'm imagining somebody could make the panels out of a composite for example maybe fiberglass so they just bolt together in a hurry and they Stack Up right when not in use and you can still keep it affordable yes I think you could um welcome to my man cave so what is this here uh this is my latest Contraption it's something I don't know if you remember this this is kind of uh what I've been wanting to build for like 40 years right and I did one version that was made with a Honda 350 motorcycle that was given to me it wasn't quite what I wanted try it again this will just be my vehicle so I'm pretty much just building it like a race car just last year I decided I wanted to do it I finally built it I am anxious to get the motor in here and give it a real world I'm hitting a big bump here look at that sway with my short wheelbase you know I'm going to make sure that there's no twitchies going down the freeway gets about 87 miles per gallon and that was the idea is to to see the minimalist size of a vehicle to transport somebody back and forth to work still carry your lunch and whatever or groceries one I can even go on a little test drive it's kind of fun it's a little trunk back here the core the body is made of chloroplast this temporary gas tank just to do my test but you can throw stuff back here when you're talking about doing a vehicle that's gonna try to achieve high miles it's a compromise between a motorcycle and a car you don't have a lot of protection I've got these for crash bars roll protections there's a little protection there not much if you flip you know you'll probably survive no problem but if you get hit you're light you'll probably be the loser it's kind of an island Hopper yeah just around here and the maximum speed limit is like 50 miles an hour I've got it up to 63 and that was good enough like I say it's got a little motor in it a little um Yamaha 185 that's a 40 year old motor and I chose this motor or I should say motorcycle it's the same one that was used for a mileage competition back in 1984. motorcycle that got about 380 miles per gallon used that particular motorcycle I just happened to find it with 1200 miles on it about 10 years ago and it's been sitting and waiting for me to do something yeah this project is like oh totally very basic it's not polished this is just mild steel it's a very inexpensive prototype I think I only have maybe 4 000 into the whole thing including the cost of the bike this is something that they're not doing now they're not making Vehicles teardrop like they should be what really saves gas miles is they say about 80 percent of your energy at about 18 miles an hour is fighting the wind something like that so you see a semi or a bus with a flat nose they're pushing a lot of wind and they're paying a lot of gas just to go forward that's a nice break actually those brakes are nice these brakes but I have the two front brakes work on a pedal up here and then this is the rear brake here so yeah this is steering ah so that's the turn huh yeah and then the suspension is really simple yeah and so you can go on this you can it really takes the uh sideways lean when you go into a turn yeah but it's not independent suspension so if you hit one bump the whole cart kind of clunks the one side what I like to do is lengthen it probably six four inches and that'll give me a little more stability at higher speeds so you have some bodies there with um realistic do you think that this could be something that people would use at some level at some iteration of this very obviously uh be better if it had like a fiberglass body I wanted to use the fluid plastic because I've used it so much and I know what it can take because it's art it takes on you would think it's going to fall apart but it doesn't it stays strong it doesn't Flex at all so I wanted to be able to use straight flat panels to be able to come up with this teardrop of a shape as I could and that's why you see the shape the way it is so the idea for this is that if you were to make this into something more scalable you would go to fiberglass oh yeah you could totally change the whole thing but keep the teardrop shape foreign just a real rough rendition of what could truly be something that you might see in a showroom someday I'd like to think so so a lot of my ideas start off with folding paper I just kind of figured well that's about the length that should be the water line judging from doing the math so it's pretty simple and there you have your pontoon just like that tape that up so it was actually a catamaran and it sat for about four years before I decided to try it out I felt at least for my weight it rode too low in the water but for a lighter person it would work so you had two of those and then two of these a little metal frame using electrical conduit a little Tommy Bahama chair and that little black motor there it's a little 1.2 horsepower game fisher you just collect Motors I don't each was specifically for a particular boat that I had that one I think was originally meant for this guy remember this one [Music] and then I got the bigger motor the Tanaka 300 and started adding that to the one behind you Coral speed boat I built a speedboat similar design didn't have a deck or anything on it which is gone now but this is the second iteration and again it's pretty light I put a wooden transom on it on the back yeah that way I could extend it another seven inches or nine inches to give me a little more buoyancy which would then be able to hold the motor that's about 15 pounds more but it's a three horsepower and I bought this motor here I thought well let's go Electric so it is now electric it doesn't go very fast maybe three or four knots you definitely have that quiet ride a lot less to break down this is the boat that I I just put it together this afternoon timed myself 13 minutes so it takes a little while to do the little zip ties but now you've got something that can go in the water and you can paddle around in quite safely my first one was the yellow one do you remember that yeah yeah definitely getting in and out of it was what I was having a problem with just collapsing this is fortified more with bulkheads and a wood frame so there's extra little material in here like plywood and some one by twos but I wanted to build a boat that you can take a sheet from let's say Home Depot I just bought a sheet for twenty four dollars and build a boat so the plywood's helping await it yes when you put weight on this wooden member under here it's pushing down here which is pushing down there which is pushing down there and it's keeping the sides from collapsing so how are you doing the math on this like just in your head kind of thinking well I mean no I started off sitting down I sit on a board right I get in the position I want I sit on a board and I put something to balance myself and I find the center point and that's where the center of the boat goes yeah you just put your knees up against the side and it gives you balance I'm the only one out here hard to believe this is my first boat of course this is 1 by 12 Pine boards on the sides with quarter inch plywood top and bottom marine plywood one sheet just cut down the center and fashioned yeah I made that 20 years ago before this I was playing around with inner tubes didn't work too well and then I got a book on you know how to make these little kayak sort of boats and I just borrowed information from that and made my different version of that I just want to get on the water just a project there's my dad on his sailboat so we did have a little 32 foot sailboat that we'd go out on as kids and so yeah we even built a cabin cruiser this one here is a long bike one I played with I've been picking up bikes from the junkyard and putting them together and giving them to homeless people so that's why it's minus a few parts so this guy here I took the Nomad camper and I shortened it and then I wanted to build a vehicle that was motorized that I could tow it with I don't know if you remember I had the hardly Davidson and this is pretty much stolen from that but I also used Pavo the yellow trike that I had pieces from that some sort of you know invention but also looks camouflage yeah the idea is to go stealth so if a person wanted to travel around the country with this you know they can maybe hide in a park and not be seen and nobody will give him any troubles so yeah you can you can pedal the thing it's probably not easy to go yeah it's a six-speed on the motor it's almost like out of a novel by Karma McCarthy or something the road you know yes they should have used yes it's funny you mentioned that that's what the the bug out bicycle camper was all about that book oftentimes I'll play with models but this is more for a backpack I never made this particular one but I did make one behind you there yeah this is kind of fun conforms to your back the way it's Arc here so I kind of just figured out how to bend it just right to get all these different shapes then you know got your different compartments all your different uh little bungee cord attachments here's even a saw oh for cutting wood whatever or for defense you know oh can you give me a bear I dare you bear fishing pole yeah so this is makes sense because it's so light the chloroplast yeah and it's tough you could sit on this thing it'll hold your weight yeah so what you have there you have a sleeping bag I got a bigger tent but it's just a little kiss it's a tent also yes so you are set with that pretty much and then you know you could cram all your stuff in there still got all that right and zip ties again yeah all zip ties that's all it is just a dice this is something that I made it's a chair oh wow a nice calling here I was raised a boy scouts so I'm trying to remember how to do this so hopefully I get it right and yeah super minimal chair super minimal like a camping chair yeah I fabricated the metal part I wanted to get it to as small and light as possible yeah I mean that pound baby so during covet we wanted to go camping but we kind of feared using restrooms so we made our own bathrooms I made this bucket so I just welded on some little blocks this came from some stairs cutouts and that way you don't tip over when you're leaning over to wipe yourself yeah real simple it works it does I was going to show you another odd thing that I made during covids heated the middle of the cartridge up over a candle once again and bent it so yeah kovic came and everybody was running out of toilet paper remember there was shortage after shortage so this is my little piano idea for B days right yeah one's a pen this is a pen and a cork a Hawaiian cork with tape and this is a from a pan cartridge that's it covid time came around and my wife is a school teacher one thing she was having a problem with was doing Zoom meetings right oftentimes you know if you see somebody zooming they're like you're looking so I made some stands for her it's amazing coroplast you know I had to custom make the notch for her particular computer and this is just little string little tape I know it's such little search minimal material yeah yeah that's all you need sometimes that's all you need yeah and that's just okay there it is now you're done so stoves I did a few stoves here recently so there's one that I played with little rocket stove this thing breaks down it's in there yeah I just wanted to make something real compact that you could basically take camping with you I tried making uh smaller versions than this but the fire didn't want to go so I had to go bigger and bigger that's the minimum you can throw a few sticks in there down the thing and it just you know the heat kind of comes up and keeps it going and just a little bit of heat just a little bit of heat cook a little meal yeah oh yeah this is one I made years ago it's an old ammo box right this burned for like a half hour it wasn't too bad then I had a little scraper Ash scraper and hello for something totally different it is if you don't have a set of golf clubs and you want to go golfing strap this to your shoe and you just kick the golf ball I've kicked it like 150 feet it's just fun that's all you need don't need to buy clubs or anything just remember that one yeah I do I remember this wheel should we try one do you feel it safe yeah no but I'll do it just for you Christian see if I remember how to do this yeah if you don't use the seat belt you'll hit your head okay you sure about this no here we go [Applause] that's all I'm gonna do it works it does I did 14 revolutions consecutively when I got 14. 14. you're all over the place in the end you're just laughing your ass off it's a lot of fun

Channel: Kirsten Dirksen

Views: 902,638

Keywords: corrugated plastic boats, corrugated plastic shelters, paul elkins diy, aaron fletcher, micro mobile shelters, mobile homeless shelters, ultra cheap shelters, nomad bicycle camper, conestoga camper, bugout bicycle camper, stealth campers, homeless push cart, homeless sleeping pods, foam board teepee, homeless emergency shelter, micro mobile home, ultra light home, ultra light boat, temporary shelters, tiniest livable camper, guerrilla maker, homeless shepherd

Id: brQRVbtayK4

Length: 33min 37sec (2017 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023