Forum OpenACS Q&A: OpenACS/RDBMS Help Wanted

Posted by Brent Van Arsdell on 04/17/01 08:53 PM

Our company is in the process of turning our Stirling engine commercial web site into a Stirling engine community site (with a commercial component.) Ultimately we want this to grow into a full featured system that supports features like the ability to charge credit cards and a parts database.

Our first step will be to get a default install of OpenACS/OpenNSD/PostgreSQL etc. running on our server. As soon as we get that done we will start working on the rest of our RDBMS plan. You may enjoy reading more about the engines we build (which can run on ice cubes, hot water, or the heat of your warm hand on our home page.

This job is part time, can probably be done remotely, and offers modest (but real) pay. We probably can't compete with big company salaries, but we can offer a very interesting project to work on, smart people to work with and a continuing supply of fun projects. It would really help if you liked Stirling engines.

We have a Loquatious comment box on our RDBMS page where ALL suggestions on how we should proceede are welcome.

Brent H. Van Arsdell
President
American Stirling Company

2: Response to OpenACS/RDBMS Help Wanted (response to 1)

Posted by Andrew Piskorski on 04/19/01 01:45 PM

Ah, Stirling engines as in the Carnot cycle, thermodynamics, etc. It's been a while since my undergrad Thermo class so for a second I wasn't sure. Interesting.

It's off topic from your question, Brent, but perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start the "American Stirling Company"? Currently it looks like your market is entirely educational. Is that why you started that endeavor, and what you see as the current and future focus of your company? Or do you have ideas for supporting industrial or research applications, etc.?

3: Response to OpenACS/RDBMS Help Wanted (response to 1)

Posted by Brent Van Arsdell on 05/01/01 05:31 PM

I started the American Stirling Company as a part time business back in '95 because I thought that Stirling engines were incredibly interesting and other people might think so too. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in '98 and we now have seven (mostly part time) employees.

Today our products are entirely educational, but we plan on developing a new engine that puts out something under 100 watts. At the moment our constraint is our ability to keep parts in stock and get them out the door. So before we develop this new engine I want to have a great database for parts management(and a great web site) up and running.

Hopefully we will be able to get this new < 100 watt engine to market before the end of 2001. Beyond that we would love to put out a 3-4 kW extremely clean and silent Stirling engine, but we have to walk before we can run.