Ambitious missions, shared building blocks
Each project pursues a concrete outcome. It also contributes reusable tools, research and discoveries that the next project starts from.
Open research and engineering lab
Yes. We’ll figure out how to make it work.
YesWorks turns difficult questions into working systems, and publishes the foundations so others can build on them. A simulation, an interface, a material or a control system built for one project can move several fields forward at once.
What YesWorks is
Ideas are where we start. Working systems are what we ship.
A breakthrough belongs to more than one project. So every YesWorks project pursues a concrete outcome and, along the way, produces tools, research and discoveries that other projects can pick up and use.
A think tank
Produces ideas and recommendations for someone else to act on.
YesWorks
Turns ideas into working systems, and publishes the foundations so others can build on them.
Principles
Three rules we hold every project to.
They cover what we build, who gets to build it, and how we decide whether it worked.
Open participation, earned responsibility
People join through proposals, experiments and contributions. Credentials help establish expertise. Demonstrated ability, judgment and follow-through matter too.
Optimism disciplined by evidence
“The answer is yes” is a commitment to investigate and experiment. It never means pretending every hypothesis will survive testing.
Classification components
We classify the parts of a project, not just the project.
A project isn’t one silo. Each of its components is described along five separate dimensions, so a contributor can see what it is, how far it has got, who can use it, and which other projects already depend on it.
| Field | Physics, software, hardware, human factors, materials |
|---|---|
| Application | Games, robotics, accessibility, education, aerospace |
| Maturity | Idea, experiment, validated result, working prototype |
| Access | Public, limited collaboration, restricted |
| Dependencies | What it builds on, and which projects can reuse it |
Maturity
Every component says how far the evidence has got.
We start with yes, then test our assumptions. A component moves up a stage only when the work behind it holds up, and its record says where it stands today.
Idea
A stated problem and a first hypothesis about how to solve it.
Experiment
A test designed so that it can fail, with the result written down either way.
Validated result
The finding holds when someone else checks it.
Working prototype
It runs, others can use it, and it is ready to be built on.
What “open” means here. When we call a component open source, its published parts really are available to use, inspect and improve. Sensitive, application-specific work gets a clear boundary and says so in its access field.
Take part
Responsibility is earned by the work.
We’re looking for people with the knowledge, imagination, grit and motivation to take on difficult questions. This is how someone goes from first contact to leading work.
Bring a proposal
A difficult question, what a working answer would look like, and which fields it touches.
Run an experiment
Test one assumption behind it. A clean negative result counts as progress.
Contribute a component
Build something another project can reuse, documented well enough that it can.
Take on responsibility
People who show ability, judgment and follow-through lead components and then projects.
First flagship: in selection
One flagship project, several public components.
We’ll prove this way of working with results. Our first step is a single flagship project that produces components useful well beyond it. We’ll publish it here when it’s chosen.
Founding statement
YesWorks is an open research and engineering lab for ambitious ideas.
We bring together people with the knowledge, imagination, grit and motivation to turn difficult questions into working systems. Our projects share tools and discoveries across disciplines, making each breakthrough a foundation for the next.
We start with yes.We test our assumptions.We share what we learn.We make it work.