Mission control for building Terrible Turtle Camp โ and an open-source gift to every camp on the playa.
Move Slow & Bite Things
What needs to happen this week. Synced from the procurement list โ decisions, blockers, and the biggest buys.
Full detail, every item โ Inventory Command Center ๐ฆ
Every year, camps reinvent the wheel โ how to build a kitchen, pack a truck, run a shower, feed 40 people in the dust, and hold a culture that actually lives the 10 Principles. The knowledge scatters when the playa clears.
Turtle Ops changes that. We're open-sourcing the entire build of Terrible Turtle Camp โ the playbooks, the packing lists, the prep runbooks, and a deployable Camp Assistant agent anyone can run on their own tools. Take it, fork it, make your camp better.
A gift to the Turtles, a gift to the playa, a gift to the world and beyond. ๐ข๐ฅ
Everything it takes to pop up a home in the desert. Each module becomes an open playbook.
Old trailer โ full camp kitchen. Pre-cooked frozen boil-in-bag meals โ reheat & serve, not cook. Playbook + visual guide.
Playbook + visual guide โJeremy's 1998 International 4700 box truck (DT466E turbo-diesel) โ a turtle. Packed full for the Boulder โ BRC haul.
๐จ Art concepts โThe 51' northAmerican trailer, zone by zone โ reverse build order, weight & balance, Day-1 build box at the doors. Jeremy asked, Terri planned.
Load plan โStacked IBC stall on cattle troughs + gravity bag + auto greywater pump โ 10 illustrated build steps. Priority build.
Visual build guide โPermissionless instruments + jams. The music tradition, on the playa.
PlannedCapturing camp voices, stories, and the build. Culture, documented.
PlannedWhere code becomes canvas โ an interactive AI experience gifted to passersby.
Planned"The Himalayas" โ 68'ร122' off the semi's keder rail, ALPS/Himalayas design (Camp Contact lineage) with David's mods, in 12 illustrated steps. Top ship priority.
Building ยท Build guide โLive inventory command center โ 200+ items tracked, searchable, with procurement status.
Live โThe site plan โ shade, kitchen, showers, water, oracle tents, with David-reviewed placement logic.
Live โDavid's coffin cold box โ 12 illustrated build steps, cut list, and turtle crew. ยพ built โ wood cut by the Tool Maker!
ยพ done ยท Build guide โThe 75'ร90' Aluminet wing off the semi trailer โ keder rail, poles, flaps, in 10 illustrated steps.
Build guide โNever launched an "agent" before? Most people haven't โ this kit assumes nothing. Three short parts take you from "what even is this?" to a campmate who never forgets. No signup, no code, no platform decision on day one.
Think of it as a campmate with a perfect memory and no need for sleep. It doesn't build your shade structure or drive your truck โ it remembers. Every receipt, every "David said the fittings arrive Tuesday," every water-math calculation, every decision made in a meeting six weeks ago that nobody wrote down. Ask it "what do we still need for the kitchen?" and it answers from your camp's actual list, not generic advice. It never gets tired of the same question, never judges a first-timer, and never loses the note. Your humans still make every call โ it just makes sure nothing falls through the playa dust. ๐ข
Hit "Copy Agent Prompt" below and paste it into whatever AI you already talk to. That's the whole setup โ no new account, no platform decision today.
Replace every [BRACKET] with your camp's real facts โ name, dates, water plan, kitchen, key people.
Attach your inventory + playbooks. Steal ours: inventory template ยท memory template ยท field guide ยท full kit (run.md).
An "agent" is just the prompt below plus a place that runs it โ and there are more places than you'd think. Here's the honest map, in the order most beginners actually walk it:
The journey: start anywhere โ fall in love with a campmate who remembers โ give them a forever-home. There's no wrong first perch.
You are [AGENT NAME] โ the [CAMP NAME] camp agent for Burning Man [YEAR]. You are open source, forked from Terri, the Terrible Turtle Camp agent. A gift to the playa. YOUR MISSION: Help the camp build, pack, prep, and thrive. You hold the camp's knowledge base: inventory, kitchen, water, shade, power, and culture. YOUR VIBE: - Warm, playful, welcoming. Calm when someone's stressed โ one step at a time. - Radically inclusive: every camper, every question, no gatekeeping. - You embody the 10 Principles, you don't just quote them. - Never condescending. Everyone's a first-timer once. KEY CAMP FACTS (replace with yours): - Camp: [CAMP NAME] ยท Crew: [~N people] ยท Build: [DATES] ยท Strike: [DATES] - Route: [HOME CITY] โ Black Rock City - Water plan: 2โ3 gal/person/day โ total [N gal] - Kitchen: [YOUR SETUP] ยท Shade: [YOUR STRUCTURE] ยท Power: [YOUR PLAN] - Key people: [LEAD NAMES + DOMAINS] HOW YOU OPERATE: - Focused answers. For builds/troubleshooting: one clear step at a time. - Escape hatch: "If you're still stuck, check with [CAMP LEAD]." - NEVER fabricate inventory counts, costs, or specs. Point to the real list. - No unsafe electrical/propane/structural advice beyond documented plans โ route to the camp's specialists. - Food safety: separate handwashing from dishes, keep the cold chain, sanitize. - Memory: write important facts (decisions, spec changes, people, deadlines) to persistent memory the moment you learn them. - Source of truth: the camp's master sheet wins over your copy, always. Draft paste-ready change-lists for the sheet owner; never edit from memory. - Kindly flag typos in names/part numbers before they get baked into purchases. - Mine meeting notes for decisions, action items (owner + due date), and spec changes. If notes contradict current plans: FLAG it โ humans decide. THE 10 PRINCIPLES (your backbone): Radical Inclusion ยท Gifting ยท Decommodification ยท Radical Self-reliance ยท Radical Self-expression ยท Communal Effort ยท Civic Responsibility ยท Leaving No Trace ยท Participation ยท Immediacy Move Slow & Bite Things. Heart first, always. ๐ข
Forked it? ๐ด Tell us "I forked it! ๐ข" โ camp name is enough, and you land on the roll of camps.
The whole kit, mapped: start at START-HERE.md (the front door โ pick your door, check the receipts). Saw us on the playa? FORK-THIS-CAMP.md is your 3-step gift path. Then: run.md (the full agent prompt) ยท inventory-starter.json (~40 rows that keep the whole taxonomy โ start here, not from our 277) ยท inventory-data.json (our real 277-item live list โ the receipts) ยท field-guide.md (tested water/propane/cold-chain/greywater/power numbers) ยท workflows.md (receipt logging, transcript mining, build-day briefs, sheet-sync discipline) ยท examples.md (what good looks like) ยท camp-agent-offline.html (the playa edition โ one file, zero signal needed). Take it, fork it, gift it forward. ๐
A taste of the Camp Assistant, right here on the page. Ask about the build, the packing, the principles. (v1 โ a demo brain; full agent deploys via the kit above.)
Demo brain โ the full agent (with your camp's real data) deploys from the kit above.
Terrible Turtle Camp doesn't just follow the principles โ we build the whole camp around them.
๐ Learn each principle โ new burner guide ๐ข Turtle Values & Culture โจ The Crew
The countdown from Boulder to Black Rock City. Weekly David Zooms every Thursday โ each one expects the week's milestones done.
Home base for the build โ and a restoration project in its own right. We're carving water terraces, planting drought-tolerant trees, and bringing native grasses back to life.
Leave No Trace isn't just for the playa. It's how we treat the land that hosts us. Earth-first, heart-first. ๐ข๐ฑ