Motorola announced on Monday an ambitious plan to rethink how smartphones are made with Project Ara. The company is partnering with Phonebloks to create a modular smartphone that allows the user to upgrade their phone piece by piece instead of replacing the entire thing. Now Phonebloks has come out with a new video to explain what it’s doing with Motorola.

Much of the video is a retread of what Motorola announced on Monday, but Phonebloks did have some new information to share. For starters, Motorola will be developing Project Ara in the open with input from the Phonebloks community. The hope here is that Motorola can create a better phone when developing it with input from phone users and developers instead of behind closed doors.

Despite working closely with Motorola, the Phonebloks team says that it wants to remain independent. That’s why it won’t be taking any money from Google and will instead rely on donations to keep its servers running while increasing its Web presence. This will allow it to continue championing a modular smartphone in the event that Motorola backs out.

If you want to know more about Phonebloks and Project Ara, check out the official Web site.

[Image: Dave Hakkens/YouTube]