Presenting at TED 2013:

We're excited that Boosted has been invited to present at the TED 2013 conference next week. We'll be sharing the stage with some amazing innovators as we talk about how the technology used on our boards can revolutionize the future of personal transportation.

Attending SXSW:

We're also heading to Austin, Texas during the annual South by Southwest film, interactive, and music conference from March 8th to March 13th. We'll post a schedule on our Facebook page and on Twitter so make sure to follow and keep an eye out for those updates. If you're interested in meeting up in Austin, email us at community@boostedboards.com and we can schedule something!

-The Boosted Team

We know it's been a while since our last update, but we've been busy and have tons of news to share with you! We've been building up the office facility, adding new team members, and finalizing the battery and remote configurations.

Office Deconstruction

We've broken down walls, converted from carpet to tile flooring, installed a roll-up door, and rewired the electricity to 3 phase power to create our manufacturing and assembly rooms. Along with our friends at Double Robotics, we're building up a prototyping shop with a mill, lathe, drill press, 3D printer, and other equipment.

Looking a bit bare now, but this assembly room will get busy in the next few months.

New Mechanical and Electrical Engineers

To help us as we prepare for production, Mark and Jean-François have joined our team.

Mark interned with us last summer as we prepared for our Kickstarter campaign, and he built most of the parts on our prototypes. He just graduated with his ME degree from Stanford and will be in charge of mechanical design and manufacturing.

Jean-François drove cross country from Québec to California last week to join us. He'll be working closely with John on the power electronics and software in the remote and motor controller.

Battery Configuration

We've looked into various battery chemistries and pack designs. We're currently planning on using a lithium iron phosphate cell, since it has better safety and cycle life than the LiPo packs we used earlier on our prototypes. We're working with a fantastic supplier who's building a custom pack that's both high performance and high quality.

Remote Design

We've cleaned up the design of our handheld remote, and now we're testing functionality. There are indicator LEDs to display information such as the remaining battery life on the board and remote. We're testing various spring tensions and dampening levels for the scrolling wheel to get the right feel for the throttle and brake. We're also testing various diameters of this wheel to work with varying hand sizes and gloves. Once we finish with the prototyping, we'll be injection molding the plastic components.

We also added a killswitch on the bottom of the remote for safety. If you drop the remote, it will cut power to the motors and prevent your board from running away.

Crunch Time

We're just a few months away from our Kickstarter delivery dates. We've been making great progress, and with our new tools and team members, we're now moving even faster. Thanks for all the support and continued encouragement!

Feel free to drop us a line any time at community@boostedboards.com.

Sho
Boosted Community Manager

User Experience Survey 

Board Backers - Our engineering team's been busy in the lab, focused on developing your new boards. During this build process, we're collecting feedback gathered from our prototype testers and Kickstarter backers. Earlier today we emailed via SurveyMonkey a questionnaire to get to know some things such as your riding experience and commuting needs. Please check your inbox and respond as your input is important and will be incorporated into some of the user settings and UI/UX design of your production model. Also for those who emailed us about the survey not submitting correctly, sorry about that! We immediately checked the bug with SurveyMonkey and it is now working again.
Thanks for your participation! 

Kickstarter Rewards Shipped

Decal, T-Shirt, and Hoodie backers - Between November and December we shipped out the non-board rewards to both our domestic and international backers. Thanks for those who pledged and supported us! We hope you enjoy your rewards. If you have not received your item(s) please email us with your details and we will check with our warehouse. 

Contact Us

If you have any questions or comments, the quickest and best way to contact our team is by email. Feel free to say hi at community@boostedboards.com.

Cheers!

-Sho Takahashi
Boosted Community Manager

Decals and t-shirts are shipping!

Hot off the press!  The decal is a vinyl die cut of our logo letters and can be applied on curved surfaces like helmets.  The t-shirt is soft and 100% cotton, and it features our bright orange print on a gray background.  Inside, you'll find a custom print signifying that it's limited edition, available only to our Kickstarter backers.  

We just started shipping, and the first ones should arrive in your mailboxes by the end of this week.  International backers may have to wait a few weeks.

If you pledged for a decal, t-shirt, or hoodie, and you did not respond to the Kickstarter survey sent out earlier this month, we don't have your address.  Please get back to us at community@boostedboards.com.  

We will also make the t-shirt (without the original backer tag) available for purchase on our website, just in time for Christmas.

Hoodies shipping soon

The hoodie samples we've printed so far aren't quite perfect, and we won't ship anything we're not 100% happy with.  So we're still working with our printer on them, and we expect to ship in another couple of weeks.  We're sorry this will arrive a little late, and we're moving on this as quickly as possible.

Prototype remote sneak peak

You first saw the ring-style controller as a CAD rendering during our campaign.  Now we've progressed to a functional 3D printed prototype with white plastic, black rubber, and external electronics.  As we tune the operation and test its reliability, we can print new versions until we're happy with it.  Then the final version will be injection molded using black plastic and orange rubber, and all electronics and wires will be internal.

We've also been hard at work on the motor controllers, battery system, and truck design, and we'll fill you in on the next updates.  Once again, thanks for all the support!

- The Boosted Team