Hello MakerBeamers,

We are happy to announce that MakerBeam is now available in Europe! Visit http://www.makerbeam.eu/ to purchase starter kits. 

We remain in stock at SparkFun, for North American distribution (with international shipping as an option): http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10540

We are concentrating all our efforts at the present time on remaining in stock and growing our inventory. 

A word about our web presence: Glenn Powers left the project two months ago, to deepen his practice of Buddhist meditation. Attempts to get the site running starting from zero expertise have been unsatisfactory failures. We've finally given up and are hiring someone.

We're setting a deadline of the end of August for getting the standard together, both in Web and downloadable form. That's the two year anniversary of launching this project; it's been a long road transforming this from an idea into a business with actual revenue and sales outlets. We're looking forward to the next step; to our backers and friends, we cannot thank you enough for the enthusiasm and support. 

Hello MakerBeamers!

At long last, MakerBeam is on sale at SparkFun! 

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10540

If you would like some in the next month, I'd recommend ordering as soon as possible, as supplies are still limited. We're working to alleviate this and get our production out ahead of demand.

We will also begin accepting wholesale orders; currently our lead time is at least six weeks on delivery. Please contact me (Sam) or Glenn through makerbeam.com for details.

We are giddy and somewhat overwhelmed. Our website is laying in pieces on the floor, as you may have noticed. We all have full-time jobs on top of MakerBeam, and have been focusing our energies on production and fulfillment rather than CSS and Twitter. We'll get there!

All of our backers and supporters have our profound thanks for their patience and enthusiasm. This would never have happened without you, and you will be enshrined on our site as soon as we have one again.

A word about the CAD: We have models for the beam and brackets; the screw exists only as a drawing/specification at present. All of this will be on the site; the beam profile is still available.

Thanks everyone! It's really, finally happening!

On Friday, Glenn and Sam appeared on the Public Knowledge In The Know podcast, to discuss open source hardware, Kickstarter, and the future of the MakerBeam project. Check it out!

The big piece of news mentioned is our new partnership with G and M Manufacturing, to develop our brackets and fittings. This week, we are ordering our first production batch of beam. We will not be retailing this directly, and are not yet set up to take wholesale orders, but both of these things are in the works. We have designs to finish, tooling to complete, and parts to source, but we're back in production.

There's a lot to come, including site changes, the long-awaited CAD files and standard, and more. The bottom line is that we're working every day to get to the place where you can buy MakerBeam online, and hack with it to your heart's content.

Here's a piece of the standard. This is a pdf copy of the diagram used to make the beam; the license is CC-SA.

There's more coming. Anyone who wants to help us with some IGES or STEP files, drop us a line!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33392753/Mini-T-Cross-Section

At long last, we have all contracted out pieces of the puzzle! These brackets and their brass cousins were the holdup, more or less entirely by themselves. If I had known going into it that they would take this long and cost this much money and effort, you would have had plastic everything, along with your beam, about two months ago.

Looking at the result, though, I'm glad that didn't happen, because these are everything we hoped they'd be. We're hoping you'll like them.

Current status: all domestic $8 pledges have shipped, of the people who have sent their address. If we don't have your address, we can't send you your stuff, so please get that to us! The $32s will be shipping this week. Once we've printed labels for the 32s and otherwise put that data into play, we'll be asking the Betas for their shipping information; we're doing it this way because the Kickstarter database back end leaves features to be desired.

We'll assemble as much as possible of the Betas over the coming week, and stage shipments starting as soon as this Friday. Alphas upgrade kits and institutional packages will go out once there's some space to work with the larger beams that go into the institutional kits.

Then there's the standard to polish up and publish. Whew!

This has been a game of new discoveries, hard lessons, waiting, and surviving as the weeks stretch into months. But with the arrival of the last piece of the puzzle it's become fun again. There will be updates in the days to come; more importantly, we're shipping boxes!

This could never have happened without you, and you have our profound thanks. Hang tight just a bit longer; the finish line is in sight.

We're getting there!

Our manufacturer for metal brackets has let us know that the brass brackets, which we need for everyone's order, basically, will be arriving this week. The stainless brackets may get here at the end of the week also, or it may take a little longer.

We'll be collecting names for the 8 and 32 level pledges this weekend. Betas and institutional sponsors, we'll get your information as soon as we have the rest of your kits in the queue.

The lasering of the remaining plastic brackets is coming along nicely, we've been getting great help in that respect. Several people have asked about the standard. What I have right now is a bunch of files with no real organization or guide to use. I have to prioritize my effort on this project, and fulfilling our obligations to our by now very patient backers is right at the top. When I clear that hurdle, getting the documents presentable will look a lot more manageable.

I also look forward to some longer and hopefully more thoughtful posts, about crowdfunding, open hardware and manufacturing, and where MakerBeam might be going in the future. But staring down a deadline of six weeks past and counting, all I want to do is get you your beam, so you can start having fun with it!

Hello MakerBeamers! Thank you so much for your patience as late becomes later. We're doing everything in our power to make sure we can ship as soon as possible once all of our components are in place.

We have good news, however, as the stamped brackets are just rolling off the line.

While we can't yet set a shipping date, we're getting closer to actually shipping with every day that passes, and we're happy with the results we're getting. We hope you will be as well!

Everyone who has contacted us has been polite, encouraging, and excited to see their Beta kits actually ship. It won't be long now!

Hello from Betaland!

So February has come and gone, and Betas are yet to launch. We've had some delays in manufacturing our brackets, but the die is back from the engravers and we're pretty much set to go on stamping, so everything is coming together in the next couple of weeks. Look for an email soon to collect your address and other information.

The serial number trial run just came back, and Brett Halle at Comet has done a great job here. Enjoy and look for your very own LaserBeam in the mail Real Soon Now!

Hello MakerBeam Friends!

It's been awhile since we've done an update, either here or at our website. MakerBeam is in a pupal stage, if you will, no longer a leaf-munching crowdfunded caterpillar and not yet sporting the iridescent wings of full production.

We've been staying busy. It's now February, and with a stiff wind at our backs we'll be able to ship our remaining pledge rewards by the end of the month, starting with the third week. We have a second round of components in production, which will improve the quality of our plastic pieces and add metal brackets to the lineup.

We're in active negotiation with a couple parties to bring MakerBeam forward, and are still aiming to go public with our product by Maker Faire, in the third week of May. We are currently focused on getting our Betas and other pledges built. Recently we've been offered some CAD and layout help for the standard, which will help move that overdue project forward.

We're still having a ton of fun here and can't wait to show you what we've got at Maker Faire! Look for a website update soon. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of MakerBeam in the wild! Thanks to jtokash, lenore of EMSL, and Andrew Plumb (clothbot) for these images. We encourage all members of Team Alpha to build, photo, and Flickr their creations for all to see!

Oh yeah. We got ourselves some serious beam up in MakerBeam HQ. Boxes and boxes.

It looks beautiful. But you don't have to take our word for it.

There will be more photos to come. For now, enjoy. And thank you, all of you, for your support in making this possible. We think you'll be pleased.

Greetings friends and backers! We've had a vigorous few weeks of moving money from place to place and ordering parts for the Alpha kits. Our beam ships today from the factory, and we should have some pictures up by the end of the week. We are geeked beyond measure.

Speaking of geekiness beyond measure, the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto is having an exhibit called Meccano Mania!

http://www.moah.org/exhibits/future_exhibit.html

What better place for the first Bay Area MakerBeam Meetup? Let's posse up!

In order to sliver this in between Thanksgiving and serious holiday action, we're thinking Saturday, December 5th. MOAH has limited hours (11am-4pm); I intend to get there by noon. After our tour of all things Metallbaukasten, we'll find somewhere for dinner and drinks. The Museum is right by Caltrain, so this should be an easy place for us to get together.

All planning for this event will be on the newly hatched MakerBeam List so hie ye forth:

http://3.ly/10mmL

Look forward to meeting some of you, and showing off the system a little bit. We won't have all the pieces in place by then but there should be enough for a demo!