Dear Backers, 
I hope this update finds you healthy and happy. Summer is coming, and a lot is happening for Protei.

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Ars Electronica

Protei just won the ARS Electronica "Hybrid Art" Honorary Mention! This is a great honour and we will have the pleasure of taking part to Ars Electronica 2012 in Linz Austria (Aug 30th - Sept 3rd).

http://www.aec.at/thebigpicture/en/
http://prix2012.aec.at/prixwinner/6700/
http://www.aec.at/prix/en/gewinner/2012/

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DEAF Festival

Protei in currently being exhibited at the DEAF Festival (Dutch Electronic Art Festival) in Rotterdam. Protei_006 -that was made possible thanks to your support- is sitting next to the works of Philip Beesley and Olafur Elliasson, Jae Rhim Lee, Tuur Van Balen, Marnix de Nijs and more (!) until June 3rd. Sebastian (from Berlin) and Cesar (based in London) were happy to gather again with Protei Dutch members Alvaro Takiuti (Brasil) and Piem Wirtz (NL) : team smile ! 

Protei is also working with a group of students from T/u Eindhoven who are building their own Protei! They did a presentation of their work at DEAF discussion tables and showed us their version of sailing robots : 

And the best news is that Protei will continue working with T/u Eindhoven for next year so you will see more Protei coming from the Netherlands - Exciting!
http://deaf.nl/program/modules/deaf-2012-exhibition

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Stanford GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Marketing) 

Etienne Gernez and Shah Selbe of Open H2O are working with a brilliant group of students of Stanford GEM  (Global Entrepreneurial Marketing) students : they have prepared a little survey for you :) We want to know what you expect from the future Open-H2O.org website - it is your website! What functions you want to see there, how it should look and feel etc? If you leave us your email, there will be one Protei Hoodie to win!

>> Please take part in our 5 minutes survey here : http://protei.org/survey/

For those who identify as übergeeks, we might send you another specific survey about file formats as we are trying to establish our own flavour of Open Hardware documentation. Thanks to your input the new website is coming! We are looking for a Drupal developer ~ by the way :)

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What's next? Summer 2012.

This summer is going to be extremely active. We are thinking of you everyday in particular those to whom we have not yet sent the rewards. 

• July 2nd -> Sept 13 : Cesar Harada and Gabriella Levine will be working in San Francisco Tech Shop and/or Noisebridge to transform Protei from the prototype stage to a high standard product stage. 
• Sept 13 -> Dec : Once we have one perfectly working prototype, we'll look for small quantity manufacturing. Backers will be the first to receive the machines we build then.

Our local groups and members are also taking many initiatives and participating events:

• Berlin : Sebastian Muellauer has been working on setting up a workplace for Protei in Berlin, Germany. The workplace is called Superkubus :)
• Oslo : Etienne Gernerz is half way through building the "Sunshine Factory" which is going to be a place for prototyping and testing Protei in Oslo Norway, by the water - charming place. 
• Rotterdam : Piem Wirtz in Rotterdam is active establishing partnerships with local academics and industries, with one potential focus on plastic collection with Protei.
• Brasil : Protei will also participate several events in Brasil with Kasia Molga (PL, UK) : one confirmed is http://cigac.org. The Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) promotes from june 13 to 16, 2012, the First International Conference on Collaborative Environmental Management – CIGAC, located and looking towards the Semiarid Northeast Brazil within the theme: “Science and Social Innovation.”
• Turkey : We are still waiting for confirmation, but it is most likely that Protei will be presented at the ITHET conference in Istanbul : http://www.ithet.boun.edu.tr/

There is so much happening for Protei :) Thanks to your help. Wishing you a superb end of week! 

Warm grateful regards, 
Cesar HARADA, for Protei and Open-H2O

Dear Backers, 
Long time without updates, my apologies. We've been working hard developing Protei legal infrastructure in the UK and in the USA, and most importantly getting closer to "Protei 1 Meter Remote Control" as "a product" for our dear backers :) 

I am glad to present to you today Protei_008b, last born and tested a few weeks ago in Long Beach California. Video on youtube + vimeo + Flickr + orginal file 

We had a soft wind in Long Beach and Protei_008b "Bubble" was sailing elegantly. Thanks to London.hackspace and San Francisco Noisebridge where Protei_008 was made, Hunter Daniel for filming, Aurelie Vincent for helping the production.
We want to ship you a Protei that works super well, the documentation of a high performing shape-shifting sailing robot, but we still have quite a few things to fix : 

• The hull mechanical "springiness" needs to be enhanced. The hull has a tendency to "lock" in extreme bended position. The straight "neutral" position needs to be easier to calibrate dynamically and remotely (as we sail). 
• The electronics are too vulnerable to water infiltration through the cables housing : a compartment is being developed as a separate mechanical module.  
• We need to find more powerful motors and optimise wire routing.
• Manufacturing technique for the hull, control box, sail for serie production.
• Greener materials : we still use some PVC tubes, polyester resin, and some synthetic foams that are cheap and easy to use but not very green :( 
• The hull internal frames that support the boards, sensors, batteries and mechanical parts need to make it easier to upgrade from classical "Protei Remotely Controlled" to an --> "Protei Arduino + IOIO Board / iPhone Interface + Android phone / iPhone", so you can control your protei with your Android / iPhone, collect environmental data with this kind of kit and broadcast them over 3G or the like - Yay!
• Camera mount, so it is easy to add a GoPro or the like on Protei without affecting it's stability and speed.

So we still have a lot to do, but we're making steady progress thanks to your support :) We dream to have a fully functional prototype for a Protei 1m RC this autumn - doing our best. We definitely keep you updated. Shipping to backers should happen a few months after, with a serie manufacturing techniques and greener materials. I apologise again for that we are taking a long time, it is a new technology and we have so much to figure out to deliver you quality. 

Protei and education

We're working with several students teams, supervised by Etienne Gernez our Academic Coordinator based in Norway. We have a great team in the Netherlands from TU Eindhoven that recently published on instructables.com, more than 10'000 views! We also recently completed a market research project with Stanford Global Entrepreneurship Marketing with students Elika Mahdavi and Chun Kai Phang that are foreseeing a bright future for Protei in science and environmental education. 

Instructables ShopBot 2nd place

Protei_007 by Gabriella Levine just won the second place of the Instructables Shop Bot challenge! Bravo! 

Article in "BATEAU magasine"

We had a nice segment of a popular french sailing magazine "BATEAU" that gives a good overview of the current sailing robotic projects. pdf | p1 2 3 4.

Again we apologise for delay in sending rewards, we would not want to ship you a Protei that does not work, or the manual of a half-baked technology. We're moving forward thank to your support and we'll keep you updated of major progress made !

Dear Backers, 
Christmas is approaching and we are not forgetting you :) We may contact some of you soon to deliver you christmas surprises / rewards :)

I just wanted to share with you a recent article in the Huffington Post that featured Protei right after Naomi Klein's TED Talk "Addicted to Risk", a great honour for us to follow such a brilliant person. Klein comments on the BP oil spill and our addiction to risk and suggests ways to invent our future, this is a talk worth seeing. 

 Huffington Post link | Naomi Klein : "Addicted to Risk" on TED.com.

Protei has been all over the world recently and Kasia Molga, a Protei core team member, was just in Brasil following the terrible oil spill off the coast of Rio. Protei was present at the CulturaDigital.br and Kasia reported the event also coined the "Chevron Oil Spill" as largely un-reported and underestimated by Chevron and Brasil's policy makers. It is very important for Protei to create strong ties with the Brazilian coastal residents in order to help them improve their "immune system", may Protei be part of their arsenal in the future. Chevron has been recently suspended  its drilling rights as an accumulation  of allegations in the area, especially after what happened in Ecuadorian part of the Amazon forest.
Few weeks after the recent oil spill in New Zeland, we keep seeing oil spills happening before our eyes only encouraging us to work harder to deliver Protei as soon as possible.

The Protei community keeps on growing, and we are now in need of an administrative assistant to Protei Coordinator Cesar Harada. The applications are open for one more week and we are looking for someone that will help develop Protei as a Non-Profit, Profit, Academic and informal Hacker project. It will be a full-time job based in London but with opportunities to travel abroad to coordinate Protei's global Research & Development community. The Job offer is on Protei's website, also downloadable as a PDF ready for print, on Linkedin, Gumtree, craigslist, Arduino, Adafruit, *IHub_,  and more. Please share and makes us stronger.

Again, thanks for your support and the whole Protei team joins me to wish you wonderful winter celebrations with family and friends. Warm wishes from the Protei team!

Dear backers, 
You have not heard form us in a while - but we have not forgotten you at all! The opposite! We have been working very hard and recovering from this summer work in Rotterdam and we are hitting the road - literally. 

Protei is in Dublin ireland NOW! Thanks to our amazing Gabriella Levine, we are taking part into the exhibition "The future of Water" at the Science Galery. So if you are in the Dublin area and you want to see the world first articulate sailing robot, we'd love to see you there!

Also great news, we just won the VIDA Third prize !!! VIDA is "Vida 13.2 Art & Artificial Life International Competition" and may also mean that Protei might be going to Madrid soon. 

And yes, we are on a world tour! Protei is now in Japan! Protei was just presented at TEDxSeeds (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18027993) and I will attend TEDxTohoku at the end of this week in Sendai (http://tedxtohoku.com/en). But while getting there, I got a "protei related job". I will be cycling from Tokyo to Sendai, following the coastline and looking for the best spot to launch Protei to measure radioactivity in the oceans. 

Also recently we had great press and it will help a lot in finding potential future partners. 
We recently met with BMWi, Heerema, and more and we are in conversation to elaborate future plans for Protei... Will keep you updated on that too.

We are on CNN : http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/20/tech/motherboard-sailing-drone/index.html

We are on Motherboard : http://motherboard.tv/2011/10/18/motherboard-tv-upgrade-building-robot-sailboats-to-suck-up-oil-spills

We are on Innovation Daily : http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/sailing-robot-oil-spill-cleanup-2316/

We are on the Irish Radio : http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A3087972%3A82%3A%3A

And also in the more underground press :) http://www.sailinganarchy.com/index_page1.php

We are now : 

• elaborating the strategy for the development of Protei for this new academic year
  
• Looking for Partners to develop Protei. That means preparing documents such as Technology development plan, business plans and a lot more. We'll let you know when we have the drafts of these documents because we'll need your feedback !

Now preparing for this long bike ride and hoping Protei -beyond oil spills- will be deployed for other good environmental purposes. Of course we don't forget your rewards, we're working on that too :) Warm regards for a beautiful but hurt Japan. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 
Please welcome Fiona Crabbie, our naval Architect. 

Protei World Premiere

We have launched Protei_006. Thanks to your help.
September 2nd 2011, Protei_006 was unveiled to the public, during World Port Day in Rotterdam, NL. The launch was a great success. 
This is the poster's back, explaining the main concepts of Protei. 

Also for download in full resolution (A2 format) : http://protei.org/download/20110831press-kit/poster/

Handbook

And because we are working Open Hardware, we are also releasing the documentation of Protei simultaneously. 
>> Please have a look at Protei's handbook on the slick issuu.
http://issuu.com/cesarharada/docs/protei-handbook-a4

>> You can also download the light computer screen version here (only 8mb). 
http://protei.org/download/20110831press-kit/handbook/Protei-Handbook-web.pdf

>> Or you can download the heavy print quality version here (50mb).
http://protei.org/download/20110831press-kit/handbook/Protei-Handbook-print.pdf.zip

>> Or you can order a print via lulu.com, now with a 20% discount - it won't last :
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/protei-handbook/16951690

So... Do you like Protei's handbook?
What do you think are the next steps? Guess what's next :)