Star Spangled Banner for Dinner

Christian Genco won a talent show with this performance and became the first Pro Maker ever sponsored by JoyLabz. The 5 minute performance is hilarious. His next MaKey MaKey performance will be at the Ingenuity event at the Perot Museum in Dallas on January 18th, where MiKey MiKey from JoyLabz will also be speaking about MaKey MaKey.

Final Shipping Update

UncommonGoods is running a MaKey MaKey Challenge! To enter:

• Make something cool with MaKey MaKey 
• Post a video to YouTube with the title "UncommonGoods MaKey MaKey Challenge"
• That's it, it's automatically entered

Find details here: http://www.uncommongoods.com/static/makeymakey.jsp

Minor Shipping Update

As of August 17th SparkFun had shipped out 

• 3,500 standard kits and 
• 600 deluxe kits

SparkFun is continuing with shipping into September. 

(For more shipping info please see Update #10, including all the answered questions in the comments.)

We are still taking pre-orders at makeymakey.com for September shipment. 

"Unlearn How Things Work" Talk Tomorrow 

Jay Silver will talk about MaKey MaKey in Silicon Valley tomorrow evening, August 27th (Monday)

There will be complimentary craft beer, food, MaKey MaKey giveaways, and a MaKey MaKey performance by Beau Silver, like the one he did at Stanford. 

This event is at PayPal, and it's free, but RSVP to attend (as of now there are only 70 spots left out of 300):

• http://www.meetup.com/TechXploration/events/74093432/

BLT Cloud

While it's a bit of an advertisement for Rackspace, here's a fun video about spinning up a cloud server using a BLT

In this update:

• Shipment Begins! -- If you filled out your survey and paid any necessary international shipping, sit back and dream up crazy ideaz as your MaKey MaKeys cruise to your doorsteps.
• Last Chance to Pay Your International Shipping -- Important, 2 weeks left.
• Last Chance to Fill Out Your Survey -- Important, 1 week left.

Shipment Begins

We are bursting with excitement to tell you that we are starting to send out MaKey MaKeys. Right on schedule! Estimated ship date was August. We are so so so sO so sO so sO so so so happy that most of you will have kits in your hands this month (if you filled out your survey and paid your international shipping)

Here is the manufacturing update provided by Jim Lindblom at SparkFun:

• Most of the MaKey MaKeys are assembled, programmed, and tested
• Most of the 13,000 kits are scheduled to ship in August (2,000 to 3,000 per week)
• The remaining kits are scheduled to ship in the first half of September

Please remember that we are providing you with the behind the scenes plans and current facts. So if something changes, we'll let you know. But our plans are not guarantees.

Last Chance to Pay International Shipping

If you forgot to pay international shipping when placing your order, and also weren't able to update your order with shipping payment before the end of the KickStarter, here's what you need to do. 

Go to this link:

http://joylabz.myshopify.com/products/international-shipping-for-makey-makey

And use your credit card or PayPal to make an appropriate payment using the same name you used on KickStarter. Please do this as soon as possible, but at the latest do it in the next 2 weeks, by August 17th. If you do not pay for shipping we cannot send you a MaKey MaKey, and this makes us very sad.

Most of you already paid, so you don't need to worry. Only if you didn't pay the extra international shipping fee with your original pledge. For example, if you pledged at the FULL KIT level, and you live outside the USA then you needed to pledge $35 (for the kit) + $10 (for int'l shipping) = $45. Check your pledge. Did you pledge the extra? If so, do nothing. If not, you have 2 weeks to pay the extra shipping. If you live in the USA, then shipping is included, no extra payment.

Last Chance to Fill Out Your Survey

All surveys were sent out by July 12th. If you think you might have missed the survey email, please log in to your Kickstarter account to check — you’ll see a notification at the top of the site for any missed surveys.

Please fill out your survey as soon as possible, but at the latest, please fill out your survey by August 12th (1 month from original survey date). That's only about 1 week away! If you don't fill out your survey (which has your shipping address) we cannot send you a MaKey MaKey, and this makes us very sad.

We are one month after the close of the Kickstarter, and I think you'll be shocked and delighted to hear about our progress. If everything goes according to plan, YOUR MAKEY MAKEYS ARE COMING SOON! 

Eric visited our manufacturer, SparkFun, last week in Boulder. He got an upclose look at the manufacturing, and SparkFun Engineer Jim Lindblom gave us the following report:

• 10,000 MaKey MaKey Printed Circuit Boards have arrived! 3,000 more are due in next week.
• Most of the circuit parts (resistors, etc.) have already arrived for all 13,000 circuits. We're still waiting on these parts: crystals, female headers, alligator clips, all due to arrive by the end of July.
• 2,000 MaKey MaKeys have already been assembled. The plan is to assemble the other 11,000 and ship them in August and September if there are no surprises. It's possible, but not guaranteed, that they will all ship in August.

As you can see, everything is going very smoothly so far. But please understand that there is no guaranteed ship-by date. We are just telling you the facts about what is done so far, and what we plan to do next. SparkFun is doing an amazing job.

And Boulder was beautiful. You can see a tiny plume of spoke coming from the peak in the center of the photo, where a forest fire was burning- but don't worry, Sparkfun is safe!

Thanks for your patience and support. We love you all.

Be Stoked!

Jay and Eric

We were on BBC World Service this week, and they covered us in an article yesterday. Here is a snippet from the BBC article:

Around 150 beta-versions of the kit have been made available to test-users and AnnMarie Thomas, based in Minneapolis, was among the first to try it. She says even her four-year-old daughter has managed to connect the kit without any help. "My kids love it. My daughter was able to plug it in and set it up. She has tried tin foil and playdough and has even managed to connect herself to the kit."

Ms Thomas, a former professor of engineering, trains future engineering teachers and thinks the kit has a lot of potential for use in schools. "It is a great way to engage kids with science and technology," she said. "It helped my daughter understand how circuits work and how to ground herself." (Read the Rest of the BBC Article)

AnnMarie, the professor quoted above has a TED talk about squishy circuits. Sometimes we like to think of MaKey MaKey as squishy computation or squishy Human Computer Interaction.

Be Stoked!