Light at the end of the tunnel!
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.
132
Backers
$17,922
pledged of $10,000 goal
0
seconds to go
Funding period
Sep 5, 2009 -
Oct 24, 2009
- First created · 18 backed
- Has not connected Facebook
- Website: makerbeam.com
Pledge $1 or more
4 backers
Exclusive early-download access to the Mini-T standard in progress, sneak peaks behind the scenes, and more!
Pledge $8 or more
23 backers
Your own 10 cm piece of the original MakerBeam production run!
Pledge $32 or more
23 backers
Gold-tone anodized 10 cm piece of MakerBeam, laser etched with serial number! PLUS: Signed certificate of authenticity, framed in MakerBeam! Thanked as "Contributor" in standard.
Pledge $128 or more
54 backers
All $32 perks plus a Beta kit of 50 beams of varying lengths and Beta connector kit! (est. delivery date: February 2010). Thanked as "Beta Tester" in open standard credits.
Pledge $256 or more
20 backers All gone!
Receive special Alpha kit by Christmas! 50 lengths of MakerBeam, Alpha prototype connector kit, PLUS special 3-d printed prototype of our plastic connectors! Thanked as "Alpha Tester" in open standard credits.
Pledge $1,024 or more
4 backers
Institutional Level: receive at LEAST 50 meters of MakerBeam, plus connectors, during beta release, AND Alpha kit in December. Why not have your spring semester 2010 class join us in beta testing? Thanked as "Institutional Sponsor" in open standard credits. Bigger pledges get you more beam and connectors, and more. Contact us!
Comments
Creator Windell Oskay on May 15, 2010
Have you released any of the standard yet? Maybe we could contract some useful connectors to be made. :(
Creator Sam Atman on May 11, 2010
The brackets have been improved, in that that 90 degree are now metal and the 45 and 60s are laser cut. Both of these make a considerable difference.
The screws remain the same. The batch we got may be a lucky break, in fact. The prototypes we made to fit the channel often rotate while being screwed in. This can make the head bite into the inside of the channel, making the screw really difficult to remove. We were worried that the productions screws would freely rotate instead of screwing down, but so far this hasn't proved a problem, and once tight, they stay that way.
Creator Windell Oskay on May 10, 2010
This is good news. Any progress on better fasteners?
Creator Sam Atman on May 10, 2010
Make no mistake: this is the most fun I've had that counts as 'work'.
Nothing is fun all the time; in particular, waking up on a Monday and trying to decide if "nothing to report" is worth an update.
Now that that phase is out of the way, what's left is a bunch of sorting things into their proper place, basically, and what geek doesn't enjoy putting things into piles?
Anyone who needs to contact us can click on "send message" underneath MakerBeam in the lower right "project by" panel of this page. Most of our questions are about addresses right now, and the standard response is "don't worry"; once we've taken care of the people whose addresses we have, we'll send another email out to people who didn't respond to the first survey.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Creator Jeffrey A Edwards on May 9, 2010
I do appreciate your efforts, and I do look forward to receiving my Beta kit, but it pains me to see you sweating SOOOOO much on our (my) behalf. I hope you're having SOME fun doing this adventure -- I'm betting that most backers understand venture funding is often associated with schedule slips. So long as you're all acting in good faith I don't mind the "learning" delays! But thanks in any case. :-) JE
Creator Dr. Russ Reiss on May 9, 2010
Can't remember if I sent you my address or not. How do we send you this information confidentially... not in a public comment?