Kickstarter

Creator Jennifer Savage on December 19

I can't believe this kickstarter didn't make it. :/

Creator Ken Purcell on December 19

Damn, was looking forward to seeing the great SF crew in Texas again. Come on Nate, give it another shot.

Creator Jerry Isdale on December 17, 2012

Dang... 2 days and only 1/3 of the way? Ok. I upped my pledge to the full $2500 to get SparkFun to come to Hawaii. Its up to the rest of you to make me pay up... If you havent booked a visit to your state yet - match me!

Creator Dennis Ray Nestor Jr. on December 15, 2012

Please make the shirts in XL 2XL 3XL and 4XL sizes.

Creator mpechner on December 12, 2012

Just found out about it. If you do not raise the $100k+ in the next week, you might think of additional reward for the next try. $10 - hacker passport, sparkfun decal or resistor sticker. $25 - SFE notebook. $50 - simon kit - just the simon kit. I think something at the $10 level and adding the $25 and $50 are important levels.

Creator Delaney Keating on December 5, 2012

THANK YOU for doing this!

Promoting direct to Educational Foundations (especially in rural, grant funded areas) will likely VERY quickly fill your workshop slots. I am promoting this to our regional E3 Foundation (Gunnison/Crested Butte) right now. Do you have any promotional material for the workshop available at this time?

Creator Evaristo Ramos on November 29, 2012

I second that John, that is a very good idea.

Creator John Shue on November 29, 2012

How about a level above $150 which combines lower level rewards? I'm at $150 and definitely would put in more to also get t-shirt and Learn to Solder Simon Says. Maybe in the $200-$250 range?

Creator T.J. Anderson on November 28, 2012

@Rich thanks for the advice, that sounds like a perfect way. I didn't know about ChipIn, I was hesitant to start a kickstarter just to reach a kickstarter level, because then we'd loose 5% to fees just to turn around and have y'all loose another 5% of that.

Creator Richard Parker on November 27, 2012

@T.J.: my hometown wants to pool together pledges, like you and your friends. we created a facebook group page to coordinate and linked to a "ChipIn" fundraiser page to pool the pledges (much like a kickstarter campaign, but simpler). once we pool the $2500, we'll back this campaign and get Ithaca, NY on the map!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/541245335902861/
(full disclosure: I'm a sparkfun employee but i'm also a big fan!)

Creator Lee Zamir on November 26, 2012

Very enthusiastic about your project and mission. Look forward to seeing you in Massachusetts.

Creator Evaristo Ramos on November 22, 2012

My wife and I are more than happy to help volunteer our time and or items if the tour comes anywhere near the Houston, Texas area. What would really be a fundamental change would be for you as Sparkfun to coordinate with even more vendors such as adafruit and others to expose people to what is actually possible. I think people want to learn more but life gets its in the way and they have no idea where to start, Arduino has been one of the few platforms where I can see anyone at any age pick it up and get started. I would suggest contacting Robotis as they are trying to start up a STEM program maybe you two can work together, I can potentially see this tour never-ending.

@ptorrone I did really like your recent story, I hope to meet one day.

Creator ptorrone on November 22, 2012

@Evaristo Ramos hello friend! adafruit has pony :) and we posted up :)
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/20/sparkfun-national-tour-kickstarter/

Creator Evaristo Ramos on November 21, 2012

This is definitely the one KS to fund, I challenge Hackaday, Make, and my new found friend at Adafruit to pony up and get this funded, I am definitely excited and glad to do my small part. This project is Roo-approved!!!

Creator Scott Sibbett on November 21, 2012

This is spectacular. You guys have really got it. Kicked in my $50, sure would like to kick in another $2,450. There is definitely something special going on in Boulder. -- University of New Mexico prof, backer #102

Creator Davy Baker on November 20, 2012

I love how this idea (and Sparkfun !) was made in the USA. It is a real solution to a real "opportunity". My tour at your interplanetary headquarters (in my favorite state !) during your last open house helped me realize how truly with it Sparkfun is. Along these same lines, I would like to see your product offerings reflect where they were assembled, so that buyers can decide where they want their $$$ to go and if it is worth a spending more on an item to support their neighbors and reasonable working conditions. Keep up the great work ! :-D

Creator Craig Dunn on November 20, 2012

I'm wondering if there is a methodology other than "6 stops per State" (assuming the cap of 300 stops has been reached) that makes more sense. Rather than using the Senatorial model where every State gets the same, perhaps something that's more population-based would be more equitable. For better or worse, some along the electoral college lines to properly weight the distribution.

For example, would tiny Rhode Island get 6 stops....the same 6 stops that giant Texas would get with a population 25-35 times larger? Also, giant empty states like Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska (half a million to just under a million population range) would get 6? With everything so spread out in these States, it would be hard to target schools with sizes large enough to warrant stops.

Anyway, just a thought. It would seem that the more populated States could potentially receive less benefit of this tour as the impact would be negligible relative to throwing the same amount of resources at a sparsely populated location.

I certainly would love for EVERY school or student who wouldn't otherwise have the chance to be exposed to STEAM/STEM curriculum to be able to take advantage of this opportunity, but with the realities of what a well-intentioned group of backers and a single company (one of my favorites, btw) can achieve, I'm hoping this can have the greatest distribution through the student and educator population such that the initial recipients of this effort will take up the torch and run with it to further spread the seeds of knowledge. I hope that sort of vision is impressed upon folks when Sparkfun stops at each site. While I don't have unlimited financial resources available, it would be great if we (as backers with particular skilled backgrounds) could somehow volunteer our time and experience towards this (or similar) effort. I would certainly be happy to do so.

Creator Ken Purcell on November 20, 2012

Pooling pledges from makerspaces would be ideal. It would make the dollars threshold easier and then have a place to tech the classes!