Boing Boing » kickstarter

Help Young Knives get their record finished

Amy Seidenwurm — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:35:55 +0000

I'm still mad that Young Knives' fantastic last record Ornaments from the Silver Arcade never got released in the U.S. (though we featured a song from it). They've been doing a lot of experimenting with ambient sound recording and have even created a custom synthesizer from all of the sounds they gathered. Their extremely entertaining Kickstarter campaign invites you to contribute towards the completion of their forthcoming album Sick Octave. You can get everything from a download of the record to one of the aforementioned custom synths for your contribution. Plus, you'll have the satisfaction of supporting true artists who are going it alone.

Kickstarting a short film based on Daniel "Robopocalypse" Wilson's story "The Nostalgist"

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:11:04 +0000

Daniel Wilson, whose novels Amped and Robopocalypse" were just terrific, is raising money on Kickstarter to complete a short film based on his short story The Nostalgist. The film has already been shot and the money is being raised for effects production. The cast are tremendous, the production team accomplished, and the story is beautiful, so this is a really good kind of project to find on Kickstarter.

In details your support will enable us to complete:
* CG character design, modelling, animation, texturing, lighting and final rendering
* Digital Set Extensions (matte paintings, digital environments, effects)
* Compositing: rotoscoping, green screen keying, plate clean up, CG implementation into live action footage
* Conforming and Grading
Furthermore, your contributions will help us cover the costs of:
* Post production Sound and Film Soundtrack
* Film Identity Design (Titles, Poster, General communication material)
* Deliverables (DVD/Blu-Ray masters, digital master, materials, legal documentation)
* Marketing and Publicity
* Festival submissions and Distribution costs

The Nostalgist - A sci-fi short film

Kickstarting solder-it-yourself junkbot kits

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:45:24 +0000

A group of engineering students (with no stated manufacturing experience -- caveat emptor) are kickstarting a series of cute assemble-it-yourself junkbots called "D.Bug"s. You get a kit full of electronic components, instructions for soldering them into cute robots, and a display box for your complete project. They're on the pricey side ($35 for the cheapest), especially since they don't come with the tools you need to assemble them, but they're a cute and potentially fun entree to soldering and working with electronic components.

To assemble the kit, you solder together electronic components to form the body parts of the D.Bug. Easy to assemble!Easy to assemble!
The manual includes step-by-step photo instructions, the background story for each D.Bug, a guide to identifying electronic parts, a tutorial for soldering, a harvesting guide for where to find the best parts, and insider tips on how to make your D.Bug look awesome.

D.Bug Model Kits - Art hacked from electronics (Thanks, Sophie!)

MC Frontalot's "I'll Form the Head" - crowdfunded voltronoid nerdcore

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:23:26 +0000

MC Frontalot sez, "At long last, here's the third of three videos from my album Solved that were funded by fans via Kickstarter. It was directed by Carly Monardo and features my nerdcore rap compatriots ZeaLouS1 and Dr. Awkward. Lyrics and credits are on the youtube page. The single is out today, too, and it's free at frontalot.com.

Bright-colored robotic space rhinoceri
that we pilot — why? 'Cause they're in supply.
Plus, we heed the cry of our planet's population
to defend them. We report to battle stations!
Split screen — ready! — and our rhinos are rocket ships
with fully articulated tusk, jaws, and hips.
They come equipped with individual special attacks,
none with a lack (but a couple a little bit slack).
I'm not naming any pilot specifically,
but we're all color coded so you notice that typically
I (in the gold) lead the charge, do the most damage
to whatever very giant space invader managed
to threaten the globe in yet another of our episodes.
This week? Malevolent galactic nematode!
Already beat up the squad when we faced him.
I'm calling it: let's form a giant robot and waste him.

MC Frontalot - I'll Form The Head [OFFICIAL VIDEO] (Thanks, Frontalot!)

Kickstarter for a multifunction wrecking bar with crowbar/hammer/angle measuring tool

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:00:35 +0000

The Cole-Bar Hammer is a multifunction wrecking bar on Kickster ($65 gets you an earlybird tool, with shipping). It unfolds and locks into place to serve as a crowbar; it also can be used as a hammer and as an angle-measurement tool, and it has a lovely, brutal elegance:

The Cole-Bar Hammer is essentially a hammer... ...with a full crow bar built in! Using it's patented locking gear mechanism, the Cole-Bar can be opened and extended from 0-180 degrees and locked in place at 15 degree increments. The only hammer in the world that turns into a full crow-bar! A patented gear/ratchet system that locks into place at every click! Further more, the Cole-Bar can be separated with a button release turning it into a demolition tool.

As mentioned previously, I love multifunction wrecking bars -- they're just the right blend of apocalyptic and functional. This looks like a promising addition to the genre.

The project looks exciting, but as with all Kickstarter projects, you should be prepared to get nothing for your money; the project founders' bios don't list any directly applicable manufacturing experience.

The Cole-Bar Hammer (via Core 77)

Othermill: kickstarting a desktop 3D computer-controlled mill for circuit-boards, jewelry and more

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:04:29 +0000

McArthur Genius Grant winner and maker hero Saul Griffith and his friends have a fully funded Kickstarter on the go for the "Othermill," a computer-controlled mill for creating your own custom circuit-boards -- and for milling decorative or functional shapes from "metal, wood, wax, and plastic." It's a compact desktop tool designed for home use.

With our mill, you can produce custom circuit boards quickly and cheaply. You can make all your projects light up, beep, and move. Wearable circuits, custom guitar effects pedals, and quadcopter electronics are all within reach - without waiting for boards to come back from the manufacturer. Even though the Othermill is optimized for cutting circuit boards, it can also cut metal, wood, wax, and plastic. It is great for engraving and milling 3D shapes for jewelry or mold making.
The Othermill was designed with PCBs in mind, and they were the very first thing we tested when we had a working machine. The precision and accuracy of the Othermill allows you to reliably cut 10 mil trace and space on FR-1 PCB stock. You can create custom circuits that fit into odd 3D printed parts, seamlessly integrate electronics into your clothing, and free up your Arduinos for other applications.

The Othermill: Custom Circuits at Your Fingertips (Thanks, Alice!)

NeoLucida: kickstarting a new version of the Old Masters' favorite drawing gadget

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:13:55 +0000

Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin, two celebrated art profs and dead media specialists, have launched a fantastically successful kickstarter to recreate the Camera Lucida, a gadget much favored by the Old Masters. It uses an optical trick to superimpose the scene in front of you on a sheet of paper that you can trace in order to produce highly realistic drawings. They're producing a limited one-time run of them (a $35 pledge gets you one) (assuming, as with all Kickstarters, that this actually gets made -- caveat emptor!), and then the designs will be released as open source hardware for anyone to make.

The NeoLucida is designed to fit in a purse or bag, and the creators want to create a gallery of art made with it -- each one comes with a postage-paid card for you to send in one of your drawings

NeoLucida - A Portable Camera Lucida for the 21st Century (via Beyond the Beyond)

Animated Emily the Strange music video

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:55:14 +0000

I enjoyed meeting artist Rob Reger last year at Baby Tattoovile. He's making an animated music video of Emily the Strange. He's very close to meeting his Kickstarter goal of $55k.

Documentary about trying to stop tar sands oil pipeline

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:32:18 +0000

John Fiege is seeking post-production funds to complete his documentary about a group of people trying to stop a tar sands oil pipeline from running through their property.

Above All Else is a feature documentary film that tells the remarkable story of a group of landowners and activists who tried to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in East Texas. The film follows David Daniel, a quiet, affable carpenter, whose backyard became the epicenter of a tree sit that physically blocked the path of the controversial pipeline. This was the birthplace of the Tar Sands Blockade, an activist group that would go on to oppose the pipeline's construction all along its route. David's stance against Keystone brought together an unlikely coalition of allies, from Texan farmers to student environmentalists to fire-cracker great-grandmothers like Eleanor Fairchild. Above All Else is the story of David and his allies, their struggles, and what happened when they stood in the way of the most powerful industry in the world. It is a film about how courage and integrity are fundamental ingredients in social change—in Texas, throughout the country, and throughout history.

Above All Else - a Keystone XL pipeline documentary

Zach Braff: Man of the People or Horrible Person? (Neither)

Michael Schreiber — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:57:36 +0000

Emmy winning writer/director/producer Ken Levine went after Zach Braff today in a blog post about the actor's recent foray into crowdfunding. The Scrubs alum has raised millions of dollars for his planned follow-up to Garden State from regular folks, when the Hollywood money machine proved to be unavailable and/or undesirable.

Levine's argument is compelling. He essentially says that Kickstarter was created for people who don't have access to Hollywood. Braff obviously does, therefore his use of Kickstarter to fund his movie is tantamount to breaking the crowdfunding Code of Hammurabi. Following a deft takedown of Sundance for having become a tool of Hollywood rather than an alternative to it, Levine writes:

Sundance is a lost cause. But Kickstarter isn’t. Not if we put a stop to this now. If you only have so much money to give to charity, give it to cancer research and not to help redecorate Beyonce’s plane. Support young hungry filmmakers. The next Kevin Smith is out there… somewhere. He (or she) just needs a break, which is what Kickstarter is supposed to provide. Zach Braff can find his money elsewhere. He did once before. He’ll make his movie. And if it’s half as good as GARDEN STATE I will praise it to the heavens in this blog and urge you to go spend your money to check it out.

This argument assumes, however, that Hollywood doesn't make mistakes... that when they hear a pitch for a good movie, they always fund it. That's certainly not true. Plenty of good ideas never get made and plenty of bad ones do. Maybe Braff barked up every tree he could, and still couldn't get it funded. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure, as he notes on his Kickstarter page, that he would be able to maintain creative control. All of that seems fair to me. Successful actors, even rich ones, should have an alternative to the company store.

So, I don't have a problem with Zach Braff going to the public and asking for money in exchange for things like private screenings and meet and greets. (For $200 he'll scrawl your name on a wall that will appear in the film. Yay!) Now, just to be clear, I think people that willingly give their money to a millionaire in exchange for stuff that costs him nothing are nuts. I wouldn't fund a movie in exchange for that. But it's a free country. Each of us can do as we please with our money.

But consider this: Zach's raised close to $2.5 million for his movie from almost 35,000 people. If he'd raised that money from private investors, he'd have to pay that money back and give away a big chunk of the profits. Raising the money through Kickstarter - for the follow-up to the enormously popular Garden State - means he doesn't have to pay anyone back and gets to keep all the profits.

He's a fucking genius.

Like I said, as well intentioned as Braff's investors are, I can't help but think of them as suckers on some level and like Levine, I won't participate. On the other hand, I'd almost certainly be willing to invest in a movie in which I believed in exchange for some of the back end. I know in most cases it'd be a gamble, but maybe my $250 could turn into $500 or $1000. If the movie tanked though, I'd be OK with it, because I'd helped produce something that meant something to me. That's a model that makes sense.

Maybe Braff and other independent filmmakers should be selling shares in their movies, not tickets to the after party. If they did that, those 35,000 investors would almost certainly act as guerilla marketers too. They'd have a real, tangible incentive to get the word out. In the end, the public would almost certainly get to see a lot more different types of movies... and a few of them might actually be pretty good.

Image Source: david_shankbone, via flickr

Kickstarting an RPG for kids 8 and up

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:13:41 +0000

An illustrator and games publisher have teamed up to kickstart "Adventure Maximus!", a streamlined, cards-and-dice RPG aimed at kids eight and up (though there's an endorsement from a six-year-old on the site). The gameplay looks pretty clever and I really like the art. It's a minimum $35 pledge to get a finished game, though you can get a PDF of it for a pledge of $15. They're looking to raise $12K for manufacturing, marketing, and administration.

Adventure MAXIMUS! is a card based, introductory Role Playing Game for players 8 years-of-age and up. Players can take on roles from eight different races. Working together as a famous "Adventure Company" based in the fantastic, post-apocalyptic world of Ex-Machina where they can become heroes of legend.
When there is trouble, or innocent people need protection from the fierce creatures that populate Ex-Machina, they call on Adventure Companies to save the day!
Adventure MAXIMUS! follows the classic role playing game format consisting of someone who runs the adventure (who we call a Maximus Master) and 2 or more players who interact with the adventure. Inexperienced Maximus Masters will find using our Adventure Creation System helpful when making their first adventure. Also, the role of Maximus Master can be taken over by a player in mid adventure so that everyone gets a chance to play!
Players will be asked to make heroic actions fueled by Action Points. Players receive a limited amount of Action Points each round, so they must be budgeted. The bigger the action, the greater the cost. Action Points replenish each round. Racial Abilities, Class Abilities, Action Powers, Spells and Items all have Action Point costs printed on their cards.

As with all Kickstarters, you should be aware that you may get nothing for your money, in the event that the creators of the project flake out or just totally underestimate the amount of money they'll need to meet their obligations.

Adventure Maximus!

Kickstarting a game based on Gaiman's "Study in Emerald" Cthulhu/Holmes mashup

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:02:46 +0000

Zack sez, "Neil Gaiman's award-winning mash-up of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft 'A Study in Emerald' gets a Gaiman-approved board game expansion in this new creation from Martin Wallace. The game will only be available through this Kickstarter campaign, and the page for it includes extensive explanations of the rules, game pieces, artwork and the initial and stretch goals for the project."

A Study in Emerald (Thanks, Zack!)

Synthetic biology Kickstarter aims to make glowing plants

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:05:30 +0000

Ben sez, "The first ever synthetic biology Kickstarter is about growing glowing plants. Using synthetic biology and Genome Compiler software, they are ready to input bio-luminescence genes into a mustard plant and have it be naturally glowing. Meant more as a hint of things to come and what can be achieved with synth bio."

It's ambitious, but the project's lead looks like he has the necessary experience. Still, as with all ambitious Kickstarters, you should be prepared to lose your dough.

We are using Synthetic Biology techniques and Genome Compiler’s software to insert bioluminescence genes into Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant and member of the mustard family, to make a plant that visibly glows in the dark (it is inedible).
Funds raised will be used to print the DNA sequences we have designed using Genome Compiler and to transform the plants by inserting these sequences into the plant and then growing the resultant plant in the lab.
Printing DNA costs a minimum of 25 cents per base pair and our sequences are about 10,000 base pairs long. We plan to print a number of sequences so that we can test the results of trying different promoters – this will allow us to optimize the result. We will be printing our DNA with Cambrian Genomics who have developed a revolutionary laser printing system that massively reduces the cost of DNA synthesis.
Transforming the plant will initially be done using the Agrobacterium method. Our printed DNA will be inserted into a special type of bacteria which can insert its DNA into the plant. Seeds of a flowering plant are then dipped into a solution containing the transformed bacteria. The bacteria then injects our DNA into the cell nucleus of the seeds which we can grow until they glow! You can see this process in action in our video.

Glowing Plants: Natural Lighting with no Electricity or CO2

Rocket Robinson, a graphic adventure novel for kids set in Egypt in the 1930s

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:02:51 +0000

I loved Jonny Quest when I was a kid, and I think my 10-year-old (and I) will love Rocket Robinson, a graphic novel by Sean O'Neill, which reminds me of the 1960s cartoon. Get a taste of it by reading the webcomic, and then chip in to Kickstarter if you dig it.

Rocket Robinson and the Pharaoh’s Fortune (or RRPF for short) is a classic adventure story set in Egypt in the 1930s, and follows the exploits of 12-year-old adventurer Rocket Robinson as he tries to unravel the mystery of a hidden, ancient treasure, located somewhere in the city of Cairo. For the last three years, the story has been available online as a webcomic, but unlike many other webcomics, this story was always envisioned as a book. It is a single, stand-alone story, and—although many comic fans around the world have been enjoying reading one page a week—it’s meant to be read cover-to-cover as a book.

The Rocket Robinson Graphic Novel

Greg Pak and Jonathan Coulton Kickstart Everything

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:00:18 +0000

The Internet went to sleep last night and tossed and turned with a fever dream of monkeys, mad scientists, and robots. When it awoke, it found that Jonathan Coulton and Greg Pak had launched a crowdfunding campaign to create a series of comic books based on characters from Coulton's songs.

That sound you heard is the Internet going "squeeeeeeeeeee!"

If the Kickstarter project funds, the two will produce four comic books released in digital form to backers as they're finished over the next several months, and then as a print collection at the end to those that pledge at the necessary minimum level.

Who am I kidding? If it's successful? C'mon. Seriously. If enough funds are raised over the goal, the page count of the comics might increase.

Buying in at a higher level, as with most rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns, gets you extra-special stuff. "The highest level of our Kickstarter is, you get a capuchin monkey shipped to you," joked Coulton. For slightly more money, you don't get the monkey. Pak suggested, instead, that for a high premium, "you get to spend 10 minutes in a kissing booth with Jonathan." The actual awards are nearly as good, with less chance of contagion.

It's an almost embarrassingly perfect storm of wonderful things. Coulton made his fame as a troubadour of nerdiness starting in 2005 when he quit his programming job and produced a "Thing a Week": one song every week for a year, which he then turned into four albums. Coulton's songs tapped into our inner geek, because he was (and is) one of us. We are all Code Monkey, aren't we? I know I am. He's now the regular music guest on NPR's Ask Me Another quiz show, and headlines the JoCo Cruise Crazy boat excursion developed by Paul & Storm that just attracted 700 people who, Coulton said, come to the cruise now just as much to be with a like-minded coterie as to mix with him and his buddies. (I interviewed Coulton recently for my podcast series The New Disruptors, talking about the choices he made that gave him his independence.)

Greg Pak burst into general consciousness with his live-action film, Robot Stories in 2003, which he wrote and directed. The film is about morality and consciousness told in four separate tales. He toured with the movie for two years (winning dozens of awards along the way) while also starting what is now a career as a comic-book writer for major Marvel titles and characters. He also produced his own magnificent tale of the near future, Vision Machine, which seems eerie now with Google Glass nearly on the market. He recently signed on with DC Comics to work on the Batman/Superman series.

Combine these two gentlemen with comics and crowdfunding as the glue, and I suspect that happy mutants of a delicate nature have already cracked open a homebrewed hard cider and are fanning themselves with an old, well-thumbed issue of Concrete.

I spoke last week to Coulton, who was in Brooklyn, and Pak, then at an undisclosed location that I guess is close to the earth's core or, to judge by Skype's oddities, in a stealth ship orbiting the planet under bombardment by tachyon particles.

"I think everybody working in comics is aware of the incredible opportunities that creator-owned work provides. and I've had my eye on more creator-owned stuff for a while," Pak said. He and Coulton have been friends since they attended Yale twenty years ago, and Pak said he's long been a fan of his buddy's music. (I overlapped with both at that New Haven institution, but knew neither at the time.)

Last November, Pak randomly tweeted that characters from Coulton's songs would make an excellent supervillain team. Pak said in our interview that the musician's characters are "the kind of twisted guys for the most part who, for whatever reason, are filled with longing and resentment." ("Yeah, for whatever reason," Coulton said, laughing.) "Every one of these songs has a strong story at the core," Pak said.

Coulton publicly tweeted that it would be a good idea, and they privately set rapidly to work on planning the series, called Code Monkey Save World. The spoilers-free outline is that the heroes are Code Monkey (an actual monkey) and Skullcrusher, the owner and operator of villanous Skullcrusher Mountain. They are both victims of their ineptitude in pursuing unrequited love. Code Monkey becomes the semi-willing sidekick to the mad scientist, and events unfurl from there.

"No friction prevented this thing from happening," Coulton said. Coulton owns his work entirely and Pak is an independent contractor to Marvel and DC. That allowed them to figure out arrangements quickly without involving other parties. Pak signed on Takeshi Miyazawa to draw the four-comic series.

Crowdfunding seemed a natural for them, because they know they can reach people who already like their separate work, and hope that a collaboration is appealing to that likely highly overlapped audience. "It's a classic superhero team-up," said Coulton. Pak replied, "Or is it a supervillain team-up?" We'll find out.

We talk more about the details of writing and collaboration between the two in the 16-minute audio interview embedded above.

Insane tees - Kickstarted, full-shirt printing with indie artist designs

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 02:03:40 +0000

Jordan sez, "Our t-shirt company was just successfully funded through Kickstarter, now at $46,000+ with 4 days to go. We take insane art from independent artists and throw them on shirts using a new type of printing called Sublimation. It allows us to print ALL OVER the shirt in extremely vibrant colors."

Not all this stuff is up my street, but some of it is pretty fawesome.

RaveNectar: This isn't clothing - it's an EXPERIENCE. (Thanks, Jordan)

Kickstarter to save the brilliant zine store READING FRENZY

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:59:51 +0000

Reading Frenzy, the astoundingly great zine store in Portland, OR, lost its lease. They need to raise $50K to reopen. The store's founder, Chloe Eudaly, writes,

Reading Frenzy, a small but internationally renowned bookshop in Portland, Oregon devoted to small press and self-published titles, lost their lease and is kickstarting their relaunch! Plans include doubling their size and scope, adding a dedicated gallery space, increasing their events programming, and eventually adding workshop space, a reading room, and an artists' book and zine print-on-demand project. Rewards include a variety of top notch printed matter by some of their favorite artists, including Miranda July, Nikki McClure, and Carson Ellis.
Their project is currently hovering at about 30% funded with three weeks to go. This is an all or nothing scenario -- if the project doesn't succeed, Reading Frenzy will not reopen, and the world will have one less awesome independent bookshop. Weirdest moment in the project so far: When Miranda July's tweet about the campaign was retweeted by (our hero) Judd Apatow!

This is one of the best bookstores I've ever visited. The world needs it! Chloe is a brilliant bookseller, too, and as she points out, if not for the rotten luck of losing a lease, the business would be humming along merrily, and also spinning off more projects like its zine-creator's makerspace, the Independent Publishing Resource Center.

Reading Frenzy Relaunch!

Girl's Kickstarter to go to RPG camp brings out the horrible, horrible trolls

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:38:50 +0000

For the past several days, I've been seeing an obviously silly conspiracy theory rocket around the usual online places. It concerns Susan Wilson, whose nine-year-old daughter Mackenzie was challenged by her older brothers when she expressed an aspiration to make games, Mackenzie and her mom posted a Kickstarter to raise $800 for an RPG camp where she could hone her game-development skills.

And out came the trolls. One group was convinced that this was a scam by a "millionaire" (Wilson once attended a fundraiser where she was photographed with Warren Buffet); the other was convinced that this was a radical feminist man-hatin' exercise determined to raise funds by pitting little boys against little girls.

Both theories were silly on their face, but lots of credulous guys found something they liked in it -- specifically, evidence of a vast shadowy conspiracy of emasculating millionaire women who want to relegate men to the scrapheap of history -- and repeated it, and it refused to die. Worse, the campaign whipped up the kind of men who respond to their feelings of discomfort with death and rape threats. Keep it classy, guys.

Thankfully, CNet's Eric Mack took on the unenviable task of rebutting the rumors. And as he points out, the fundraiser has cleared $20K, and Wilson's going to use the excess money to fund girls-in-STEM causes. Victory.

Wilson also responded to other conclusions drawn by the trolls, dispelling the notion of the size of her bank account ("I don't have a million dollars in the bank, I'm not rolling in cash and I'm not a highly paid business woman. Frankly, I'm unemployed at this very moment!"); her status as a Warren Buffet buddy (it was a photo op from an awards ceremony); and those pricey shoes ( a splurge after a long-shot bet at the roulette wheel paid off years ago). She added:
"Kickstarter is about the power of the crowd and though you might not always like what the crowd says, you can't push the "It's not Fair" button when you disagree. Though I'm not in the 1% club, I do find it sad many think Kickstarter should only be used for the downtrodden and the poor because it has the power to extend far beyond. "
Wilson also took the bold move of outing the two people who made threats against her and her family, and she told me in an email that she is actively searching for a worthy cause to direct all the extra money that the crowdfunding campaign raises beyond the original modest goal.
"It's clear this campaign resonated for a reason that's much bigger than Mackenzie and ALL OF THE extra money should go to that bigger movement," Wilson writes. "I can't say I know what that is right now (it's been a whirlwind and certainly wasn't planned) but smart people are working on it with Brenda Romero (gamer in residence at University of California at Santa Cruz who's husband created Doom and Quake) being among my personal favorites."

Trolls take on 9-year-old girl's Kickstarter project...and lose

Kickstarting a deep-sea documentary on the nuclear wrecks of the Bikini Atoll

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:50:59 +0000

Steven Boyett sez, "Wreck diver and videographer Adrian Smith has launched a Kickstarter project to fund an expedition to document the forgotten wrecks sunken by the Bikini Atoll atomic explosion in 1946. No video record exists of these historic wrecks (many of them captured German and Japanese warships), and they are quickly eroding."

The naval vessels exposed to close-range atomic blast at Bikini Atoll represent the three major Pacific combatants of World War II. They are the only vessels ever sunk through the detonation of atomic weapons. These unique ships and submarines lie almost two hundred feet underwater, and are rapidly deteriorating. No comprehensive visual record exists to document their current state or unique reactions to their exposure to close-range atomic detonation. Soon it will be too late.
The ships themselves lie in waters from 40 ft (12 m) to 185 ft (56 m), deep but diveable with the correct equipment and training.
The “Baker” blast at Bikini Atoll was global front-page news when it occurred — so well-known that a French designer scandalized the world by introducing a line of two-piece swimsuits a mere four days after the Baker blast. The name of this new fashion? The bikini.

The Atomic Armada - The Forgotten Wrecks of Bikini Atoll by Adrian Smith (Thanks, Steven!)

Kickstarting a cheap, versatile, sophisticated 3D printed robotic hand

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:16:44 +0000

Chris sez,

Chris Chappell and Easton LaChappelle have launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the development of a 3D printed robotics hand. The hand is currently aimed at makers and researchers, but the eventual market will be for prosthetics.
Chris and Easton are primarily focused on dropping the cost of the hand, since current research hands or prosthetic hands can cost £50,000+. The cost of the Kickstarter hand fully assembled is £300 with electronics. They also offer a control glove (based on a nintendo power glove) for an extra £200.
Easton has also been developing a control method based on EEG measurements. Taking the design a step towards being a practical prosthesis. Easton just won the Da Vinci Award at the San Juan Basin Science Fair for his work.

We've mentioned this team's robotics work before. This has all the ingredients of a great Kickstarter: an accomplished team seeking modest funds to make something genuinely great.

3D Printed Robotic Hand (Thanks, Chris!)

Kickstarting a Victorian ghost movie starring puppets, with in-camera effects

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:29:40 +0000

Special effects artist Kevin McTurk has a fully subscribed kickstarter for The Mill at Calder's End, a Victorian ghost movie starring 30" puppets guided by pairs or trios of puppeteers all in black. The effects will be done in-camera,

The Mill at Calder's End is a gothic ghost story in the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft that will be told with 30 inch tall bunraku puppets and old fashioned in-camera special effects. Featuring the voices of Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, X-Men: First Class) and horror legend Barbara Steele (Black Sunday, The Pit and the Pendulum) , this film celebrates two of my great loves: the art of puppetry and gothic horror.
From my experience working as a special effects artist in Hollywood for over twenty years and now collaborating with some of the most talented creature effects artists, concept artists, and puppeteers in the industry, The Mill at Calder's End will be unlike any puppet film you have ever seen before.
The Mill at Calder's End is a passion project that is heavily influenced by the classic Hammer horror films of the 1960s and the films of Mario Bava (most notably, his gothic masterpiece Black Sunday). I have also always had a great love of puppetry and traditional in-camera special effects. The work of Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and his Storyteller television series) is a great inspiration to me and I am hoping to bring his sense of wonderment and artistry to The Mill at Calder's End.

The Mill at Calder's End - A Ghost Story Puppet Film by Kevin McTurk — Kickstarter (Thanks, Kevin!)

Help fund a documentary about art and rocket science

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:03:13 +0000

Ed Belbruno is a mathematician who worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the 1980s. While he was there, he devised a way to use chaos theory to help change the course of spaceships and put satellites into orbit for far less fuel than had ever been used before. His inspiration came from painting. Painting the Way to the Moon is a documentary, currently raising money on Kickstarter, that hopes to tell Belbruno's story and help people understand the links between art and science.

Kickstarting a 24"-on-a-side large format 3D printer

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:15:27 +0000

Kent's excited about the Kickstarter for the Gigabot 3D printer, a large-format device that can print objects up to 24" on a side. He sez, "Just saw this at SxSW and it is AMAZING. Solid aluminum chassis, very precise, and the things it prints are awesome. Back it!" The minimum pledge for a kit is $2500, and it's $10K for an assembled unit.

At re:3D, we believe that the biggest problems in our world are solved by taking a bigger view. That’s why our project is aimed at designing the first large-format 3D printer... that you can take home with you. It’s not only about taking the amazing technology of 3D printing and amplifying it. If we’re successful, we can envision entire markets opening up to use this technology. Markets which have struggled to maintain the status quo, let alone use some of the cutting-edge technology that for the rest of the world is an overnight delivery away. We believe that by making a production-quality model of our 3D printer, and putting it in the hands of small businesses anywhere on the planet, will give them the flexibility to sustain their community, their business, and ultimately, the world we live in.

Gigabot 3D Printing: This is Huge! (Thanks, Kent!)

Kickstarting an anthology of speculative fiction with marginalized people as heroes

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 01:55:56 +0000

Rose Fox sez,

Daniel José Older and I are thrilled to be co-editing LONG HIDDEN, an anthology of speculative fiction from the margins of history. It's a crowdfunded project; we've already made our initial goal, and now we'd love your help reaching our ambitious stretch goals.
Each story will take place between 1400 and the early 1900s and put a speculative twist on real past events, with marginalized people as the heroes. The anthology will be published by Crossed Genres, which has an excellent history of coming through on crowdfunded projects. We also have a tremendous lineup of talented, well-known authors (Beverly Jenkins, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, Ken Liu, Amal El-Mohtar, and many others) eager to submit stories, and will be opening submissions as soon as our Kickstarter is funded.
Over 400 generous people have already boosted us past our initial goal of $12,000. Now we're hoping to push onward to $20,000, which will let us buy ~50,000 more words of fiction--at SFWA pro rates of 5¢/word--and reveal even more voices of silenced dreamers. Further goals include interior illustrations and an audiobook edition.
We're grateful for each and every pledge, from the $1 "Kickstarter high-five" on up, and we have lots of terrific rewards lined up. If you don't want to pledge, we hope you'll consider buying the book when it's out next year and spreading the word in the meantime. In particular, tell your author friends to send us stories! Open submissions are the original crowdsourcing and we can't wait to see what we get. We'd love to give some unknown authors their first pro sales, side by side with some of the genre's brightest stars.
Thanks for helping an awesome project come into being.

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History (Thanks, Rose!)

Tropes vs Women in Video Games part one: Damsels in Distress

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:01:27 +0000

Anita Sarkeesian has released the long-awaited first installment in her new, improved "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series. Sarkeesian sought $6,000 on Kickstarter to produce slicker versions of her earlier, DIY series, and she was smeared by vile, angry gamer-dudes who created games where you could beat the crap out of her for the sin of identifying as a feminist and daring to question the portrayal of gender in games. The happy ending to this shameful episode is that her Kickstarter became a good-people vs goons plebiscite, and would up raising $158,922.

The first installment is "Damsels in Distress," and is a smart, well-researched, wonderfully presented history of the woman-waiting-for-a-hero trope through gaming history. It's just in time for International Women's Day, and is a wonderful kickoff for a new series.

Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Pyrobar: flaming, booze-dispensing art-car seeks Kickstarter funds for refurb

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 15:56:12 +0000

The Pyrobar, a roving, flaming, booze-dispensing art-car that's a staple of Burning Man, is nearing the end of its Kickstarter, and needs to raise another $4,000 or so in maintenance funds to help refurbish and improve it for this summer's festivities:

The Pyrobar started its charmed life in 2004 with a collective of artists called Clan Destino. This raucous Santa Barbara based performance group had built a few art cars for the famed Burning Man festival, with this one being built under the namesake to be the grandest and last under their tutelage. In this vision, they took a 1975 chevy RV and ripped it up and warped into a roving box of splendid adult entertainment. After a few strong years of providing to the Playa and beyond, this trusty steed was left in a lonely, Reno storage lot, waiting for its next life. That day came in 2010 when its current owners, Mark and Corinna, heard the calling from afar, and acted on on it immediately. Pyrobar's next phase took it to a new aesthetic height and direction, reflecting the mystic and wacky stylings of an Afghani jingle truck with a constantly growing degree of detail and offerings.

PYROBAR - 3.0.2. - Ignite Burning Man's Favorite Flame (Thanks, Marc!)

Machine of Death: the game -- blazing Kickstarter success looking working toward awesome stretch goals

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 23:30:45 +0000

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1234131468/machine-of-death-the-game-of-creative-assassinatio

David Wondermark" Malki ! sez, "We've taken the Machine of Death concept [ed: a wildly successful independent anthology of stories about a world where a machine can accurately forecast your date of death] and adapted it into a pretty wacky party game. You play assassins who know their target's death prediction in advance, and have to come up with creative ways of making it come true. It's a storytelling game that's kind of like Rube Goldberg meets a Roadrunner cartoon meets MURDER. We've already blown past our Kickstarter goal and are now fundraising to add more and more cool stretch goal cards by webcomics artists! We also have some handmade laser-cut deluxe game boxes that'll only be available during the Kickstarter. We've been thrilled by the response to the game so far and are really excited to see it become a reality!"

Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination (Thanks, David!)

Kickstarter for a cocktail-dispensing robot

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 03:06:11 +0000

Robert Kaye sez, "Among the many standout cocktail-pouring robots on display this weekend at BarBot in San Francisco was Bartendro, the latest creation by Robert Kaye and Pierre Michael of Party Robotics. (They're also the creators of the Water to Wine watercooler gag featured recently on Make.) If you've ever wanted an open source robot to help you refine your recipe for the perfect margarita, or needed an extra hand serving drinks at a party, they've now launched a Kickstarter for the first production run of Bartendro. The duo also released the source code and hardware designs to their creation on Github for hackers to improve upon the design or create something new. As a Kickstarter backer, you can get a finished bot in a variety of sizes, or just the parts to try your hand at a different enclosure, or make your own custom dispenser for reef tank chemicals, epoxy, pancake batter, or almost any liquid."

Bartendro - A Cocktail Dispensing Robot (Thanks, Robert!)

3D printed railroad engine model kits made from insanely hi-rez scans

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 01:56:40 +0000

Chris sez, "The oft-touted promise of 3D printing is of personalisation and customisation. There is an alternative use though which is that of mini and micro-manufacture, where production runs of things numbering hundreds and thousands are suddenly made possible and in some cases commercially viable.

"We're investigating this space as a new way of manufacturing model kits, using laser scanning to get the data for the prototypes to make the kits very accurate. The financial advantage of 3D printing in producing kits at whatever scale people want to model in, often from the same file, is huge and makes the creation of very niche items viable. We're experimenting with crowd sourcing what potential kits to explore and using crowd funding to decide what to focus on and make."

Chris and co are scanning full-sized railroad engines at insane resolution.

We realised though that some things that you want to model were too complex even for incredibly talented CAD model makers like Vijay to create perfectly just from photographs, or at least that the time taken to produce the model would be too long and the process of checking the model’s fidelity would be too involved and too risky. We looked into 3D scanning and found a firm, Digital Surveys, who normally scan petrochemical plants and oil rigs and who specialise in “as built” surveys.
They worked with us to scan Winifred, a steam locomotive that had just returned from the USA in an almost identical condition to that she left the quarry in Wales in 1965. The survey, 3D model and 3D printed model that ensued showed us that we were on the right track...
...p.s. this data is too precious to lock it up, so we’re working on opening up the original data and the CAD files of individual parts with other manufacturers (of wheels and parts) and railway societies who are keeping the real things going!

How did we get here? (Thanks, Chris!)

Kickstarting a fiction magazine that pays well

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 16:42:17 +0000

All round e-publishing genius Pablo Defendini sez,

Fireside Magazine is a multigenre fiction magazine. Our goal is twofold: to publish great storytelling and offer fair pay for writers and artists. We published three issues last year, each funded by its own Kickstarter. That wasn’t really a sustainable way to make a magazine, and we want to create more certainty for our readers and for the magazine.
So we came up with a new plan for Year Two: a monthly subscription website and ebook (epub and mobi). Each issue in Year Two will have two pieces of flash fiction (1,000 words or less), one short story, and one of 12 episodes of a serial fiction experiment by Chuck Wendig. Each issue will also have artwork by Galen Dara. The website is being rethought and is being designed responsively, which means it will adjust to display an optimum reading experience on screens of any size. We are aiming to provide a clean, simple way to read our stories without any clutter or distractions, just the words and the artwork. But in order to do all this work up front and pay the creators their fair share, we need to raise the money ahead of time, so it's back to Kickstarter!

Fireside magazine: Year Two