Kickstarter First Week Update #2

So the RaverRing Kickstarter Project has been alive and breathing for just over 1 week now.  I have to say, the Kickstarter experience has been very fun, exciting and interesting.

First, before we begin to ramble about the odds and ends of running a Kickstarter like a boss, we’d like to give a HUGE THANKS TO ALL OF OUR BACKERS THUS FAR!  YOU GUYS AND GALS ARE AWESOME, VISIONARY, BADASS and WE LOVE YOU FOR IT!  We understand it takes a leap of faith to place a bet on people who run Kickstarter campaigns, but rest assured, we’re going to make this experience well worth your investment.  Not only in delivery of your rewards, but we have some other tricks up our sleeves that we’re going to provide to you as exclusive, first-week backers!  Some things we’re thinking about:

1. Sending you in advance your RaverRings (you’ll be helping us beta test our forms to ensure we’re asking all of the right questions to get your RaverRing reward delivered perfectly the way you ordered it).  We’ll also fulfill your original order, but we figure getting the RaverRings into your hands early on will help us course correct as we begin to send to the masses.
2. Sending some other sample products you can use with your RaverRing LED fixture.  Think pets, think bicycles, just start thinking, “where do I want shock enabled lighting?”  We’re already experimenting with some other components which should be a ton of fun.

So, onto the project updates.  First, we need to say another HUGE THANKS to Cubicity.com for sponsoring us with super high-quality PLA 3D printer filament.  We just received our second shipment of filament today, Friday the 13th.  We’re going to have a ton of dope colors to make RaverRings from and we promise we’ll be able to get a color combo that fits your personality.  Here are the ring colors (along w/the Voltivo / Cubicity.com order number-if you want to see more color options, check out their site directly: http://3d.voltivo.com/):

1. Purple – EF-PLA-175-DPURP
2. Cherry Red – EF-PLA-175-CHRED
3. Signal Orange – EF-PLA-175-SORAN
4. Artic Silver – EF-PLA-175-ASILV
5. Leafy Green – EF-PLA-175-LGREE
6. Sky Blue – EF-PLA-175-CKBLU
7. Snow White – EF-PLA-175-SWHIT
8. Transparent – EF-PLA-175-TRANS
9. Bling Gold – EF-PLA-175-BGOLD
10. Ash Grey – EF-PLA-175-AGREY

We’ve started 3D printing some of the early version prototypes with the Cubicity distributed / Voltivo produced filaments.  So far, we’ve been getting a lot of feedback.  First, if the rings are too small for your hand or we don’t size you right, it’s possible the LED lights can disconnect from their snap release.  This was originally part of the design but it needs to be modified so you can fist bump and clap your hearts out w/out worry that you’ll lose the LED.

Next, up, Sunnyside High School.  OMG.  Amazing.  #FaithInOurYouth  You have to check out the video produced by the students and faculty at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, CA.  Sounds like they need our help to facilitate school spirit and the program coordinator couldn’t stop Raving about them 🙂

We also addressed some concerns about the environmental impact of the RaverRings (which you can read on the main RaverRing Kickstarter page).  Long and the short of it is, we’re doing pretty well from an environmental impact aspect: using biodegradable materials ONLY where we need to and reusing a product that may have otherwise gone to a landfill.

Want to see how a 3D printer works?  Watch one here making the ring-component of the RaverRing:

So where do we stand as of Friday the 13th?  We are only 14% funded…which is good but sadly not sufficient for us to go into full production of RaverRings.  We really need a “successful campaign” which is to raise $10K.  But it’s not too late…here’s how you can help:

1. Share our Kickstarter link with anyone who you think might be interested in backing our project:  http://bit.ly/raverring
2. Tell us who else you think might really like the RaverRings that we haven’t thought of yet… (just comment below, or send me an e-mail: chris at you3dit.com or message us in Kickstarter).  We promise we won’t spam your friends.
3. Do you know someone in the news media?  Maybe you’d be willing to make an introduction and they could do a story on the RaverRings, the project and some of our educational / awareness initiatives which will be part of a successful campaign.

That’s it for the moment.  We have a lot of work to do in order get this project fully funded so we can get these Raver Rings onto your hands!  Looking forward to raging with you all at the RaverRing “met funding goal” party!  More to come!