Robot Army : Almost There

We’re down to the final stretch. Mark and I have been working on our Kickstarter video for the past ten days… which has been a hell I hadn’t anticipated. It was starting to seem like we were never going to vomit out the right takes that would communicate to our audience what they need to know about our kit. After a dozen or so sessions of filming, I decided I was over complicating things and rethought my strategy. Now after much adieu, our KS video is short, conversational, and in the spirit of what we know how to do best- which is shoot a podcast.

We have many, MANY outtakes from the past two weeks we spent trying in vain to pump out a work of art that wasn’t meant to be. So I’ve edited a few into short chunks which I plan to spoon feed out into the world over the next month. The one above is a rant we derailed on just prior to shooting the footage we actually used.

In other news, we’ve finally started producing our second run of delta robots, which is in reality a whole new revision since every part has been redesigned for one reason or another. These new children will be better and stronger and will eventually replace their brothers and sisters… but that’s just how evolution works, right?

Also, last Friday Mark and I sat down with a lawyer and did the paperwork for our corporation. My dad unknowingly gave us the idea for its name when he registered me for CES, filling in my company name for my badge as “Robot Army”. This was an excellent conversation starter while on the showroom floor. “What do you do?” everyone wanted to know. It felt goofy at first- but the name has its own radical sense of style, so it’s staying. Mark and I are now both owners of Robot Army LLC…….. So all the robots we make from now on will be legitimate. tehe…

The Kickstarter page is also just about finished. Once the rest of the technical crap is sorted, we’ll be ready to launch. It’s about a week away and I couldn’t be more excited! Wish us luck… oh, and join the mailing list! This is your call to action! : Robot Army Starter Kit

Robot Army : Preparing the Army

So I made it back from the frigid cold of northern Michigan alive and in one piece. I survived the alcohol soaked meat fest of Christmas with the family and was just starting to ease back into Kickstarter mode when I came down with this Flu bug from hell which has brought my productivity level down to zero all week. Luckily Mark picked up the ball while I’ve been recovering in quarantine and has been developing code for our twelve delta demo we’ll be touring around town with during CES week. Today, while he debugged our code I did this doodle, because all I’ve been dreaming about while sick in bed is the not so distant future where we’ll actually be setting up our babies in the backyard for some showtime :

With our original six deltas somewhat completed, we have the next set of six to build and optimize. So far, we’ve redesigned  the base to allow easier access to the PCB mounted inside. We’re also thinking about having the yellow arms milled from ABS to cut down on the number of printing hours it’ll take to produce all our parts. We’re making small improvements here and there every day, shaving off pennies from our BOM and improving the over all quality of the robot’s design.

I’m starting to get antsy about the PR side of things though. I sent out a bazillion emails while away in Michigan, and haven’t yet received a response to a single one of them. Now, this could easily be due to the fact that this was vacation week (and I’m the only crazy person who rushed back to work already). So I wont freak out yet.  If I don’t start getting a few bites on Monday, I’ll just have to suck it up and send out more. The key to being successful is being shamelessly persistent, right?

In other news- Cat, one of the awesome people from OSH Park recently did a write-up about Light Play on their blog, which I’m geeked out about. They always do a fantastic job on our PC board prototypes and are lightning fast with the turn around, so I’m happy to return the favor by bragging about their service. =] Again if you are interested in having your circuit handy work professionally made but don’t want to fish around in China or commit to a large order, check out their site!