Tag Archives: crowdfunding
Poppy Launches Kickstarter to Turn Your iPhone into a 3D Camera
Poppy Lets Your iPhone Go 3D
Remember the View-Master? The retro toy that would let you immerse yourself in images of the Eiffel Tower or an African safari. Well there is a new device in town that brings back the nostalgia of the View-Master while embracing our high-tech and social iPhone world.
It’s called Poppy and it’s on Kickstarter
Poppy is the name of the innovative device that lets you capture, share and view images in 3D using only your iPhone. It was created by two serial entrepreneurs Ethan Lowry and Joe Heitzeberg who are also founders of the blog Hack Things. Ethan and Joe describe Poppy this way:
Poppy has no electronics or batteries to babysit, but since it uses iPhone as its brain it’s quite a capable device. You put your iPhone in, and a system of mirrors captures two side-by-side images onto you iPhone’s single camera. Like the Viewmaster you might have played with as a kid, when you look in, lenses bring the two images together into a single 3D image. With retina quality video, the effect is immersive and really quite beautiful. It’s like stepping into another world.
Poppy went live with a Kickstarter campaign today, and as of writing this article, the campaign has raised over $25,000 of it’s $40,000 goal. [Update 6/28 - they've now raised $80K!]
Watch the video below and back the campaign if you like it. (Disclosure: a member of our staff has backed the campaign)
3D Printed Poppy?
Although Poppy is not a 3D printed product, the design and development leveraged 3D printing for rapid prototyping. Below are some sketches of the early designs, some of which were 3D printed for field testing.
We asked the founders why they used 3D printing in product development. Joe Heitzeberg shared his insights with us:
3D printing helped us make Poppy stylish and easy to use by allowing us to iterate the design and get actual usage feedback from real users before committing to the more costly work of tooling for injection molds.
The Poppy team shared some exclusive photos of their 3D printed prototypes with us. Here’s a photo of Zach Hoeken Smith, co-founder of MakerBot, holding a 3D printed prototype of Poppy in China.
And below is a close-up photo of the prototype, held by founder Ethan Lowry. You can see the cross-stitch resolution lines common with 3D printed surfaces.
3D Printed Poppy Kickstarter Perk
If you’re passionate about 3D printing and excited about Poppy, there is a 3D printing Kickstarter perk. Pledge $1,200 or more to receive one of the original 3D printed functional prototypes.
Modibot Defeats All 3D Printed Action Heroes on Kickstarter
3D Printed Toys Have a New Master
Wayne Losey designs 3D printed toys. He’s a veteran toy creator, having worked for Hasbro and Kenner for 13 years designing some of the most popular toys in the market that generated over $1 billion in cumulative revenue, including GI Joe, Batman Forever, Superman: Man of Steel, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Vor-tech, and Micromachines.
Now Wayne Losey has his own product called Modibot, a 3D printable system of interlocking parts that lets you build your own fantastical creatures and characters.
And guess what … you can fund his new product on Kickstarter.
Meet Mo
Wayne Losey shares his inspiration on Kickstarter:
Nearly everyone in the world has drawn stick figures. They’re simple, charming and completely relatable, even though all their human details are completely stripped away. They’re nothing but the mere suggestion of a person.
When you draw bits of clothing on them or add muscles, they begin to take on specific identity traits. Adding a skirt, it becomes a girl (or Scotsman), adding a sword transforms it into a warrior.
Mo is a 3 dimensional stick figure, a blank canvas that you can ‘paint’ with your own imagination. By adding just a few descriptive parts, he becomes anything that you want him to be. By adding lots of parts, he takes on more personality and, like a painting, he looks and feels more specific and ‘real’.
Mo is at your service and ready to take part in your adventures, celebrations, hobbies, creative projects, and dreams.
And below is the video from the Kickstarter campaign.
ModelBox 3D: Artists Launch Kickstarter to Bring 2D Images to Life
ModelBox 3D Brings 2D Images to Life – Crowdfunding on Kickstarter
Here is a completely different take on 3D printing. And a great one.
Artists Laura Krause and Eric Sagotsky are based in LA and describe their profession as “we make art things.” One of their latest projects was a large-scale sliced sculpture. Through experimentation, they came up with a process to develop a physical 3D holograph out of about 28 2D printed images.
The team has turned to Kickstarter with a campaign to raise $30,000 and they are almost halfway there with 23 days to go.
Here’s how they describe the ModelBox 3D:
ModelBox 3D is a fast and affordable 3D display which allows anyone to bring 3D models and 2D designs to life regardless of their technical background. Using the printer that you already own, you can make a full color 3D image that appears to holographically float within an elegant acrylic box. What we provide is a combination of software and hardware. Each kit includes with a frame to hold 28 inkjet or laser printable transparencies and the software to turn your designs into a series of flat layers to print. Together they form a uniquely vibrant full 3D image that’s viewable from both the front and back. ModelBox 3D also comes with access to an online library of print-ready artwork so that anyone with access to a standard printer and a pair of scissors can build one. Whether you use it as fun art project or as an eye-catching functional display, ModelBox 3D is a new reason to dust off your printer and create something truly unique.
ModelBox 3D is completely new art form that gives your existing inkjet or laser printer a new life to create eye-catching 3D images. Whether you want to create a unique interchangeable lamp, show off a new product, or enhance your prototyping and creative development process, using ModelBox 3D does not require any complex technical knowledge to use. Our product finally brings 3D visualization to the masses at a truly affordable price.
Watch the video below to learn more about their Kickstarter campaign.
Top 10 Countdown: Most Popular 3D Printing Stories in April 2013
Here are the top 10 most popular stories On 3D Printing brought you in April 2013.
10. Topology Optimization in Additive Manufacturing: 3D Printing Conference (Part 5)
9. The Crowd Loves 3D Printing! Kickstarter 3D Printing Summary
8. 3D Printed Phone Cases: UCreate3D Seeks Crowdfunding to Best Nokia
7. 3D Printing’s Apple 1 Moment: 3D Printing Conference (Part 1)
6. 3D Printed Fashion Show at London College of Fashion This Week
5. Sold Out: Play-Doh Kids 3D Printer and iPad App
4. Medical 3D Printing Breakthrough: Man Gets a New 3D Printed Face
3. mUVe 3D Printer Meets Funding Goal on Indiegogo
2. Inside 3D Printing Conference: Day 1 Top Stories
1. Practical 3D Printing: 10 Things to Make With a 3D Printer
Thanks for reading in April!
$200 MakiBox 3D Printer Competes at the Low End Market
$200 MakiBox 3D Printer is the Cheapest on the Market
The MakiBox 3D printer is the creation of 37-year-old Jon Buford, founder of Hong Kong-based startup Makible. Buford launched the company with $50,000 in seed funding and a round of pre-orders from a crowdfunding campaign. Makible’s 2013 goal is to hit $2 to $3 million in revenue.
Targeting Cost over Scale
MakiBox is attacking the low end of the market. While leading desktop 3D printers from MakerBot and 3D Systems range from $1,700 to $2,200, there has been a price war at the low end among dozens of Kickstarter projects and RepRap innovations. Makible is possibly the lowest priced 3D printer in the market.
To reduce the cost, the MakiBox is a smaller 3D printer. But it can still print objects as large as 14 iPhone 5s stacked in two columns.
A Visit to Makible in Hong Kong
Our friends at Hack Things are traveling in China this week, and paid a visit to the team building the MakiBox, a $200 3D printer.
Yesterday we dropped in on Elliot and Jon of Makible at their lab in Kwai Hing, Hong Kong, where a team is hard at work making what will likely be the world’s most affordable 3D Printer, the MakiBox. It will launch later this year for just $200 (as a kit).
Why does price matter? To get an idea of cost, at the moment Shapeways charges roughly $3 per cubic centimeter when the plastic itself costs less than $0.05. It wouldn’t take much printing before the Makibox pays itself off. However when you factor in shipping and turnaround time, you see the real advantage of having a desktop printer nearby. Not only that, but low cost itself enables new applications and markets such as in education and makes small batch production more affordable (e.g. it’s more practical to run a farm of 3D printers if the fixed costs are low.)
The video below shows a profile of Buford and Makible.
CC Image by cloneofsnake
