Only 43 Hours Left On The Fidget Art #03 Campaign!
8 months ago – Sat, Sep 02, 2023 at 06:15:34 PM

📢 Less Than 43 Hours Left!

🚀 Hello Friends,

We're down to the wire with just 43 hours left in the Fidget Art #03 campaign, and I’m super excited with what we’ve accomplished so far!

🙌 We want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your incredible support. Without your backing, this project wouldn't be possible. If you haven't gotten your cubes there's not much time left.

🌟 Highlights:

- Current Funding: $4,526 (161% funded)

- Backers: 62

- Stretch Goals: We're only $474 away from everyone receiving a sticker pack

🎁 Rewards Reminder:

- I want to thank everyone who got in on the Edition of 50!

- Every cube ordered during the campaign will arrive before Christmas. They make excellent gifts.

- The finalized stand design will be decided by you after the campaign ends! If you’re unsure about pulling the trigger now, you can add one when you complete your BackerKit survey in a few weeks.

🌐 Spread the Word: Help us reach even greater heights by sharing Fidget Art #03 on social media, telling your friends, and spreading the word far and wide. Every share and mention means so much to us! 🌍

🚨 Countdown: Only 43 hours left! Secure your pledge now! The campaign ends on Monday, September 4th, around 4:00pm.

💡 What's Next: Once the campaign ends, we'll immediately begin the process of bringing your unique cubes to life. We'll keep you updated on every step, from production to delivery. We’ve already ordered material so we can start asap. Thank you for choosing to back us! It truly means a lot. We’ve been energized to see your excitement. We’re able to bring these to life thanks to you!

Let's make these last 43 hours count! 💪

With gratitude,

Scott DeRuby

Big News!
8 months ago – Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 10:17:02 AM

Hey all!

I have big news, and I have bigger news (I'll let you decide on which piece is which based on your personal preferences). But here's a sneak peak at one of the news items:

Big News!

Production is complete! We are finally 100% complete on manufacturing, and finishing all carabiners and related accessories. We are packaging up the last few boxes now, and all remaining orders will ship no later than Monday!

This campaign has been another very educational experience for us. We learned many lessons that if we had known beforehand, would have made our lives much easier. But you have to learn those lessons at some point, and at least now we can apply them to future projects. I do look forwards to the day where we launch a Kickstarter, and everything goes so smoothly that we don't learn anything during that project.

If you don't see tracking information in your inbox by the end of the day Tuesday, contact us via Kickstarter or [email protected], and we'll get you taken care of. And as always, if you have any problems or questions, reach out via the same methods, and we'll make sure we fix it.

Big News!

We're launching a new Kickstarter in our series of smaller art based projects TODAY! You can find that HERE

If you are reading this early enough, the link above will let you sign up for the launch notification, otherwise it'll bring you to the campaign its self.

Traditionally everything in this series has sold out quickly, so make sure that you sign up for launch notifications if you want to make sure you get a spot. We don't announce the exact launch time, this gives everyone who signed up for launch notifications first dibs on the limited items, and we like to reward out supporters who are willing to take that extra little step for us.

My Inspiration

These cubes were inspired by fingerprints. They are the most evident example of what I want to achieve with my art, which is to create a series of objects that are all similar, but within that series, each one is unique.

I love manufacturing. I love the systems, processes, and equipment that are used to produce thousands or millions of a given object. I also love handcrafted objects. Also fascinating is going to an antique store, finding an old axe, and being able to identify the hammer strikes on a hand-forged axe. Or a handmade jewelry box where the maker chose to highlight a visually appealing knot at the center of the lid. In the "Industrial" world, where everything MUST be identical and optimized, there's no room for individual makers to showcase that uniquely figured piece of wood at the forefront of their art.

I love the human element in handcrafted objects; it's something that is absent from mass production. Mass production is an art of its own, but the value of that art lies in its price, not in the product. My goal for this series was to contrast the "sameness" of precision production with the uniqueness of a fingerprint. What is more unique than a fingerprint? And what is a better symbol of manufacturing than a precision-machined aluminum cube?

If you are interested in backing this new little project, you can find it here

Thanks again everyone!

AJ

We're actually getting close!
9 months ago – Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 01:32:01 PM

Hey everyone!

Production has definitely been a slog on this one, but we're almost done! As of this instant, we are 75% fulfilled! We have nearly everything machined at this point, with the only hold-up being powder coating. Ideally, we should have everything shipped before the end of next week.

Quick clarification on the Not For Climbing Carabiners: All NFC carabiners purchased as part of this Kickstarter are the "Rev C" version. The Rev Cs do not need the little stabilizing brackets that we included with Rev B. Those brackets may have appeared in some of our early product photography. The REV C Not for Climbing Carabiners include all the lessons we learned during the NST prototyping phase and have an improved latch, and a generally more robust frame than the REV Bs. Because of those improvements, they no longer need the bolt-on supports.

If you have any problems with your order once you receive it, please shoot us a message or an email at [email protected], and we will get you taken care of. And as a reminder, we offer lifetime repairs and refinishing on all of our products. So, if you manage to beat up the coating or overbend your carabiner, we will fix it for you. This applies to keyrings, prybars, orange slices, carabiners, etc.

Thanks everyone!

AJ

Production Update | The Spice Must Flow
10 months ago – Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 08:52:03 AM

Hey all!

I received a few questions about our progress today, so I thought it was a good time for an update.

Shipping:

We have shipped 51 packages so far, and we currently have 78 backers who have filled out their surveys, which we are currently working on. Additionally, there are about two dozen backers who still need to fill out their surveys.

We encountered a little hiccup earlier this week. It turns out we lost about a dozen packages due to miscommunications at the post office. These individuals received tracking information, but the packages never received an arrival scan at the post office. I have already emailed all of those affected.

Production:

These carabiners have been the most challenging thing I have ever made. Although the official Kickstarter timeline stated that we would finish machining them all in September, I fully intended to have everything shipped by mid-June.

Long story short, in an effort to improve quality, we switched from laser-cut blanks to fully machined carabiners. The new carabiners have significantly better quality compared to both the prototypes we used for product photography and the old Not For Climbing (NFC) carabiners. I have been meticulously attending to all the little details to ensure that the carabiners are of the highest possible quality.

However, with these quality improvements comes stricter standards, and consequently, a higher rate of scrapped parts. We were discarding an uncomfortably high percentage of our production, which was both time-consuming and costly. These waste issues prompted me to completely redesign our entire production process. It took a few weeks to get things rolling, but now our production is back up to speed. Each carabiner takes about twice as long to machine as it used to, but we are now making them about twice as fast as we were at the beginning of the process.

Not For Climbing Redesign:

Another interesting delay was that we decided to do a complete redesign of the Not For Climbing (NFC) carabiner. The new Not So Tactical (NST) carabiners are such a significant improvement over the old NFC carabiners that I couldn't bring myself to continue shipping the old ones. So I took the time to redesign the NFCs to match the NSTs. They take about 10 times longer to machine than our old model, but the improvements are worth every second. They require a little more pressure to open and are slightly heavier, but they can hold much more weight (so much that I don't have a way of testing it inside my shop). The NFCs are now also 100% machined, eliminating any rough laser-cut edges.

TLDR:

In short, we are slightly behind where we wanted to be, but still ahead of the timeline we outlined on Kickstarter. Rewards are currently being shipped and will continue to be shipped over the next few weeks. We put in a lot of work to make the product better, which slowed us down, but we are catching up again.

My motto for the month has been "The Spice Must Flow", and I have taken that to heart, using every minute I can find to grind out more carabiners. It has truly been a slog, but we're starting to make real progress.

Thanks, everyone!

 AJ

Slowly but Surely
11 months ago – Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 02:58:09 PM

The first NST carabiners have been shipped!

Production got off to a slow start, but AJ spent all that time making sure the carabiners were perfect and we're excited with how they turned out. We're pumped they'll be in your hands soon.

Shipping itself will move along at around 10-20 orders per day in the coming weeks. Barring something catastrophic, all orders will be shipped by the end of June.

Scott has been working on shipping systems. He made a lot of kanbans (pictured below) and has been working on cardboard insert revisions to ensure nothing falls out in transit.

Friendly reminder to complete your BackerKit survey!

If you have not filled out your survey we will not be able to ship your order. Please check your email for your personalized survey link and if you don't see it please click this link and type in the email you used to back this project on Kickstarter.

You don't need to create a BackerKit account to complete the survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. The survey will ask questions about your reward preferences, shipping information, and give you the option to purchase add-on items if you're interested.

After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.

In case you need to review your information or check your pledge status, you can easily return to your survey by clicking on the link provided in your survey email. If for any reason you can't find the email, you can request your survey link by clicking on "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page, which you can find HERE.

A quick FAQ section:

• If you're using a mail relay service like Apple Relay to hide your email address, please note that you won't receive your BackerKit link. But no need to panic! You can retrieve your project by visiting our BackerKit page HERE.
• If you logged in to your Kickstarter account using your Facebook credentials, the BackerKit survey will be sent to the email address associated with your Facebook account. If you prefer to use a different email address, reach out to us at [email protected], and we'll take care of it for you.
• We kindly ask for your patience and suggest checking your Spam/Junk folders for an email from Design The Everything. If you still haven't received your email, please search for your link HERE.

We want to assure you that BackerKit will remain open for a while, allowing you plenty of time to add additional add-ons and complete your purchases. We'll send you another update well in advance of the BackerKit closing date, so no need to rush.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out. We're happy to help.

-AJ & Scott