Electrikits?
So I’m currently on a bit of a Kickstarter bender.
I recently launched my first ever Kickstarter, Marbleous Adventures, and I’ve been blown away by how a group of strangers so quickly found what I was working on and went, “ehhh fuck it I’ll throw some money at that”. And by that I mean I think it’s awesome, and I’m really grateful for their support.
Now Marbleous Adventures is a virtual product, I’m just selling STLs of 3D models I’ve designed. This is so I can learn how Kickstarter works without biting off way more than I can chew on the production and shipping side of things. But now that I’ve gone through this introduction to Kickstarter, I want to come up with a product that I feel comfortable mass producing and try to take it to market.
There’s been a bunch of ideas bouncing around lately that are starting to form into something.
Let’s take a ride on my train of thought:
I want to make an educational toy on the subject of electronics that will appeal to parents and kids in this time of remote learning. Learning and play are the same side of the same coin, I want to make exciting tools and experiences that inspire our future inventors to be the bravest boldest tinkerers they can possibly be.
So what’s the easiest way possible to make that toy?
Well, there seems to be a trend of flat pack/2.5D toys and kits? Like laser cut or CNC’d components that the buyer voluntarily assembles to make figurines, board games, and science kits. What’s brilliant about these is that the manufacturing is way less expensive and annoying to think about than injection molded plastics or 3D stuff. For example:
And more!
So what could I make that’s 2.5D or flat pack.
Something I haven’t seen much of but love the idea of is Paper Electronics. Like Papier Machine, which is a beautiful product, so beautiful that I’m afraid to buy it because I don’t want to use it and destroy it in the process.
But let’s run with this for a moment…
Maybe you’re making a toy that has an electronic base, and paper cards that can be inserted into it. And each paper card has a different function like maybe it’s a little robot track or a lite-brite thingy or a piano and it could be all fun and colorful or something and like make waves at CES 2022 and win a Red Dot Award for best use of an obnoxious typeface.
Now, the idea of drawing circuits out on paper and linking them with components feels super intuitive, but it lacks durability and manufacturing it might still be tricky. After all, it’s not like most printing shops are set up to print conductive ink…
Well, some printing shops are, but they’re not printing on paper…
They’re printing on PCBs! And PCBs are super cheap and easy to manufacture! Score!
So if I can swap out the paper stuff with custom PCB designs then maybe there’s a cool science kit thing there that’s educational, easy to manufacture, and durable to play with.
These ideas are still swirling around a lot but I’ve started ordering some components and prototyping some concepts. I can sense a lot of potential here, I’m excited to dive in and start exploring and come up with something I can launch on Kickstarter and make loads of money off of.
Because that’s the whole point, right?