The Coolest Kickstart Projects
#18 Printrbot
The Printrbot to be the simplest 3D printer yet. There are none as small and simple as the Printrbot. This all-in-one 3D printer kit can be assembled and printing in a couple of hours. Other kits will not only take you many more hours to build, they will also have hundreds more parts, and they will cost more. My design also does away with the finicky calibration and adjustment from which most 3D printers suffer. This is the printer a kid could put together.
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18:
Printrbot
The Printrbot to be the simplest 3D printer yet. There are none as small and simple as the Printrbot. This all-in-one 3D printer kit can be assembled and printing in a couple of hours. Other kits will not only take you many more hours to build, they will also have hundreds more parts, and they will cost more. My design also does away with the finicky calibration and adjustment from which most 3D printers suffer. This is the printer a kid could put together.
17:
Remee - The REM enhancing Lucid Dreaming Mask
Lucid Dreaming can be one of the most profound things you can experience in this life - but explaining it to someone who has never done it can be a bit difficult. It is so visceral and hard to put into words that it can rarely be related in a meaningful way to a non-lucid dreamer. Conversely, when a lucid dreamer meets another lucid dreamer comin' through the rye, general excitement and lots of note-comparing ensues. It almost feels like a secret club. In default mode, Remee targets these long chunks of REM sleep towards the end of the sleep period. Before bed, turn Remee on, fine tune the brightness of the lights (if needed) and then go to sleep. Remee will wait for an initial long delay, usually 4-5 hours, until you're in the heart of the heavy REM stages, before initializing light patterns. After the initial long delay Remee will display light patterns for 15-20 seconds with a second shorter delay, default at 15 minutes, between each signal. During non-REM sleep the lights are unlikely to effect you, but if you're in REM sleep the lights will bleed into your dreams, presenting a perfect chance to become lucid.
16:
Soundlazer
The Soundlazer parametric speaker project has been in the works for almost two years. This technology has been around since the 1960s but little advancement has been made using modern electronics components. Soundlazer is a parametric speaker uses ultrasonic carrier waves to transmit audio to listeners a focused beam of sound. Generally speaking, only the person standing in front of a parametric speaker like the Soundlazer can hear the audio being transmitted. People to the sides of the parametric source hear little or no sound.
15:
NTH Music Synthesizer
The NTH is designed so that a complete beginner can quickly craft incredibly varied timbres. For the synth veteran, the NTH offers relief from layered menus and obscured functions. The NTH puts a smile on the face of musicians and non-musicians, synth geeks and synth novices, children and adults alike. The company started with a PIC microcontroller and 8-bit DAC to create a dual-pitch oscillator with modulation by waveform, amplitude envelope, detuning, and glissando. Then it added a gritty analog low-pass filter, integrated step sequencer, and simple, intuitive controls. The initial experimentation will quickly reveal an astonishing range of output: from sweet and sublime to raw, thrashing, and retro sounds.
14:
Pebble: E-Paper Watch
Pebble is the first watch built for the 21st century. It's infinitely customizable, with beautiful downloadable watchfaces and useful internet-connected apps. Pebble connects to iPhone and Android smartphones using Bluetooth, alerting you with a silent vibration to incoming calls, emails and messages. While designing Pebble, we strove to create a minimalist yet fashionable product that seamlessly blends into everyday life. Apps bring Pebble to life. We're building some amazing apps for Pebble. Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button.
13:
Double Fine Adventure
The world of video game design is a mysterious one. What really happens behind the closed doors of a development studio is often unknown, unappreciated, or misunderstood. And the bigger the studio, the more tightly shut its door tends to be. With this project, we're taking that door off its hinges and inviting you into the world of Double Fine Productions, the first major studio to fully finance their next game with a Kickstarter campaign and develop it in the public eye. Founded in 2000 by industry veteran Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango), the San Francisco-based company has established itself as a unique creative force with critically-acclaimed titles such as Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, Once Upon a Monster, and Double Fine Happy Action Theater. This year, you'll be given a front-row seat as they revisit Tim's design roots and create a brand-new, downloadable "Point-and-Click" graphic adventure game for the modern age.
12:
LED Sleeve for Learning Chords and Songs on the Guitar
Learning to play the guitar has never been so easy with our LED guitar sleeve. We have designed a sleeve with LED lights that wraps around the guitar neck underneath the strings. It has special cut holes to allow the standard frets to be used. LED lights are attached near each fret of the guitar. As you begin learning, the LEDs light up below the string you should hold to play the correct chord in a song. The tempo can be turned up or down to allow you to learn at the speed you want. Each song or chord can be added seamlessly through our website or directly from your computer. We have programmed a guitar tab parser that allows you to convert standard text tabs into our custom format so you can start learning your favorite songs instantly.
11:
Bonobo Chat: An app for talking with apes
The bonobos at Bonobo Hope Great Ape Trust Sanctuary in Des Moines IA use Lexigram symbols to communicate with people through a large sliding touchscreen computer keyboards. The project wants bonobos to use the Bonobo Chat app to control their environment using simple lexigram commands - to operate vending machines, open doors, watch movies and, hopefully, to control robots. We believe that controlling robots might be a good way for the bonobos to interact with guests and visitors outside their caged areas. They could play chase games or squirt guests with an an on board watergun. They could operate the robot out of site by navigating using an on board camera.
10:
The PowerPot
The PowerPot is a a portable electric generator that doubles as a cooking pot. It can be used indoors or outside and works with any fuel source. Unlike solar power, The PowerPot works day or night, rain or shine to bring you the electricity you need to keep charging, anytime, anywhere! We've reached our final stages of prototyping and it is time to bring this wonderful device to the market. With your help, we hope to get Power Pots into the hands of the people who need it most, and onto your own stove or campfire! People all over the world--whether they be herders in remote villages, backpacking enthusiasts, or city residents worried about potential power outages--can benefit from having a personal generator that makes electricity from cooking.
9:
TiGr: Titanium Lock as Cool as your Bike
The TiGr is our titanium lock system, it’s secure, versatile, elegant, light, easy to use and easy to store. A really secure bike lock that’s actually sexy. How secure? Check out the TiGr destructive testing video. How sexy? Keep reading. The TiGr system includes a flexible Titanium bow and a compact, highly pick resistant lock cylinder. The TiGr bow has a protective coating to protect your bike and stores snugly and unobtrusively on the top tube with simple and light weight straps. The Titanium bow is flexible so you can lock your bike to a variety of structures up to about 5 1/2” in diameter. Depending on your wheel base, rim and tire configuration, you can even lock both wheels (without removal) and frame to a structure.
8:
REMYXX cool sneakers 100% recyclable
REMYXX cool sneakers 100% recyclable are the world’s first and only completely Landfill-Free Sneakers™. With one target in mind, REMYXX hits two critical marks as our sneakers address the importance of recycling by dressing the feet in style. REMYXX are casual comfortable lifestyle sneakers, in strong colors with clever designs for mass appeal to all types, ages, and genders. They are manufactured using a unique mix of materials that look and feel like canvas and rubber but are made entirely from a special blend of lab certified recyclable materials. With the recycling symbol prominently displayed on the uppers and the bottom sole you can tell the world that you choose to walk the green-way supporting eco-friendly behaviors for a sustainable future. It also tells the collection agencies and recycling processors what they can do with REMYXX in their second-life. Ultimately, at the end of their lifecycle, all parts of REMYXX, can be “remyxx-ed” to make new products and materials, including a new pair of REMYXX.
7:
Panzer Pets - Customizable Robots MMO
There are three things each gamer likes, collecting stuff, customizing characters and leveling up! That, in combination with our favorite pets, robots, makes Panzer Pets an incredible game. This is what Panzer Pets is all about, collect items for your robots, build the strongest party in the game and level up to unlock even more amazing items. The game play is based around three key components: Exploration, Collecting and Battling. You will be able to play the single player campaigns, but Panzer Pets also offers extensive multiplayer functionality. The single player part includes a quest line and campaign that takes you all over the game world, while the multiplayer part features PVP arenas, real-time interaction and Guild features among others blend seamlessly into the experience.
6:
Plugable Thin Client: The $50 Computer
Everybody is using that one computer at the same time, yet each person has their own display, keyboard, and mouse. They can’t see what each other is doing. They can’t affect each other. It’s like each person has her own machine, even though they’re actually sharing one. They’re only paying for one machine. Powering one. Maintaining one. Only having to upgrade one.
5:
MoveeGo: Film like a pro on the go
MoveeGo is based on the "Merlin" type steadicams which have proved to be one of the best camera stabilization system. Unfortunately, most of them are built to support DLSR cameras which means you have to add weight to your camera to simulate a heavier camera. So you lose the interest of having a compact camera which is being lightweight and easy to carry. The SteadeeGo is built FOR small cameras, GoPro or smartphones (just add a tripod adapter). It means that you don't have to add weight to the camera. The gimbal associated with a ball bearing literally absorbs the movements of the operator for incredible smooth results. In the backpack, the SteadeeGo is 6x6x1 inches.
4:
MinuteBot Base for LEGO Mindstorms enabled robotics
The MinuteBot Base is a thick, robust base plate that can be used for construction of robotics based on LEGO Mindstorms. MinuteBot Base extends a LEGO beam into a rectangular plate with 21 x 30 holes. The dimensions and holes are a perfect fit with LEGO products. The tooling for this product is very complex. One MinuteBot Base has 630 holes! This makes the required investment quite high.
3:
Instaprint - The location based photo booth for Instagram
Instaprint is a location based photo booth that can transform parties and events by putting a camera in everyone's hand. By setting Instaprint to look out for specific locations or hashtags, any Instagram tagged appropriately will automatically be printed out on inkless paper. Instaprint was invented in the spring of 2011 by our small company called BREAKFAST. Over the past year the prototype devices have been seen at events such as store openings, product launches, a variety of different parties and events including The Grammys and Lady Gaga concerts.
2:
A Better Life
Explore the meaning and joy of life with atheists in this book of photos and commentary. A Better Life: 100 Atheists Speak Out on Joy and Meaning in a World Without God, is a 200+ page, hardcover photography book featuring subjects both famous and not, including well known atheist/agnostic speakers, writers, and celebrities. Each portrait will be paired with a short message from the subject about some aspect of joy, meaning or passion in life. It could focus on the love of a beautiful relationship, the joy of a rewarding career, the pleasure of a treasured pastime, the impact of a powerful experience, or any other topics.
1:
I Was A Teenage Michael Jackson Impersonator!
The talented, hard-working cartoonist is best known for his long-running strip The K Chronicles, and now he's hoping to embark on a new adventure: to write about working as a Michael Jackson impersonator in the '80s. "I performed at colleges, birthday parties, fairs, nightclubs, high schools and more," Keith says. "I got nookie! I had a Madonna-wannabe as a girlfriend! I toured with a Bruce Springsteen and a Prince impersonator!"
