Monday, March 4, 2013

3Doodler







How It Works
Everyone knows how to use a pen, so we designed a 3D printing pen! If you can scribble, trace or wave a finger in the air you can use a 3Doodler. As you draw, plastic comes out of the pen, is cooled by an integrated fan, and solidifies right in front of you. You can draw on any surface and lift it up into the air to create your own 3D objects.
3Doodler is nearing production now. We’ll be posting how to videos and explanations ahead of delivery so that you can 3Doodle like a pro.

Important: 3Doodler is not a toy for children. While the plastic extruded from 3Doodler is safe to touch once it has left the pen, the pen itself has a metal tip that can get as hot as 270C. There is no reason for any user to touch the tip while in use, but safety comes first, and our upcoming videos will explain how to use the 3Doodler, covering the different techniques and safety precautions necessary.

We remain awed by your response, grateful to each and every one of you, and super excited to get the 3Doodler into your hands. As we near the $2M mark here are some highlights, and a couple of tantalising updates:

1. Production Update! The benefit of your amazing early backing is that we are now able to focus on delivering your 3Doodlers. This past week we have been busy speaking to the factory and our team on the ground. This includes readying the final mechanical design of the 3Doodler to fit with mass production requirements, as well as working on minor ergonomic tweaks to the shell of the 3Doodler. We’ll post images in due course.

2. Getting out a revised FAQ. It’s epic, and we hope it answers most of your questions! This also means we are back on top of your messages. Thanks for your patience, and even more thanks for helping answer each other’s questions in the Comments section.

3. A new 3Doodling Kickstarter campaign – “3Dood 3Doodler Animation” (http://kck.st/YsUCAZ) is aiming to make the world’s first 3Doodler animation. We spoke to Drew and we support his creativity so much that we backed it! Drew’s now shooting for $5,000 so he can supercharge this.

4. Music Time! We are certain our Kickstarter video would not have been anywhere near as good as it was without the great background track we used – I Can’t by Kaila Picard & Mark Zubek (www.kailapicard.com and www.markzubek.com). Kaila is an amazing artist and has agreed to make her EP available for free here.

5. Stretch Goals: There is clearly a huge demand for both the pen holder and tips, which we are really encouraged by. As with everything we do, we want to make sure it is perfect before we produce and deliver. In the case of the tips, that means testing out each and every new tip with the new prototype pens to make sure that the tips have the desired effect and work with the final pens. And as you know, we are also going to be fine tuning the ergonomics of the pen so we can’t finalise the design of the holder until the pen is in its final form.

Rest assured these items are at the top of our accessory agenda, alongside many others. But given the amount of design and testing that is required, as well as the sheer number that would need to be produced in a short period of time, we won’t be launching these accessories for sale during the current Kickstarter period. Keep your eyes peeled for backer and email updates down the line.

6. And last but not least, a new 3Doodle-tastic creation from our Chief Doodler. The bicycle used approx. 5 feet of plastic (including some trial and error) and took approx. 2hrs to create (including some more trial and error).