January 2014 – ROBOHEMIAN

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Robot Army : Video Done… sigh…

January 26, 2014spetku1 Comment

It’s done. We filmed close to 100gb of video footage and ended up using less than a percent of that. We story boarded, scripted, tried various locations, and in the end chose the most simple three-minute segment that told the bare minimum about our project. It felt the best, flowed naturally, and isn’t so long that you’d stop watching in the middle of it. So I guess we succeeded. Here it is ^ Now that we’re over that hurdle, on to the next headache. In order to launch a project, Kickstarter requires that you have an Amazon business account to transfer money into once you’re funded. This is all well and good. Mark and I got our corporation made, filed for our EIN and were about to get everything underway with Amazon- however for reasons unknown there was a discrepancy with our tax information (or something???) and we got locked…

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Robot Army : Almost There

January 22, 2014spetku0 Comments

We’re down to the final stretch. Mark and I have been working on our Kickstarter video for the past ten days… which has been a hell I hadn’t anticipated. It was starting to seem like we were never going to vomit out the right takes that would communicate to our audience what they need to know about our kit. After a dozen or so sessions of filming, I decided I was over complicating things and rethought my strategy. Now after much adieu, our KS video is short, conversational, and in the spirit of what we know how to do best- which is shoot a podcast. We have many, MANY outtakes from the past two weeks we spent trying in vain to pump out a work of art that wasn’t meant to be. So I’ve edited a few into short chunks which I plan to spoon feed out into the world over…

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Robot Army : Kickstarter Video Do

January 13, 2014spetku1 Comment

Somehow, just as I was starting to recover from whatever it was I picked up over the holidays, I managed to contract another illness. I’ve spent the entire year so far being sick… which SUCKS because it’s slowing me down. I was worried about whether or not I had gorilla glue hanging out of my nose while making contacts throughout CES, and I had to cough in the middle of every shot while filming today. I don’t even have that sexy raspy quality to my voice to make up for it. BLAH! Mark and I filmed my main monologue and a couple supplementary clips this weekend. We want the video to spoon feed the viewer all the important details about the project while throwing in notes of playfulness bordering on insanity. This takes some finesse. As such, while Mark was away at work today I gave my speaking parts another…

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Robot Army : CES Week

January 10, 2014spetku0 Comments

This week was exhausting. It involved a lot of walking, chatting, setting up, tearing down, and practicing the good ‘ol elevator pitch. Myself, Mark, and his friend Gregg took off to make the most of CES- exploring for two long days on the showroom floor, and then attending events in the evening. It was a lot of fun and we made some new promising contacts (woo!). Last night we did our first demo with the six working delta robots we have at Pololu Robotics. They held a nice shindig for those attending the convention who were involved with robotics and hackable electronics. It went over well and our kids did a fantastic job, seeing as it was their first recital. >.< Now to double our numbers… Mommy and Daddy must get busy. Finally, with a moment to relax, Mark and I went over our BOM and caught up on emails…

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Robot Army : Preparing the Army

January 3, 2014spetku0 Comments

So I made it back from the frigid cold of northern Michigan alive and in one piece. I survived the alcohol soaked meat fest of Christmas with the family and was just starting to ease back into Kickstarter mode when I came down with this Flu bug from hell which has brought my productivity level down to zero all week. Luckily Mark picked up the ball while I’ve been recovering in quarantine and has been developing code for our twelve delta demo we’ll be touring around town with during CES week. Today, while he debugged our code I did this doodle, because all I’ve been dreaming about while sick in bed is the not so distant future where we’ll actually be setting up our babies in the backyard for some showtime : With our original six deltas somewhat completed, we have the next set of six to build and optimize….