Holiday Shipping & Behind the Scenes Holiday Window Install
over 6 years ago – Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 12:41:29 PM

Holiday Shipping

Or, as I like to call it, "It's amazing that anything gets anywhere." Seriously, postal services are really just magic... when they work. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19th is the last day that X-mas gifts can be ordered to arrive in time to be placed in a big sock, or under the tree (or if you're like me, on the tree :)

To make the decision for the holidays that much easier, here's a link for FREE SHIPPING. If you haven't checked out the all new line-up of Troxes Kits, you should!

Family and Friends

You might have noticed that prices for the Kickstarter were quite favorable to the prices that retail Troxes arrived at. To make this transition easier, I wanted to share a family and friends 10% discount: TROXPALS. This code is just for you, so please use it for yourself and your loved ones.

New Museum Store Holiday Window

Earlier this year, I found out that I would be able to design and install a Troxes themed Holiday window display for the New Museum. Needless to say, I proposed some ambitious displays and chose to build an incredibly large, and big shock, paper, Zoetrope. I wanted to tell the story of how Troxes come together. In this case, much like an enormous snowflake, Troxes emerge together from the same singular piece. I am working on documentation of the entire process, and you can catch some of it on my instagram feed. Below are a couple of photos of the install in process and the final animation. The install is currently on view through the New Year at New Museum in NYC!

Review Troxes, Por Favor :)

Troxes are now available from UncommonGoods and they are selling "great". If you could add a quick review of Troxes here (and give 5-stars) that would be simply amazing! I know that products that have that kind of reassurance online sell significantly better, of course I also want your honest feedback, so all stories are welcome :) 

 Until next Trox :)

-Jonathan & Move38 team

Happy Troxgiving!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 05:38:43 AM

Dear Backers,

This is a special time of year, mostly for the kind of reflection it brings, and time to connect with those that mean so much to us, in person, virtually, or in spirit. Given the Thanksgiving break, it would surprise me if you've read this far, but you have, so here is what you should know.

 

20% Off Troxes for Black Friday

You all helped me make Troxes a real product, one that will surely evolve for years to come, but it started here. If you haven't yet thought to gift Troxes for holidays, now is the time, this is the weekend to get them. Troxes are in stock and ready to ship before the holidays, and with all kits at 20% off, it's a deal. Share the discount-code: BLACKFRIDAY or share this link.

Want to Buy In-Store?

NEW MUSEUM STORE & MoMath are both carrying unique kits for Troxes in NYC, of course they also have them available to share on their online shops as well :)

After making sure family and friends get their Troxes (while supplies last), I'll be enjoying a bit of nature and some hands on Troxes building with family I rarely get to see. Let me know if you get to do the same this weekend.

With endless gratitude,

Jonathan "Kiss the Troxgiving Chef" Bobrow

Tutorials and more!
over 6 years ago – Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 05:01:24 PM

Hi Backers!

Hello from Dubai! That's right. I didn't mention it among all of the news, but Troxes were chosen to be in Dubai Design Week's Global Grad Show. My week is filled with meeting inspiring designers and sharing Troxes with a new audience.

Show me the Toots

First of all, I imagine many of you have noticed that I have been slower to upload the How-To videos than expected. To my delight, backers have come to the rescue. In particular, one backer's son decided he had to make a How-To video. Andy does a better job explaining Troxes than I do. Check it out for yourself here: 

Seeing Andy's made me realize just how helpful it is to see a tutorial from fresh eyes. Needless to say, he is receiving a nice gift in the mail. If you want to contribute a tutorial to the library, send me a link to the video, I'll be sure to get back to you, and there might be some free Troxes in it for you as well :) 

Many of you have asked about Octa and Icosa, have you figured them out yet? The videos are currently uploading to YouTube and will be live on the tutorial page tomorrow.

Trox Penguin & Trox Fox

In the process of the Kickstarter, it became apparent that people want to know what they can make with Troxes. Two of my favorites, Trox Penguin and Trox Fox now have instructions for you to create your own. I am sharing the instructions with you backers here first. If you don't have the correct colors, maybe yours will just look like a different species, give it a shot! Note: both animals require building both Tetra and Octas. 

Instructions for Trox Penguin here, and for Trox Fox here.

Troxes in Stores, Now!

The moment has come and for the 2017 holiday season, I have launched the full product line along with some retail partners. This wouldn't have been possible without your help.

Troxes are debuting at the New Museum Store, and we couldn't be more excited about it. In fact, the New Museum Store is also the first place you can get your hands on the Trox Penguin and Trox Fox kits. Later this month, Troxes will be available on Uncommon Goods, Museum of Mathematics, and at the MIT Museum Store. Be sure to ask your local stores if they carry Troxes, and maybe they'll get in contact with me to carry them too.

Shipping and Customs

Some of you have reached out with specific hurdles with shipping, which happens to be an unfortunately more common thing for international shipments than I would like. Everyone has been incredibly understanding, and while there are some rather hefty taxes applied to some of your rewards, I can assure you they are worth it. Don't hesitate to reach out if you are still waiting on your Troxes and I'll be sure to look into the shipping situation. A few of you still haven't filled out your surveys, once you do, I'll be sure to send out your rewards as well :)

That's all for this issue of Trox Monthly :)

all my best,

Jonathan

Troxes are Shipping!!!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Oct 14, 2017 at 06:58:58 PM

Hi Backers,

I know you've all been waiting to get your hands on Troxes and the day is finally here. It is difficult to sum up all of the pieces of the puzzle that had to come together and be communicated across so many people to eventually arrive at the product that will be at your doorsteps in the coming days (and weeks for all y'all international backers).

Step by Step

Along with getting the Troxes made, every kit comes with a simple set of guidelines for putting Troxes together; however, the kits leave it to you to figure out the puzzle of creating the Platonic solids or other forms that you may have seen me demonstrate. Want to learn how to make all of the cool forms that I've made? Easy. We're posting tutorial videos, and just as important, and time consuming, are the hand illustrated instructions I have been creating for building different Trox-creations. Creating instructions has been a lot of fun, but also raises a lot of questions on how they will be received. I consider the instructions something that may always be in beta, as I learn how to best communicate the forms. That said, I have made a pretty good head start in standardizing the visual language to build Troxes.

Ain't No Party like a Packing Party

It takes a village to raise a Kickstarter project, and a lot of friends to help fulfill it. Last week, Move38 moved into our new office in Long Island City, and the same day that we moved, our 1700 boxes of Troxes arrived. Needless to say, the surrounding businesses could tell I had hit the ground running as the following days involved sorting parties, then packing parties, and finally, an impromptu taping party (don't want to risk lost Troxes). Thanks to the help of Mel, Andrew, Charles, Jackson, Diana, Jamie, Tom, Kos, Lingyi, and Julian we got our Troxes sorted, boxes folded, packed, and labeled.

USPS... yes, there's a ps

To help organize the fulfillment of this campaign, we are using a tool called BackerKit, and it has been quite handy in gathering shipping information as well as color preferences, but that doesn't mean everything will go perfectly smooth. We decided to ship Troxes from our new office, as it seemed like the right way to break in an office. Armed with a small thermal printer for postage labels, and a gajillion dollars of USPS paid postage (these are exact numbers), we printed over 1000 labels, customs forms, packing slips and made your Trox packages perfectly ready for pickup and scanning. 

In previous years, USPS has been particularly thankful for how well prepared I have my packages, cleanly labeled, neatly packed... simply ready to go. This time was a little different. I scheduled a pickup showing 450 packages and roughly 650lbs and received a confirmation that suggested a pickup would arrive the following day. As the days end approached, I couldn't get ahold of the post office via phone, so I decided to bike over to the local dispatch and ask in person. All signs sounded good as the office said they would send someone over, and sure enough, half an hour later, there was a truck arriving at my office building.

What I didn't mention about the office is that it is in the same building as LaGuardia Community College, and if you know anything about LGA (the airport), let's just say the apple doesn't fall too far. The USPS truck arrives and I help the driver get to the loading dock, waving him in and clearing a path. He opens the truck and there are no carts for the shipments, just an open truck. No problem, I have a cart up stairs and will load up the packages on that. The school day is ending, so the elevators are swamped, and the process is taking north of 30 minutes. The driver waited at the loading dock for quite some time, as I muscled 600+lbs of Troxes onto carts, down hallways, and eventually into the basement and to the loading dock. To my surprise, the driver had decided to head out. Let's just say the next 30 minutes contained some expletives, a bit of laughing, and while this really only means the rewards would be a day later, it seemed like such a big deal.

So instead of getting out your shipments on Thursday, I would give it another shot on Friday. The carts were loaded and ready and I went to bed hoping the following day everything would go smoothly...

USPS... Take 2... or take more :)

To make it all happen, I followed my plan from Thursday: Bike into local USPS, speak with supervisor nicely, triple check that a pickup is happening and request a call before pickup. Impressively like clockwork, USPS was on time, even early, and I met them to bring the loaded carts directly to the truck and filled the shelve with boxes of Troxes.

In the process of getting carts from floor to floor, held in a basement and ready for pickup, I made new friends in my new office building and am looking forward to helping each other out as I am surrounded by 20 other tech/design/hardware startups that are oh so familiar with every hurdle along the way.

I couldn't be more thrilled to get to say these Troxes are on their way to you, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they arrive safely and as beautiful as when they left NYC.

Most importantly, I can't wait to see some unboxing photos/videos, send them my way, post on instagram #TROXES and follow @move38inc to see reposts, new creations, and the happenings of Move38.

With great anticipation,

Jonathan Trox-Bobrow :)

p.s. there are about 30 backers that haven't filled out their BackerKit survey to choose colors and receive their rewards, if that is you, let me know and I'll help you get your Troxes ASAP!

Troxes are Best in Class @ #WMF2017
over 6 years ago – Mon, Oct 02, 2017 at 11:19:22 PM

Hey Backers,

Your beautiful rewards arrived at Move38's new office today! All 1700 boxes of Troxes. Our next tasks are to label, sort, and pack them to arrive on your doorsteps in mid October. While I wish I could simply ship them right now, I am waiting on the last piece of the puzzle. That piece, is none other than custom made mailers. It seems silly to be waiting on the box that holds the boxes; however, I designed unique ones for each reward tier and think you'll really appreciate them when they arrive. 

A Custom of Custom Goods going through Customs

Due to the long lead time of the custom mailers, I had reached out to a number of other companies that make custom sized mailers and ordered samples to determine the best option. One company could deliver on a much shorter schedule, however, when their samples arrived, the cardboard just didn't cut it. For a product that is all about paper folding, it only makes sense that the packaging would be high quality folded paper as well. I believe someone once said, all the good things in life are worth waiting for, so I hope you trust me in this decision to wait for the mailers I am most excited for. They will be arriving at my office on October 10th, and your rewards will all be sorted and ready for packing/shipping on that date.

Best in Class

No, I didn't give myself a ribbon for turning in my homework on time (also that would be odd because any homework I turn in at this point is decades overdue). At this years Maker Faire, our booth for Troxes not only taught kids and adults of all ages how to make over 400 Troxes, but were recognized for the immense amount of fun we were having on the floor. I couldn't have done it without the help of close friends volunteering and new friends showing up at the booth and helping out as well. I made some custom Troxes t-shirts for the event, a little detail I really like is that the front is the die-cut pattern, the back is a knockout of Troxes, and I designed them to be at actual scale so Troxes could be pinned on to the shirts :)

Pics World Maker Faire (WMF2017) 

Tis the Season...

The holiday season is coming up, and to make sure that Troxes won't be in short supply, I already have to be placing my next orders (this next one will either be a quarter or half million pieces... that's a lot of Troxes). Can you think of stores that you would love to see Troxes in? We'd love to compile a list and know about the mom and pop shops as well as the big retailer that you feel simply needs Troxes flying off of their shelves.

Next update will be the sorting of Troxes a little more background on the production and finally, an update to say that they are in the mail and on there way!

Finally, stay safe, treat others with kindness, and let's build a better future. My heart goes out to all those with family and friends in Las Vegas. Sending healing thoughts in your direction.

All my best,

Jonathan Trox-brow