Troxes beyond successfully funded!
almost 7 years ago – Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 05:31:16 AM

Hey Backers,

I'm over-the-moon thrilled to see Troxes surpass all expectations, reaching a number of stretch goals and continue to gain interest! Getting this far would not have been possible without all 469 of you. Together, we raised $35,670 to begin the manufacturing journey of a truly unique set of building blocks. I am working with a local manufacturer in NY, that you'll be learning more about over the coming weeks, and we are figuring out the best way to produce over 100,000 pieces!

Things to know

If this is your first time backing a Kickstarter project, there are a couple of things to know. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, you will receive updates from me, JB (yeah, I know it rhymes). I'll be completing designs for instructions, sharing manufacturing details with you, and collecting pertinent information at the right times.

Surveys, not for a couple of weeks, are a thing and I'll surely be sending you at least one. At that time, I'll ask what color Troxes you ordered, which address will we be shipping them to, and what you want to build with your Troxes... (also feel free to shout that one out in the comments :)   

As of 9:00pm EST, most of your credit cards were charged, however, a special 10% or so tend to not process successfully. If your payment failed, you probably received an email from Kickstarter explaining how to fix the problem but I'll also give a quick overview. Log into your Kickstarter account and click the "Fix payment" button in the banner at the top of your screen. 

Next Steps

As you can imagine, the past 30 days have been a whirlwind tour for me. I started out this campaign on a plane to San Francisco, then headed to Los Angeles, Boston, Connecticut and NYC sharing at Maker Faires and Museums along the way. I would be lying if I said I wasn't the tiniest bit exhausted, and I know for Troxes, the real fun/work begins now. 

But first, myself and my partner, Jamie, are going to take an extended weekend off-grid to see each other (she knows that my computer won't miss me for too long). I only mention this so you will know why I am not responding to messages until next Wednesday, but please leave them as I'll be excited to get back and talk with you. In the mean time, If you haven't read the previous updates, enjoy, I think they'll set the stage for what's to come :)

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, as many people who have backed my Kickstarter projects before can attest, you can eagerly await quality products that sometimes even ship early.

Looking forward to creating a new staple in building blocks together! This definitely proves that there is a case to be made for triangles :)

All my best,

Jonathan + the Move38 Trox crew :)

Over 300% funded, 4 Bonus Pieces, a Tool for Exploration, and a Small Request
almost 7 years ago – Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 06:34:13 PM

Hi Backers!

300%, I can’t believe it! More importantly, there are nearly 400 of you supporting Troxes now, a clear reason to celebrate. At $30K, I promised to include extra pieces, bonus Troxes if you will. Each 50 pack is now up to 54 pieces! Keep this momentum up and I think we can reach 60 pieces per pack. Remember, at $35K it becomes 56 pieces and 60 at $45K.

**

A little bit about you [Actionable]

For these past 3 weeks, I have been amazed to see the support of friends, family, the Kickstarter community and the glowing press coverage. It is all because of you that we have surpassed our goal and are making the rewards better day by day. Kickstarter lets me see some data on the project, but for good reason, doesn’t tell me much about you. I have all sorts of data to tell me things like the most popular reward (Maker Kit, in case you were wondering), but I don’t have any information telling me who you are and why you are backing Troxes. I made this 30 second survey to ask you just that.

SURVEY LINK (just in case)

**

A Tool for Exploration [Playable]

 

The most common question I hear is “what can I make with Troxes?” and then following up, “can you show me how to make it?" I’ll continue to share instructions and tutorials for making beautiful and recognizable forms, but today, I wanted to share my secret weapon, a tool that I have kept in the shed. While at MIT, my good friend and former classmate, Amanda Ghassaei, created a tool to assemble virtual Troxes. It’s a Troximulator, and it makes it nice and easy for me to prototype new forms and then screenshot them before breaking out the paper. 

 

Need a toy at the work desk today? Try your hand at making a new animal (hint: alternating between Tetra and Octa creates a robust base for a form). We are sharing the tool with you, our early backers, but if you want to share it with a friend, you can do that too. I’m looking forward to seeing what you create, send us screenshots. If you contribute a new animal to my Troxes Zoo, we’ll hold a contest for the best ones.

 

This Weekend

 

 Friday, Kickstarter Live Event w/ Origami Artist, Alicia Lo @ 5:30pm ET

After launching the Kickstarter, I started getting connected with all sorts of talented paper artists, amongst them, Alicia Lo a fellow NY resident. I decided it would be fun to introduce her to Troxes, and let a 6. Yr old teach her how to make one. We’ll be streaming live at 5:30pm this Friday.

Saturday, MIT Museum Workshop 12pm - 1:45 & 2:15pm - 4pm ET

If you are in Cambridge or the Greater Boston Area, swing by the MIT Museum this Saturday and I’ll be giving short presentations as well as teaching kids of all ages how to make their own Troxes creations.

Sunday, Toscanini’s Ice Cream and Troxes at 9-10:30am ET

Ice cream could be called a dangerous addiction for me, and never-the-less, the wonderful Toscanini family invited me into their Ice cream filled home to share Troxes bright and early on Sunday morning. I’ll try and share this experience, but pardon me if I am just eating ice cream the whole time.

Friendly Competition Update

If we didn’t have enough reasons to celebrate, add another to the list. We have surpassed the number of pieces necessary to build a level 8 Sierpinski Tetrahedron and we are now chipping away at level 9. At this very moment, I will have to fulfill over over 74,250 pieces! That’s a lot of Troxes.

We are approaching a volume that could allow my manufacturer to use larger tooling, making retail a much easier step after the Kickstarter, not always a no-brainer. Looking forward to sharing more about the manufacturing process and decisions going to into making Troxes a reality.

From the bottom of my Trox heart, <3

Jonathan

A Trox Experiment
almost 7 years ago – Wed, Jun 07, 2017 at 10:22:11 AM

Hi Backers!

Thanks so much for the responses to the survey in my last update, it is already wonderfully helpful and I am having a lot of fun learning more about who you are. Spoiler, about 25% of backers are teachers!

Today I wanted to share something really off the cuff that I just recorded. One of the amazing properties of Troxes that I haven't talked a lot about is just how gosh darn strong they are (pardon my language). The other day, I weighed the pieces to learn that each piece of a Trox weighs ~0.075 oz and therefore a TetraTrox weighs 4 times that. To put that into perspective, it takes 50 TetraTroxes to tally a single pound, not quite aerogel, but very light none-the-less.

Real Science

To measure the holding capacity of each Tetra, I placed 3 of them under a thin plastic plate and then set increasingly larger hand weights (dumbbells) on top. In theory, dividing the crushing weight by 3 should give us a rough estimate of how much force a single Tetra can take. If each Tetra can hold a 2-pound weight, it will be holding 100 times its weight! That is like an ant on steroids!

The video looks like I just got off of my chopper, which landed on a rooftop gym. I'll let you decide if that is the case or not :) I hope you enjoy. Also, if you haven't yet seen a single TetraTrox come together in hand, feel free to fast forward to 2:30 in the video, where I put a Trox together.

Spoiler alert, if you didn't watch the entire video, that's okay, I still want you to know that in this very loose experiment, it appears that Troxes support over 300 times their weight! Looks like I'll have to test some other shapes or ones that are tessellated together, as I assume that will add more strength overall.

Tell me what my next experiment should be, here, in the comments.

One last thing

To make it easy to share Troxes on social media, I made this nice link for facebook users here. If facebook isn't your thing, let a friend know it person that you are backing this crazy attempt to overthrow Lego (just kidding, I have too much love for Lego, but seriously, would be nice to make them notice us :)

With bundles of Trox love,

Jonathan

Let the Stretching Begin!
almost 7 years ago – Wed, May 31, 2017 at 03:09:21 PM

The polls are closed and we have a winner! Being scarred from my previous voting experience, I chose a slightly alternative voting method which actually offered some interesting insight. At first, it had me confused as to who the winner might be, but then it worked out wonderfully (Great job everyone!).

It was a near photo finish! More Troxes takes the cake in 1st place. Over the past week, I have been back and forth with the manufacturer of Troxes to make sure we can really do it. In a close second, a new translucent material was a very popular option. This is definitely something we want to see happen, but will require further stretch. We have samples on the way for new materials, so I'll keep you posted. Both of these stretch goals are going to require some stretch, so lets see what we can do together.

More Troxes

I want you to have more Troxes, just as much as you want you to have more Troxes, so let’s max them out. Some of you have noticed that 50 pieces isn’t divisible by 4, making the single pack an oddity. Let’s fix that. Reaching $25K will boost the pack to 52. Every subsequent $5K raised adds another 2 pieces until we reach 60 pieces per pack. If you have the Explorer Kit, this is 2x the benefit, Maker Kit, 4x, Bucky Kit 10x the additional pieces! 

With your help, we can turn the Troxes kits into packs of 60 pieces. The best way to do it, is share with friends and family. To sweeten the deal, the first person to show me 100 likes on a Facebook post for Troxes will get an extra pack, and have their shipping expedited. To help, I’ve made these fancy gifs [1, 2] to show off what Troxes are :)

The voting was a close call, so don't think I didn't hear you. If you want other materials for Troxes, those aren't much farther out of reach. We have our first mission ahead of us, let's get to 60pcs per pack!

Light as a Feather

One of the questions in the comment thread asked about the weight of Troxes. This could be useful for a number of reasons, including carrying around packs of Troxes for travel, or attempting to fly with Troxes. One can only imagine how that might go (Here's our custom  3D simulation below :)

To measure the weight, I grabbed my handy gram scale, placed 10 pieces atop, and averaged them to get a 0.0747 oz per pice. This means that the fox head composed of 48 pieces weighs only 3.5 oz, less than a quarter pounder from McD's. A Maker Kit of Troxes weighs just under a pound, but can build structures as tall as a toddler. Moreover, this provides some useful information necessary for creating a world record setting Sierpinski Tetrahedron.

A World Record in progress

Update on our competition. So far we are approaching the number of Troxes necessary to build a level 8 Sierpinski Tetrahedron (53500/65536). To beat the record, we would need to reach level 9. That sure is a lot of Troxes, do you think we can make it?!   

 In another update, I'll show how much weight the Troxes can support, since they are really quite strong once assembled. Any thoughts on how I should test how much weight they can support or how strong they are?

Lastly, just in case:

Facebook Share Link

Twitter Share Link

Thanks so much for all of your support and getting the word out, I can't wait to reach these stretch goals! (secretly just want more Troxes in my own packages) More updates coming soon! And some Live-Streaming surprises :)

One last THING

At the Bay Area Maker Faire, I met a fellow MIT Alum with Kickstarter project all his own, ending soon! It is totally mathematical, and glowing, and I know he spent a great deal of effort to make some beautiful icosahedron refractions :) Back it here!

 

all my best,

Jonathan

A Maker Faire Success, Now Stretch Goals
almost 7 years ago – Tue, May 30, 2017 at 08:24:28 PM

Hey Backers!

Wow, when I pressed launch on the Kickstarter and then boarded a flight from JFK to SFO, I had no idea what kind of a ride I would be embarking on. These past 5 days have been incredible, and I want to say thanks to all of you! I'll be updating you more frequently as the Kickstarter progresses, because we are way past our funding goal and we have some exciting news. I'll go through them in the following order.

     1. Maker Faire 

     2. Press Coverage

     3. Stretch Goals

     4. A Challenge from a worthy competitor

Maker Faire

This past weekend, Move38 along with friends both new and old taught kids of all ages how to make their own Troxes and they were doing it from scratch. My favorite moments at these kind of events are when kids get to finish their first Trox and the look of confidence is undeniable. Adults do this too. Moreover, it is really special when someone who has made their first Trox decides to stick around and teach others how to do it as well. This happened on a number of occasions but a few truly standout ones happened to stay for 4+ hours teaching others how to make their own Troxes. Shout out to William! There are too many photos to share all of the good ones here, so check out our new Flickr page. 

Press Coverage

We received some amazing Kickstarter love from their Projects We Love mailing list along with some great press days after launch. One incredibly flattering article referred to me as one of Brooklyn's top designers, something I won't contest even though I don't technically live in Brooklyn :). FastCo Design, one of my favorite publications, interviewed me about Troxes and Move38, where I could speak to the big picture of our work. There was even a nice piece from GeekDad who got a small preview pack of Troxes.

Stretch Goals

Needless to say, we didn't plan on reaching our goal within 40 hours of launching our campaign, but that doesn't mean we didn't have a list of possible stretch goals in the wings. While there are a number of interesting stretch goals we would love to see met, we thought we would hear from you first! That's right, we would love your help in deciding what is most worth stretching for. 

Survey Time

1. More Troxes – this is the most self-explanatory one, we'd love to put as many Troxes in your hands as possible, the more pieces you have, the more outrageous projects you can build. Something like 4 more Troxes in every pack for every $5K raised from $25K - $50K. 

2. Animal tutorials for kits – A common question we've received is "what can we make with them?" While the answer "everything" isn't so helpful for most people, and of limited truthiness, we stopped answering and started questioning ourselves. In the process we came up with some striking animal-Trox doppelgangers and would love to share them with you. Making tutorials takes time and money, so we thought we could stretch for that!

3. A bright idea – One of my experiments with Troxes involves using Circuit Stickers and paper circuits to make a Trox lantern (this one pictured here was dedicated to the late Don Stidsen of the MIT Museum). I love holding them and using the them to light spaces. This isn't the only way to use light with Troxes. If the material that the Trox is made out of is translucent or transparent, the space inside can hold LED lights and give an ambient glow. For this stretch goal, we would offer a material that is translucent just like choosing a color for your pack.

PLEASE RESPOND HERE

Did one of these stretch goals sing to you? Or have you thought of another possible stretch goal that you would like us to include? Other colors? Glow in the dark? I haven't listed those two yet, since they require a lot of stretch, but let us know and we'll set our course!

The Challenge

A little friendly competition never hurt. In fact, at Maker Faire this year I met part of the super creative team behind Strawbees. I think they have great products, wonderful personalities and was immediately driven to compete. I had no idea, but they have set a Guinness World Record for the tallest Serpinski Tetrahedron, measuring a whopping 17.2 meters tall. My first thought was, that is amazing, my second thought was, we can beat that. I am not sure if it is public knowledge how much that structure cost to construct, but let's just say it was expensive. 

We can't beat this record at the moment; however, we thought a good start would be to first prove that there are enough Troxes in the world to conceivably beat it. I calculated just how many Tetrahedra we would need made out of Troxes to beat that record. In total, we need 65,536 Tetra's to create a SerpinskiTrox as tall as the Guinness World Record. We are currently at 10,312 Tetras (not too far away :). Every 4 pieces creates a single Tetrahedron, so your Starter pack is a whopping 12 additions to the pretentious pyramid. The Explorer pack is 25, Makers contribute 50, and Bucky, an impressive 125. Get out the word, share the project and help us set some records. It is definitely not something we can't do on our own, but with your help, we think it is totally possible!

Oh, and because it is friendly competition, I also wanted to share my sketch of a cool new concept car to be built out of Troxes and Strawbees... a new hybrid if you will.

 Thanks for joining us on this journey, we look forward to your survey responses, and of course, let us know what you like, don't like, want more of in the comment section :)

all our best,

Jon + Nick

Move38