Hardware crowdfunding successes from under a thousand to well over half a million dollars
In case you’re wondering, they were all from the USA, but you may be surprised to learn that not a single one of these nine projects was from Silicon Valley (although three of them were from other parts of California).
There are important questions to be asked regarding the extent to which these projects are able to survive, thrive and scale-up, and whether crowdfunding also turns out to have any bearing upon the way they develop.
Printrbot: Brook Drumm (one of three here from California, in this case Lincoln) got KickStarter funding of $830,828 in December 2011
B9Creator: Michael Joyce of South Dakota got KickStarter funding of $513,423 in June 2012
Bukobot: Diego Porqueras (the second one on this list from California, this time, Pasadena) got KickStarter funding of $167,410 in May 2012
Vision 3D Printer: Matt Underwood of Illinois got KickStarter funding of $65,346 in June 2012
Maxifab: Ryan Robinson of Florida got KickStarter funding of $24,393 in April 2012
Printxl: Billy Zelsnack of Iowa got KickStarter funding of $12,078 in May 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzaagM96pBI
RepRap
RepRap is a self-replicating 3D printer initiative that has replicated itself into two different successfully funded projects on Kickstarter
- John Ecker (the third Californian here, this time from San Diego) got KickStarter funding of $3,961 in March 2011
- Relative Design of North Carolina got KickStarter funding of $2,361 in November 2011
The NEXT Project: Eric Harman of Michigan got KickStarter funding of $853 in May 2011
Evidence that it may be quite possible to build quite a huge 3D printer (this one is a four foot cube) for just about the same unit cost as a really small one!
These aren’t the only 3D printer projects on Kickstarter: there are some newer projects that have not reached their month’s funding deadline yet and there are also some others that never managed to meet their funding target in the time allotted and are therefore deemed to be classified as having been unsuccessful (in terms of getting sufficient funding) as far as KickStarter are concerned.
In addition to these, there are also quite a number of other kinds of projects on Kickstarter that are directly connected to 3D printing, such as projects for funding 3D printer components, 3D printed items, 3D printing-related events and also for CNC (Computer Numerical Control) manufacturing machines (usually automated mills, lathes, routers, planes and drills) which are also able to create 3D shapes in a ‘subtractive’ way (by contrast with the kinds of machines on the list above, which are all ‘additive 3D devices’).
