Ed Gets His Power Back: an electrifying tale for maker kids!
Created by Carrot Pants Press
Discover electronics through the power of story! Introducing a children's book about circuits with beautiful, full-color illustrations.
Ed Gets His Power Back is the story of a green LED named Ed who learns to light himself up and complete a circuit with the help of his friends. Through Ed’s adventure, kids will learn about electronics components and concepts, and see a real, working circuit brought to life!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Production Updates!
over 6 years ago
– Wed, Nov 01, 2017 at 05:43:22 PM
Hello friends!
We wanted to drop in and share some production and fulfillment updates for the book. Before we do, though, this is a friendly reminder to complete your BackerKit surveys, if you haven't already. Please check your email for your unique link, or you can get a new invite here: https://ed-gets-his-power-back.backerkit.com.
If you have friends who missed out on the campaign and want the book, they can pre-order the book, stickers or kits from here.
Book Production!
Now, on to the good stuff. We're happy to share that production of Ed Gets His Power Back has officially begun! The presses started rolling on Saturday night, with the factory printing test sheets to ensure that colors and lettering came out looking the way we wanted them to. Here are a few examples:
The first test pages!
More test pages!
I (Brandon) stayed up late into the night Saturday to verify the interior pages and cover, and I'm happy to report that everything looks fantastic!
Now that we've signed off on the final pages, production has commenced and the books will be printed, folded, glued and stitched, bound and shipped our way. Speaking of, I captured a lot of pictures and video from my recent trip to the printer, but this slow-mo video of the folding machine is probably my favorite.
Once our book is printed, pages will be loaded into this machine for automated folding. The end result will look something like this.
Pretty cool! i learned a ton about the business of physical printing from this visit, and will share more via our Medium blog soon.
Back to the books. As of this moment, the books will be complete and ready for shipping by November 29th, after which, our freight shipper will pick them up and send them our way. The target delivery date to us is December 29th, after which we'll start sending them to you all! As of now, it looks like we'll even get them to you ahead of schedule!
Stickers and STEAM Kits!
While we wait on the books, I'm happy to report that we've already started packing sticker bags and STEAM Kits so these will be ready to include in your packages once the book arrives. For the STEAM Kits, I'm currently setting up an assembly line to QA all of your components, and I promise to grab some videos of the boys and Sarah and I dutifully testing your kits and send those your way. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of some STEAM Kit goodies
Have a fantastic rest of the week!
Brandon
Surveys Sent - Please Complete by Dec 1
over 6 years ago
– Fri, Oct 20, 2017 at 09:44:11 AM
Yesterday, we sent out our initial batch of surveys from BackerKit.
If you've already filled out your shipping info and confirmed your order, thank you! We have all we need for now.
If you've NOT filled out your shipping survey...
First, check out inbox and spam folder for an email from BackerKit. The easiest thing to do is click on the link in that email, which is personalized for you.
That's all for now! We'll send another update next week with some production updates and a final count of books donated for hurricane relief!
Brandon
BackerKit surveys are coming!
over 6 years ago
– Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 01:36:50 PM
This week, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and purchase add-on items if you like. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://ed-gets-his-power-back.backerkit.com.
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact support at https://ed-gets-his-power-back.backerkit.com/faq.
Thanks!
Brandon
48 hours to go!
over 6 years ago
– Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 11:50:35 AM
Hey everyone,
There are two days left in our campaign for Ed Gets His Power Back & we're getting closer to our first stretch goal! Please continue sharing our project with friends, family, & on social media so we can create tutorial videos for all STEAM Kit backers & above!
And before you go, we'd love it if you'd consider backing a few other STEM-related campaigns that we think you'll love. We've backed both of these projects & both have reached their funding goals. Consider adding your support for these projects so they can hit their stretch goals as well!
Cheers & Stay Bright!
Brandon & The Carrot Pants Crew
Projects We Love - Support these great campaigns!
Elara, STEM Girl
Do you want to help a young girl become interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and stick with it? Elara, STEM Girl empowers girls to overcome the most common obstacles that most girls face to having a lifelong love of STEM! Elara shows readers how to deal with being the minority, math anxiety, fear of failure, and stereotypes as well as learning about some amazing women in STEM.
A fun, simple, fast-paced card game where you team up with the greatest minds in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in an epic race to make discoveries. Unleash special abilities, enhance your score, and use inspiration to instantly change the game!
Ed Stretch Goals!
over 6 years ago
– Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 01:52:38 PM
Hey everyone,
We had a fun time yesterday basking in our excitement, and we remain grateful for the support and congratulations we've gotten from all of you. And welcome to new backers who've joined since yesterday!
As promised, we have a couple of stretch goals to share for the final 10 days of our campaign. Read on to find out more, and please help us reach these final milestones!
$20,000 Stretch Goal - Online Video Tutorials for all STEAM Kit Backers
If we reach $20k, we'll produce a series of video tutorials to go along with the STEAM Kit and guidebook that many of you will be receiving, and every STEAM Kit-level backer and above will receive these video tutorials for free. These short, yet professional videos will serve as a perfect compliment to the STEAM Kit and guidebook and will help kids and families go even further with the included electronics.
$25,000 Stretch Goal - Sustainable Printing & Store Discounts
If we reach $25k, we'll work with our printer to use sustainable materials in the production of the book, including the use of FSC-certified paper and soy-based ink.
In addition, at $25k, we'll give every backer of the Hardcover book level and above a 60% discount good for items in our online store, which will launch on September 28th. We're currently working on getting the store set-up and, once live, you'll be able to use this code to get a serious deal on stickers, buttons, magnets and character T-Shirts for parents and kiddos!
How you can help us reach these goals
We think both of these marks are doable in the next 9+ days, but we're going to need your help to get there!
The simplest thing you can do is to continue sharing the project, both via social media and personal messages. Please continue to tell your friends and family about our project so we can get Ed's story in the hands of as many families as possible!
Another way you can help us get to these stretch goals is to increase your pledge level to add additional books or STEAM kits. We've had several folks ask about this, so if you are interested in nabbing extra copies of the book or extra STEAM kits for the kiddos, you can do the following:
Add $20 to your pledge for each additional copy of the book you would like
Add $10 to your pledge for each additional STEAM kit you would like
To adjust your pledge, simply head to our project page (while signed into your Kickstarter account) and click the "Manage Pledge" button at the top. You can keep the same reward level, but manually adjust the amount according to the guidelines above.
