I have no idea what you said outside of the following:
Block A
Lights up white
Turns Blue
May play the fight song

So with that, I would get 1 or 17.


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If you build it, they will come...I'm in for a few, as stated above, these would be awesome gifts for Aggie fans.

This would take care of an entire Christmas for me. I would buy one for myself, one for each of my two Aggie daughters, one for my Aggie sister, one for my Aggie cousin.....

and one for each of my two Cougar cousins...

My pocketbook is ready to good when you are...

I've talked to a couple people who have done both successful and unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns. They all said I should have a complete prototype of what I am proposing before starting the Kickstarter. Almost none of their Kickstarter campaigns have been funded without a semi-polished version of what they are proposing. So, the Kickstarter might not go live for about another 30-45 days while I get that taken care of. The goal will still be to start shipping by the start of the football season, though I might not have them all shipped by then.

However, I will have a lot better pictures at that point, including some that more accurately show the scale of it (I didn't want people thinking it was huge when it really will be about 4in x 4in x 4in).

If you were able to add a few LED's to the larger version I'd pay more for that one as well. I'm sure others would have the same stance.

In short, if they both lit up, I'd get both.

treesap32 wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:08 pm

If you were able to add a few LED's to the larger version I'd pay more for that one as well. I'm sure others would have the same stance.

In short, if they both lit up, I'd get both.

What do you mean by larger one? Was there somewhere back through this thread that I talked about making a full-size cement one?!?!? I don't remember that, but I could have said it.

jpswensen wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:15 pm

treesap32 wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:08 pm

If you were able to add a few LED's to the larger version I'd pay more for that one as well. I'm sure others would have the same stance.

In short, if they both lit up, I'd get both.

What do you mean by larger one? Was there somewhere back through this thread that I talked about making a full-size cement one?!?!? I don't remember that, but I could have said it.

jpswensen wrote: ↑I have thought about adding one more reward level that was about $150 and is an 11in x 11in x 9.5in Aggie Block A. This wouldn't have the electronics, but would be quite a bit bigger than the 3in x 3in x 3in electronic version that I am proposing.

ProvoAggie wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:18 pm

jpswensen wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:15 pm

treesap32 wrote: ↑

April 6th, 2018, 1:08 pm

If you were able to add a few LED's to the larger version I'd pay more for that one as well. I'm sure others would have the same stance.

In short, if they both lit up, I'd get both.

What do you mean by larger one? Was there somewhere back through this thread that I talked about making a full-size cement one?!?!? I don't remember that, but I could have said it.

jpswensen wrote: ↑I have thought about adding one more reward level that was about $150 and is an 11in x 11in x 9.5in Aggie Block A. This wouldn't have the electronics, but would be quite a bit bigger than the 3in x 3in x 3in electronic version that I am proposing.

I forgot saying that. The problem with adding the electronics to the large topper is that in order to get the lighting near the edges, you have to make the printed circuit board bigger (or make multiple small ones and wire them together, which is a pain). Since most of the board space on this is wasted anyway (there are really only 5 LEDs and a microcontroller board), going up to a board that is 9" x 9" bumps the PCB price up to about $15 ea in smaller quantities. I might also need to add more LEDs to have it uniformly lit. It would also multiple the amount of 3D printed material. That being said, I could probably actually add it as an option in the $70 range. The $150 amount I originally said is probably more than it needs to be. I want to make this worth my time, but I don't want to gouge people.

I had even though about adding a really expensive reward level where I deliver a full-size cement one with weatherized LED strips and weatherized control box (you would still need to figure out how to wire it up to your house power and have it close enough to your home Wifi router for signal). I'm not sure exactly how much to charge for this one as making the original rubber molds for casting the cement, experimenting with getting the cement dyed the right color, figuring out if I need rebar or if straight cement is OK, etc. is another non-trivial undertaking, even though some of the electronics would be shared. I would ask people here what they would be willing to pay for a full-size replica.

A larger version for $100 would probably be bought by a few Big Ballers️ like myself and buckfever. Sap might have to cut it down to 8 vacations a year, but I bet he would get a couple.


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I love it. I've been up in the A tower quite a bit lately myself working on a public safety IOT project. Would it be easier to set these up so that they light blue based on when the AD flips the switch or to have it based on an event listener watching for scoreboard updates?

Ahbye wrote:I love it. I've been up in the A tower quite a bit lately myself working on a public safety IOT project. Would it be easier to set these up so that they light blue based on when the AD flips the switch or to have it based on an event listener watching for scoreboard updates?

Having it light up based on the Old Main switch would require some coordination with USU. Currently the plan is to have it look directly at score from a sport website or have it poll a server I set up (which in turn is looking at score from a sport website).

I will probably do the latter so that if the sports website changes, I don’t have to have everyone update their software on the device.

Also, there will be a menu when setting up the device through a web browser that lets you pick which sports you want to trigger the A blue


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jpswensen wrote: ↑

April 10th, 2018, 4:31 am

Ahbye wrote:I love it. I've been up in the A tower quite a bit lately myself working on a public safety IOT project. Would it be easier to set these up so that they light blue based on when the AD flips the switch or to have it based on an event listener watching for scoreboard updates?

Having it light up based on the Old Main switch would require some coordination with USU. Currently the plan is to have it look directly at score from a sport website or have it poll a server I set up (which in turn is looking at score from a sport website).

I will probably do the latter so that if the sports website changes, I don’t have to have everyone update their software on the device.

Also, there will be a menu when setting up the device through a web browser that lets you pick which sports you want to trigger the A blue


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Ah, I see. I had just noticed that the network hub in the tower could easily have either an IOT switch placed up there or just add to the script they use to change it to turn them on and off. Of course, that takes control out of your hands, but the drawback to watching scores is that some of our women's scores don't get updated very quickly.

Woohoooo I got a shoutout in the Kickstarter! I am one hell of an idea man... haha. Thanks for your work so far Swensen!

One step closer. I got my first prototype boards back an here are some photos. I realized too late that I had one through hole too close to the surface mount pad for the LEDs. Because I was trying to solder here at home with a soldering iron (instead of solder paste and an oven), I messed that pad up and had to run a patch cable. I will fix that through hole problem on the next revision of the board.

I also am going to add another button that let's people reset their device to the factory defaults if their WiFi router information changes.

I also tested, and this will be able to run either from the 5 volts from USB or through a 5V wall outlet transformer (I have to buy the UL certifies ones, as talked about earlier). The Kickstarter will ship with the 5V wall transformer, but not a USB cable.







Getting closer to kicking off the Kickstarter. I do want to finish up the enclosure and the topper to have a semi-finished prototype product before the Kickstarter goes live.

Seriously, I just need to know where to send the money and how soon I can expect my prize.

NVAggie wrote:Seriously, I just need to know where to send the money and how soon I can expect my prize.

Same here


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Bump.

Bump!

The kickstarter is LIVE!!!

I'm stoked man. Good timing on your part!

toroazzurro wrote: ↑

March 22nd, 2019, 12:31 pm

I'm stoked man. Good timing on your part!

I almost missed getting it approved before the tournament game. When I initially submitted, I didn't have the language in there indicating I had already been communicating with the USU licensing office. They said that preliminary information concerning a licensed logo is a must for approval.

YES!

Well, we just hit 20% funded after about 5 days of the Kickstarter being live. Thanks to everyone who has supported. There was an initial big jump, but now only about 2 new backers per day for the past three days.

If anyone is willing, I would appreciate a share on your Facebook or Twitter pages. There are links one the Kickstarter page to share via Facebook and Twitter (see the red circle in the image below).



I tried Tweeting out to a bunch of the USU professional athletes trying to convince them that it would be an awesome addition to their locker, but haven't had any responses/takers yet.

I am willing to take other suggestion on how to keep the ball rolling!

I signed up for two and I think Facebook Messenger has blocked me as a spammer for sharing.

Let's get some more of those $100 backers!

This is how we used to do it at the Sigma Chi House! It lasted about 3 hours and the entire Valley could see it. It was a wonderful tradition that had to end due to housing growth getting too close.

Well, quick update (though it isn't looking great). There was a nice push in the first 6 days to almost 20% funded. However, it has slowed down a lot. In the last 6 days it has only climbed from 20% to 29%. It is getting quite a bit of traffic on Facebook, and there was a bump when aggies22 and others tweeted it out, but not as many takers as I had hoped.

Hopefully there are a bunch of people who jump in late, but as it stands the likelihood of getting funded isn't looking great. I had thought about setting it at $3500-4000, but that would have just covered the cost of prototyping and final bill of materials.

Is there any way to extend the campaign? A little more time might help even if it means the finished product isn't ready for football season.

What would it cost to make a finished prototype of the pedestal without the electronic guts?

Having a picture of what it would actually look like (even if it doesn't work yet) might help market it faster than the image of the rough print with the breadboard.

BearLakeMonster wrote: ↑

April 3rd, 2019, 9:02 pm

Is there any way to extend the campaign? A little more time might help even if it means the finished product isn't ready for football season.

What would it cost to make a finished prototype of the pedestal without the electronic guts?

Having a picture of what it would actually look like (even if it doesn't work yet) might help market it faster than the image of the rough print with the breadboard.

I could probably print up the final enclosure that I have CAD for to give a better feel for what the final product will look like. I will probably still have to iterate a time or two to get it right, but should be able to have it done with around 10-12 days left.

Thanks for the suggestion! It will make a good update to both the Kickstarter page and the Facebook page.

BearLakeMonster wrote:Is there any way to extend the campaign?

I forgot to answer this question. The answer is “no”. Once you pick a Kickstarter length, you can’t change it. In all of their prep literature, they recommend against things longer than 30 days and presented statistics showing correlation between longer times and lack of funding. So, I picked 30 days.

Thanks for the info JP.

Then it is up to us! We must go forth and spread the word!

We got a nice feature on a popular website called engineering.com

https://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdg ... oming.aspx

Only 5 days left. We have made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go. I have had a couple people contact me and say they are willing to bump it over the top if it gets closer, so please share to everyone you know (and get one yourself) so that we can make it!