let’s be real: there were a lotta thingsthat sucked about 2016. but when you look back on 2016 in the yearsto come, what will be the overriding memory you have? great kickstarter projects, of course.pshhh. duh. from unimaginably popular “fidget cubesâ€to some impressive gadgetry and a tremendous survivalâ horror board game, a rundown ofthe year’s hottest crowdfunding campaigns is sure to bring a smile to your face.and, if you weren’t a part of them, this video may bring about some plans for the bestway to spend any money you got for christmas! (who am i kidding, that money is long gone…)here are the best kickstarter campaigns of 2016.
vue smart glassesthe problem with google glass wasn’t that the concept was bad, so much as that no-onewanted to walk through life looking like the world’s worst undercover agent in a badespionage movie. that’s where vue smart glasses come intoplay with the revolutionary decision to offer some of the functionality of smart glasses,while looking… well, like a regular pair of specs. now why didn’t we think of that?the glasses themselves are not as smart as google glass, but the result is a lot lesstech you have to fit in a pair of thin frames. in fact, perhaps the biggest change is thatthere is no display — instead, you communicate with the device through voice. also unlikegoogle glass, the glasses do not have earbuds.
instead, the use bone conduction technologyto send sound waves as vibrations through your skull. that way, your ears are freedup for day-to-day activities and there is no unsightly earbud in your ear while youare in a meeting. vue also has a little microphone, so you canask the glasses to do things throughout the day. for example, you can ask to listen tomusic, make a phone call, and so on. kingdom deathboard games are kind of a niche thing, aren’t they? so what better way to dilute your potentialtarget audience than by combining one niche with another: in this case the horror genre?in fact, the resulting horror board game turns out to be one of the year’s biggest kickstarters— surpassing the $1 million funding mark
in just 19 minutes and currently trendingtoward $16 million. in this massive cooperative board game, survivorsfight for their lives against an “onslaught of bizarre and fearsome creatures.â€â althoughif you’re one of the 14,967 (and counting) backers, you probably knew that already.fidget cube has there been a greater underdog kickstartersuccess this year than fidget cube? an all-in-one desk toy solution that allows fidget-afflictedusers to click, roll, flip, glide, spin and any number of other fiddly verbs to theirheart’s content, fidget cube racked up a staggering $6,465,690 on kickstarter from154,926 eager users. fidget cube co-creator mark mclachlan, whoworks alongside brother matthew, told digital
trends, “we came up with the idea for fidgetcube about four years ago, when we realized that we both have a hard time sitting stilland staying focused while working on projects, other toys that are meant for fidgeting lookout of place in a professional setting. we wanted to design something that would lookgreat in any circumstance.†most amazing of all? they only asked for $15,000.to put that in perspective, that’s a bit like asking for a paper airplane kit for christmasand getting a gulfstream v. sisyphus sand tablein ancient greek mythology, the character of sisyphus, king of ephyra, is punished forhis deceitfulness by being condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain for all eternity.jump forward a couple of millennia and creator
bruce shapiro has used that story as his inspirationfor one of the coolest kickstarter projects we’ve ever seen: a table with an ever-changingautomated tabletop pattern created from sand. “sisyphus is a kinetic sculpture in whicha two-motor robot moves a magnet to pull a steel ball through a field of sand,†shapirotold digital trends. “it can also be thought of as an instrument upon which paths are played.like musical instruments, it is the combination of both the instrument and composition playedupon it which produces the art.†levitating nixie clockyou know that expression “time flies� well, it seems that scottish electronics whiztony “lasermad†adams wasn’t content to leave it as a metaphor.instead, he went out and created a steampunk-inspired
levitating clock using nixie tubes and magnets.now you can look like a mad victorian scientist and keep an eye on the time. what could bebetter than that? the base itself plugs into a wall socket,with a battery backup thatâ will keep the clock floating should a power outage occur.the floating nixie tubes are powered wirelessly courtesy of copper induction coils, whilethe time can be set either using buttons on the base, or with the aid of a smartphoneapp. “once it’s set up, it’s designed torun 24 hours per day for months or years at a time,†adams says. “it’s not likethe floating bluetooth speakers that have been on the market for a while, which needcharging up every few hours. once this clock
is properly floating it’ll keep doing soâ aslong as it’s powered.†desktop water cutterwhen you think about a machine capable of slicing through everything from stone to stainlesssteel, what do you expect it to use as aâ cutting implement?if you answered lasers, diamonds, or laser-shooting diamonds, prepare to be surprised: wazer’snew desktop cutter uses nothing more threatening than high-pressure water, combined with sand-likeabrasive particles — and it works well. “right now, there are a lot of great desktoptools, but they’re limited in terms of what they can cut,†wazer co-founder nisan lereatold digital trends. “the most widely used parallel to what we’re offering would bea desktop laser cutter, which works similarly
— only using lasers instead of water. theproblem with a desktop laser cutter is that it can only cut through soft materials, suchas wood and plastic. we’ve created aâ tool that can cut through virtually any material:steel, titanium, aluminum, stone, ceramic tiles, glass, a whole variety.â€licki brush one of the great things about kickstarterand crowdfunding in general is that entrepreneurs get to throw crazy ideas out to the publicand see who bites, without a middleman to shoot them down before they reach an audience.one of these projects, which may never have seen the light of day in a previous age, islicki: a tongue-like, silicone-brush which lets users bond with their feline friendsby “licking†them. it sounds, frankly,
insane — but the company claims that ownerswill quickly “ease into the soothing and mutually beneficial licking behavior of cats.â€â apparently2,022 backers were convinced. universe in a spheresome kickstarter projects offer practical solutions to problems we face in our own lives,like faster ways to lace shoes, for example. others are just there to give us somethingamazing to gawp at. this second category is where the “the universe in a sphere†sits.a glass sphere, containing 380,000 perfectly lasered dots representing a 3d reproductionof much of the observable universe, this is breathtaking stuff. the campaign is stillrunning, but already it’s cleared its funding target thanks to contributions from over 2,500backers.
“at first i felt a little overwhelmed bythe huge success of the campaign,†creator clemens steffin told digital trends. “itwould be quite stressful — were it not for the lovely comments, heartwarming messagesand uplifting words from backers all over the world.†maslow cnc3d printing is all well and good, but there are plenty of other fabrication tools thatexist in the ‘maker’ space — many of which are becoming more and more affordableby the day. one such product category areâ cnc cutting machines, which make cutting woodfaster, easier and more accurate thanks to the use of computers to control the cuttingprocess. that’s where new kickstarter campaign
maslow comes into play.“maslow is a machine which lets you design things on the computer and then it cut themout of a 4ã—8-foot sheet of plywood,†co-creator bar smith told digital trends. “think ‘3dprinter for things made from plywood.’†cnc machines aren’t new, but at just $350per kit, this costs a fraction of the $20,000 – $300,000 price tag comparable factorykits come with. spud collapsible monitorif you are someone who spends lots of time on the go for work or play, chances are you,at some point or another, find yourself missing the size of your tv or desktop monitor whenyou are on the road. enter spud, the world’s first collapsible high-resolution monitor.spud (short for spontaneousâ pop-up display)
is designed for individuals who constantlyfind themselves traveling for work, or with a need to set up larger mobile screens withoutlugging around full-sized computer monitors. the new kickstarter project was initiallylooking to get around $33,000 in funding but has already seen that blown past with 44 daysstill remaining in the campaign. provided it has the resolution and color accuracyclaimed, this should be a dream come true for photographers and creatives who want morethan a tablet or laptop screen when they’re
target market for 3d printing,on the go. well there you have it: the 10 best kickstartersfrom 2016. subscribe for more videos like this! if you like this video, share it withyour friends. if you didn’t like it, share
it with them anyway. thanks for watching,and i’ll see you in our next video.
