Hasta La Ideas

News: a project to bring cheap and easy-to-build mine detonators to Afghan minefields has just nine days left to raise the final $14,000 of its $100,000 goal on crowdfunding website Kickstarter.

Conceived by Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Massoud Hassani, who grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, Mine Kafon is made of bamboo and biodegradable plastic, and rolls along the ground like tumbleweed.

Light enough to be propelled by the wind, the detonator is also heavy enough to set off mines as it rolls over them with its round feet, as Hassani explains in this movie filmed by Dezeen at the Design Academy Eindhoven My Way talks in Milan last year (below).

“Every ball has GPS navigation integrated into it,” he says. “You can see the balls on the internet, so you can see where they went and how many mines they touched. You can also select an area and it will calculate how safe the area is.”

With each detonation the Mine Kafon loses only a few legs, so it can destroy three or four landmines in one journey. The construction is modular so components that return in one piece can easily be reused and sent out again.

Hassani’s team is hoping to raise $100,000 through Kickstarter to cover the cost of engineering, fabrication and transportation to an affected region, as well as making a short documentary.

Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort commented on Mine Kafon during her Dezeen Live talk during London Design Festival last year, noting that the design originated from a paper toy Hassani had played with in his youth. “It’s a mine killer, but it’s completely organic and very cheap,” she said, adding, “it’s very beautiful how a childhood toy can become such an amazing device.”

The design made the shortlist of the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year 2012 and has also been acquired by MoMA in New York, where it will be exhibited from March.

Above: Hassani introduces Mine Kafon in this movie for Kickstarter

We’ve featured many projects launched on Kickstarter, including squishy headgear that lets you take a power nap wherever you are and a watch strap for an iPod Nano that raised $1 million on the crowdfunding website.

See all our stories about Kickstarter »
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Photographs are by Massoud Hassani.

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By Edward Betts (Own work.) via Wikimedia Commons

It seems like every day the editors at Core77 receive at least a dozen pleas from designers who have elected to get on the hamster wheel of crowdfunding. In fact, it’s become so ubiquitous, we’ve dedicated a whole category to kickstarting designs. Undoubtedly, 2012 is the year that crowdfunding went mainstream, but now that it’s firmly established as a viable way to start a project or business, it’s going to start maturing. Don Lehman, Core77 contributor and author of our series, The Crowdfunding Revolution, identifies a few areas of growth for 2013:

• A deeper understanding by Backers of what Crowdfunding is really about (Crowdfunding is not Amazon. You’re supporting a journey, not buying a product. Delays are part of the journey.)
• A deeper understanding by Creators of what Crowdfunding is really about (It’s not winning the lottery, it’s winning the opportunity to not sleep for months on end.)
• Better rules to protect both Project Creators and Backers: With Kickstarter’s rendering ban and the launch of new product-specific crowdfunding sites like Christie Street and Ideacious in the mix, we look forward to see if a more defined playing field will yield better products.

Core77 editor hipstomp has a slightly more pessimistic view on what the Kickstarter rendering ban might mean for designers: “[The ban] really reinforces the fact that just as we think the general public is finally beginning to understand our profession, turns out they ain’t.”

But despite the general uncertainty for the future of crowdfunded products, here are some of our favorite crowdfunded projects from 2012:

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Managing to both blend in and stand out at once, the Transparent Speaker from industrial design studio People People takes an unconventional approach to home sound systems—and we love it. Based in the undeniable design capital of Stockholm, Sweden, the creative crew of designers and strategists have dissected the…

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Images and text courtesy of Sparse

With just a few days left in the Kickstarter campaign, Colin Owen, Jerome Daksiewicz and Remy Labesque’s Sparse bicycle light has readily surpassed its funding goal by 30%. The product certainly merits the support of urban cyclists the world over: the clever anti-theft mechanism and sleek aesthetic mark welcome innovations in the densely-packed bicycle light category, a practical safety device in a stylish package. While we do hope to spread the word about the crowdfunding campaign in this eleventh hour, we were also curious about where they’re going from here. Sparse obliged with a short history of the company.

Rage. Questions. Biking.

We sat down two years ago to work on some unspecified “bicycle project.” After the requisite round of takeout and beer, we brought out the sketches. The first drawing on the table depicted a samurai sword tucked in a handlebar. The second was some sort of bomb that would release spiders, nerve gas or something even worse, locked and loaded inside a seatpost. We laughed. The designer didn’t. He was angry.

Remy had just had his second Brooks saddle stolen. Brooks, for the uninitiated, are nice: real English leather crafted by tweedy elves or Mr. Brooks’ great great grandson or something (check the mythology here). More importantly, the leather span of the saddle breaks in to your body—and your body, very sensitive parts of your body, to it. Poor Remy. He had logged the hours and miles and probably no small amount of salve. He had the perfect saddles (for him). Now that effort was for naught. He didn’t have the object. The earned comfort was forever gone. Could he even start over after such a tragedy?

Once the initial teasing subsided, the real discussion began. What’s the difference between the long weekend rides and our daily grind to and from work and around the city? What parts of that urban commute are really frustrating? What’s out there that is just excellent for this urban routine? Why is it good? What objects associated with urban biking grow in value and emotional connection? Why? Why is all of the functional safety stuff so ugly? Why is every high-end bike product optimized for efficiency in racing? Who is it that’s riding? What are the opportunities here?

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Lady Justice, ironically 3D-printed on a Cubify by Trompevenio

Well folks, it was just a matter of time: Kickstarter is being sued.

The plaintiff isn’t a disgruntled pledger who didn’t get what they paid for, but none other than 3D Systems, the company behind the Cubify 3D printer.

The first target in 3D Systems’ crosshairs is Formlabs, the company behind the FORM 1 3D printer, which created quite the Kickstarter stir by garnering nearly $3 million in pledges. Says the press release of the lawsuit,

“3D Systems invented and pioneered the 3D printing technology of stereolithography and has many active patents covering various aspects of the stereolithography process,” said Andrew Johnson, General Counsel of 3D Systems. “Although Formlabs has publicly stated that certain patents have expired, 3D Systems believes the Form 1 3D printer infringes at least one of our patents, and we intend to enforce our patent rights.”

Okay, so why the hell are they suing Kickstarter? The full 12-page legalese-filled text of their complaint (which Wired has posted here) deems Kickstarter a “funds raiser and selling agent of Formlabs,” thus putting them in the crosshairs. Here’s a relevant excerpt from the complaint:

Upon information and belief, Kickstarter knowingly or with willful blindness induced and continues to induce infringement and possessed specific intent to encourage another’s infringement by, or was willfully blind as to the ‘520 Patent and with respect to, its activities and Formlabs’ activities described above.

…The foregoing acts of patent infringement by Kickstarter has caused, and unless enjoined by this Court, will continue to cause, immediate and irreparable injury and damage to 3D Systems, and 3D Systems has no adequate remedy at law.

It’s going to take a good lawyer (and maybe a psychic) to tell us what this may mean for Kickstarter, but the prognosis is probably not good.

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