Amazing C.H.I.P.sters!!!
Typed words can only express so much. We’d much rather show you how thankful we are for your overwhelming support and encouragement throughout the last month. Over 50,000 C.H.I.P.s! Over 15,000 PocketC.H.I.P.s! And more importantly, almost 40,000 backers! We still can’t believe there are SO MANY C.H.I.P.STERS!! You are really the best! \(•◡•)/ <3
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
First, Kickstarter needs to transfer the campaign pledge funds (which can take up to 2 weeks) so we can start to place those high-volume component orders. Kickstarter will charge your credit card and collect your pledge. It’s possible that the transaction may be declined due to an expired card, insufficient funds, or safety measures that require you to contact your card provider before payment can be completed. If this is the case, Kickstarter will send an automatic email to alert you.Please keep an eye open for any payment issues via email from Kickstarter.
Second, we have to find out what add-ons and accessories you want and where you want us to ship them. We will be sending our BackerKit survey out to collect this information after Kickstarter pledges have been cleared and transferred.
We will give you a heads up before we send the survey so you can watch for it. It is important that when you receive the survey, you get it back to us as quickly as you can. Our ability to order the right quantities of parts depends on receiving this information from all of you ASAP. Don’t worry — we’ll round up on quantities. 🙂
You do not need to make a login and password to fill out your survey, just fill it out and you’re all good to go!
If you use your Facebook login for your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit invite will be sent to the email you used for your Facebook account. If you have another email you prefer it to be sent to, please email support@backerkit.com.
Remember: You’ll receive an email for a BackerKit survey in approximately two weeks. BackerKit allows you to confirm your reward selection, add on accessories, and update your shipping info.
_____________________________
PRE-ORDERS
We won’t be accepting pre-orders for now — Finding our early adopters is what the Kickstarter campaign was for! Y’all are our community and we want to make sure you’re taken care of first and foremost. Preorders will open once we’ve made headway into fulfilling your pledges. To sign up for preorder announcements and general mailing list goodness, visit nextthing.co. Also, to clear up a little confusion: when preorders do open up, thanks to your support and encouragement right now, C.H.I.P. will still be $9.
DEVELOPMENT
- Next Things in Hardware: We’re finalizing design revisions for C.H.I.P., PocketC.H.I.P., and the video adapters. As dimensions, pin-outs, and specifications firm up, we will be posting updates on our website and message board. Ultimately, we’ll be releasing source files around the time our Alpha boards are ready and cleared to send to Kernel Hacker backers. It’s a long road of design decisions, testing, certifications, testing, more testing, and testing again. Then trying it out with 1,000 brave kernel-hacking souls, tweaking the hardware design as we learn things from the alpha testers, and doing the testing and certifications all over again. It’s not going to be an easy next 4 months, but with your amazing support behind us, we can’t wait to get started!
- Next Things in Software: We are preparing Linux to boot right off C.H.I.P.’s solid state memory and starting to get our favorite programs running happily on C.H.I.P. In order to support all of C.H.I.P.’s features, we will be putting a lot of programming work into building and managing drivers. Thankfully, we are not alone in the effort! We are super excited to start working with the experienced code warriors at Free Electrons and the amazing ARM Linux community.
STAY TUNED!
The PocketC.H.I.P. design video is just a start. We want the process of bringing C.H.I.P. to you to be as open as possible. Moving forward, we’ll be posting updates and videos along the way so you can watch C.H.I.P. become reality. Follow along on Kickstarter or on twitter (@nextthingco).
Big shout out to the reddit community, alive and active atreddit.com/r/chipcommunity
and our fan site ( \(•◡•)/ ) thechipguys.com.
JUST TO REITERATE…
WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WONDERFUL CHIPSTERS.
We were all buzzing with excitement for months leading up to the campaign and it’s been awesome to finally share with everyone! You’ve all been absolutely fantastic. Thank you for helping us make this possible. This is an amazing start to a very exciting journey and we’re so excited to have you with us!
\(•◡•)/ – Dave, Gus, Thomas, Wynter, Sharps, Vanessa, Alex, George, and Richard (AKA everyone at @nextthingco)
P.S. – Here are a few of our favorite campaign snapshots!