Let us know your questions for the next update.
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 05:41:43 AM
Hi guys,
Cesar here! We are working on our next update. There, we'll explain with more detail the problems we've been having with the wood. We are gathering all the information we've had, but we also want to hear your questions about these pieces and answer them in that update. If there's anything you would like to know regarding the wood parts, please post your question at the bottom of this update or send us a direct message.
Thanks for your help!
Cesar
SANDSARA into 2021
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 01:25:17 AM
Dear backers,
We've prepared a short video explaining the status of our project.
You can also read the info here:
We understand there has been a lack of communication. We are very sorry about this. Our main goal is that you receive the best product with the best quality. But now we understand how important it is also to share the project news. That’s why we’ve decided to make bi-weekly updates to give you details, hear your opinions, and receive feedback for each step we make with this project.
First of all, we won’t be able to deliver any SANDSARA this year. We are disappointed because even though we’ve been working really hard, the wood pieces still don’t meet our requirements, and the production adjustments are taking longer than expected.
As you might recall, we started by making a small batch to test the SANDSARAS. When we were testing those first units, we found many problems related to the wood pieces.
Wood is a live material; it behaves in different ways and reacts to each environment’s humidity. It can shrink and expand as the weather changes. We thought the surface treatment would be enough to prevent this, but we found a little variation in dimensions during the testing, even when they were perfect at the beginning.
This variation gives us specific challenges that we didn’t expect. We are preparing an update with all the details about them. But, if we continue producing the pieces as we had planned, every single SANDSARA would need manual adjustments and production would be divided into small batches. This will heavily impact our schedule, projecting a total fulfillment in around 18 months.
With this information, we rethought our process and saw what we could change to reduce this time and deliver the best product. Right now, we have two options:
The first option is to adjust SANDSARA’s design to use the wood case with the minimum alterations. All of our team is working really hard on implementing and testing these changes. We have many ideas now; we will add more structure to the sand bed and create an adjustable arm so the wood alterations won’t affect the mechanism. Right now, we are working on prototypes to test the new ideas, and we’ll show the results of these tests as soon as we have clear information.
This plan's production will be affected by the Chinese New Year. All our production partners will suspend their operations during February. This festivity officially lasts around a week, but at this time most of them go home and visit their family so they will be out of the office for the whole month. This means the production of these pieces won't start until March. Then this process takes around 6 months plus 1 month for delivery. Wood pieces take most of the production time, but we look for a more scalable production with the design improvements.
In parallel, we will work on our second plan: Redesign the case. We are looking for different materials and manufacturing methods that will allow us to create a better product. As we’ve said, our priority is to deliver a top-quality product, and we want to explore all the possibilities available to do that. We will also research and prototype all these alternatives during this time, having in mind how we can improve SANDSARA and shorten the delivery time.
We don't have a production plan for this process yet, since there are many open questions here, but we promise to keep you updated as we move forward with this research.
These two options are very different from what we were expecting. They changed our timelines and plans, but now we realized the best way to solve problems is to have alternatives and fast iterations.
The mechanism pieces are still in production. We already have the stock components and made the advance payments, these parts will be ready in January, but all the assembly is on hold until we achieve the quality we are expecting with the case.
We can’t promise things will go as we planned; we already learn that, but we promise you’ll always have information up to date.
Our priority is to create a first-class product, and we are willing to assume the extra work and time it takes.
We’ll be back with more news about our progress in the next update, with more info on the new challenges we face and telling you about our next steps. In the meantime, please let us know your comments about this one.
Thanks!
- THE SANDSARA TEAM
Production sneak peek...
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Nov 14, 2020 at 02:05:48 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Exciting production news!
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Nov 04, 2020 at 09:30:12 PM
Hey guys!
We have very exciting news for this update, but first we want to share a bit more of the nitty-gritty of what happens behind a Kickstarter campaign.
As consumers, we rarely get to hear about this, so we hope you will find it interesting! When a Kickstarter campaign becomes way more successful than originally expected (even more than the more optimistic scenarios), creators face a huge array of unexpected decisions.
This is because, contrary to what many people believe, the purpose of a Kickstarter campaign is NOT to make money! The purpose (as the name suggests) is to Kick-Start a project, to provide the most solid foundation and better chances of becoming a long-term success.
Of course, the best strategy for long-term success is to make the Kickstarter backers so happy with a product that they will be happy to recommend it!
So once a project receives the money, it needs to answer this question: What is the best way to use this money to give backers the best possible experience?
When a project like SANDSARA exceeds all expectations, and gets a lot more money than originally planned, the question becomes much more difficult and nuanced to answer, because we were presented with the opportunity to do SO MUCH MORE than we originally expected.
It all comes down to striking a balance between making an exceptional product, and delivering as fast as possible. The universe works in a way that ensures that you can’t have both unfortunately, great things take time. There is no way around that.
We have to admit that we miscalculated. Yes, the pandemic made some things harder and some others take a little more time than what they usually take, but in the end, the mistake is on us. We went a little too far into the "making an exceptional product" and this ended up taking more time than we would have liked.
Do we think this was the wrong decision? Honestly, no. We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished and we are 100% certain that when you receive your SANDSARA and are able to use it and interact with it, you will love it and will agree that the wait was well worth it.
We do regret that we weren't able to accomplish the same thing faster? Of course. In hindsight, there were a lot of small things we could have done to speed the development, and we will do our best to not make the same mistakes in the future.
Some of you will always find a negative way to interpret these comments, and we completely understand. Without looking at the product with your own eyes, it's hard to be convinced. That is why we are not trying to convince you, not with words anyway.
It is ok for you to remain skeptical and pound hard on us. We work hard to impress our greatest critics. We are certain you all will love SANDSARA when you receive it, but we will take the hard (and well deserved) critiques until that happens.
Having said all of that... here are the good news!
1. Final revision! After a few small tweaks and recommendations from our partners regarding the assembly, we reached the final revision a couple weeks ago. This means no more changes, and production at full force.
2. SANDSARA App development is moving along great and we should be able to invite some people to test the beta version by the end of the month!
3. We have the first molds and tooling is almost done! Tooling is always the slowest and most boring part of production, but now that it's nearly ready, parts will start rolling by the hundreds!
4. Once we reached final revision, we started ordering all of the off the shelf components. And these parts will begin to arrive every day to our assembly warehouse. Custom parts will take a little more time, but we are getting really close to the first SANDSARAS coming out of the manufacturing line!
Thanks for your support and critiques guys. All of your comments mean you care about this project and this is what inspires us every day. We really appreciate it.
Love.
- The SANDSARA Team
Revamp, from the tiniest screw to full enclosure!
over 5 years ago
– Wed, Sep 30, 2020 at 12:50:34 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
