The Intro
'ARE YOU WHEEL?' is an ambitious project that aims to transform the multi-purpose and sustainable kitchen device R2B2 into a market ready product whilst involving your skills and ideas in the design process. Our dream is to make kitchen and household devices more sustainable, more environmentally-friendly and more independent from costly energy sources giving us a greener, less cluttered world.
The Story
Every task in the kitchen has its own associated appliance - grinding coffee, chopping herbs, mixing drinks - which means that as products break down, give up or simply go out of fashion then our electronic waste mountain grows ever higher.
With a desire to counteract this trend, Christoph Thetard concentrated on the design and production of sustainable appliances for his final year project at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. His mission was not to make electronic devices more 'environmentally friendly' but to eradicate the electronic element entirely.
R2B2 stands for a new generation of multifunctional, sustainable kitchen devices. Containing kitchen utensils, a coffee grinder and a hand blender the machine is built from easy to maintain, hard-wearing materials. It is highly functional yet due to its simple construction it can easily be dismantled, cleaned and serviced. The machine's aesthetic is simple, natural and timeless. Most importantly it couldn't be easier to use; chopping herbs, grating cheese or mixing cocktails can all be accomplished with a just a few pedal kicks.
The heart of the machine is a manually-powered flywheel which not only drives the appliances but also acts as an energy storage device.
The coffee grinder functions as both a mill and storage for the beans. It features a porcelain mill and two glass containers; a 300g-capacity storage unit for the beans and storage for the ground coffee.
The mixer is a multi-functional item and aims to do as many jobs as possible using the least number of parts. The interchangeable utensils include knife blades, a whisk and different adapters for slicing, blending and chopping.
The hand blender has a number of interchangeable heads ranging from a cappuccino creamer to an egg beater, an ice-crusher to a vegetable mixer.
'ARE YOU WHEEL?' is a both a marketing tool and a forum. We want to develop a ready-to-market machine with standard attachments included whilst at the same time opening up the process to the public, encouraging them to join us with their own ideas and suggestions. We want to harness the power of the crowd and let people's
imaginations run wild; however they want to use their
wheel we will try and bring it to life together!
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The Impact
Our dream is to revolutionise the way we think about kitchen and other household devices, making them more sustainable, environmentally friendly and ultimately independent from electricity - worldwide!
R2B2 will help to reduce greenhouse gas emission by its characteristics in many ways:
- Electricity will be avoided totally
- No electrical waste will be produced
- Reducing CO2 emmission due local production
R2B2 will be environmental friendly and sustainable in usage, production, packaging and distribution.
We will also implement a transparent system that allows our customers to comprehend their savings in CO2 before buying and while using our product. Additional a crowdsourcing and customization approach ensures that only attachments are produced which are demanded by the costumers.
What We Need
$$Bling!Bling!Bling!Bling!Bling!Bling!$$R2B2 is at the moment a fully functional first prototype that needs to be to developed further to be a ready to market product. The development will concentrate on the driving unit and the attachments. Therefore we need highly specialized knowledge in engineering and machine-building. We already negotiated with some partners who are abled and willing to develop both including all necessary certificates. We also got a very "supportive" proposal way down below the marketprize but it is still a lot of money for us. Let us show you what we are talking about:
Driving Unit
- Analysis (Calculations, Construction,Drawings): 13.480$
- Re-design (Clutch, Gear, ...): 17.830$
- Documentation (Drawings, Certificates): 7.640$
Attachments
- Analysis (Calculations, Construction,Drawings): 10.610$
- Re-design (Gearing, Shape, ...): 9.400$
- Documentation (Drawings, Certificates): 2.120$
Total Investment for Product Development:
61.080$Duration: 7-8 months
This is bunch of Gold and there are no costs whatsoever included for Legals, Office, Stamps, Petfood or what else we will need to set up all structures for our market entry. We calculated that our investments during the next 10 month will be around
100.000$ (min.). Even so we are dreamers we are not totally naiv and know that that this is not a sum we are talking about here. We will put all our energy and money in the project and want to concentrate on a perfect product first. We want to start but we need your help to do so. We think with around
35.000$ support we would be abled to to give a final go for further developments and it would also be a sign that there are enough people out there who believe in us, our product and our general approach!
Let us start together, now!
UPDATE 14.9. 2011
There are some questions about what happens with the money if we don't reach our goal:
We will put ALL the money into further developments and use the remaining time searching for other possibilities to get funded. We are doing this anyways because as mentioned above even 35.000$ is just about the half the money we need. Our technical partner offered us the opportunity to develope our product further step by step in case we can't provide all the money at ones. So every dollar counts :)!
Remaining questions? --> hello@areyouwheel.com
What You Get
We have a problem! As we mentioned above it will take a longer period and a lot of money to develop R2B2. As for now we can not tell any exactly date of relase neither how much R2B2 will finally cost. That's why we decided we wanna be honest and not make you believe that if you support us now you will get R2B2 as a Reward delivered next week. That's is just not possible at the moment. BUT we are young and we are free and we have a lot of other really nice stuff you will get and which also will integrate you more into our project.
First of all we launch our own
"Wall of Fame" on our site dedicated to all our supporters. We also designed some nice
Cards and Posters and every piece will be produced with our own hands. Some of our rewards get contributed by some other young german designers who are supporting our project:
"The Gehsammler & The PUPAS" (see pictures below). Furthermore we will give some of you access to our
"Inner Circle" to participate in future developments. We will also host "
The Workshop" in Germany and therefore were able to get some interesting speaker. If you are really crazy about us we will fly you in to our
R2B2 Releaseparty in (hopefully) 2012.
Additional everybody will get some future discount on our product depending on the total amount spend. The more mony you spend the more discount you will get, on both the machine as well as the attachments. How much the discount will be we will tell you as soon as we know our exactly costs. We promise!
The Gehsammler and The PUPAS
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P.S. We will upload addtional information about our rewards on our blog the next days!
Other Ways You Can Help
1. Spread the word!!!!!!
If you like our project please tell your family, friends and enemies about us. Become a fan on Facebook and follow us on our Blog and via Twitter. If you know about some interesting Blogs, Magazines or TV-Shows we should be a part of feel free to contact us or give us a lead. Merci!
2. Support!
We want to expand our team and are searching for like-minded
people to join us. We are seeking people with expertise in PR,
Marketing, Controlling, Law, Engineering, Copywriting and Graphic Design. If you have other passions and skills and would like to help us realize our dream then please feel free to get in touch, too.
Contact: indiegogo@areyouwheel.com
Thank you for supporting our dream!
Be real - be wheel!
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