Lasercut Braille Materials
64 Oz. Games already offers a wide variety of braille materials and have be constantly increasing our line of products. We are already the world leader in providing ways for blind users to access the hobby board gaming market.
We feel that in order to reach the next level in our production we could use a lasercutter. Our business model relies on printing products on demand and having tools like these allow us to create the items after a customer has ordered them. Lasercutters are excellent at rapid prototyping and producing small runs of products both of which is essential for our business.
We've found what we believe to be an excellent deal on a lasercutter and we want to make it a reality. We are asking for small $5 donations to help fund our project.
Some ideas that we use the lasercutter for include...
- Create custom tactile replacement pieces for various board games. This will help distinguish pieces that are only different in color.
- Create a lasercut version of some of our products such as our braille puzzle blocks to increase efficiency and reduce cost.
- Create additional RPG materials such as lasercut structures for use with our tactile grids.
- Increase detail on some of our thermoformed creations
- Rapid prototyping of games using blind as a mechanic similar to our existing Yoink game.
Why IndieGoGo?
Our previous projects have used Kickstarter and not IndieGoGo. Changing platforms is an intentional choice on our part because this project is less about a particular end game product and more about giving us the capacity to make more very cool things.
By not providing the physical rewards that we've done in our previous Kickstarters we hope to be able to hit the ground running creating new prototype things right away. With both our previous Kickstarter campaigns it was almost a year before any of the products that we produced were in the store. This was because we had to fulfill the rewards for our backers before we could put up the new products. We hope to have things produced with the lasercutter available much sooner.
What if we go over the goal?
The community has been very supportive in the past and we have been fortunate in far exceeding our initial goals in both of our Kickstarter campaigns. While we don't expect this to be the case here for a couple reasons including the lack of physical rewards we could see it possibly happening. The goal that we set was to purchase the lasercutter but it is by no means the only cost that we will be facing with this project.
In order to safely house the lasercutter for instance we will have to replace our garage doors which leak terribly. We will need to put in new vents to the garage and a cooling system so that I can actually work out there in summer. We also will have to buy materials to cut and have a supply ready for when orders do come in.
If we far exceed the goal we would put it to other projects further down the line such as upgrading our embosser to improve the quality of braille produced or getting new tools to create tactile stickers in different ways.
What if we don't reach the goal?
We have some options for making this happen even if we get very little support but those options will limit our ability to do other projects concurrently. It isn't dire and you don't need to feel guilt to contribute. We're going to make this happen... but that doesn't mean we're not too proud to ask for help.
Who is 64 Oz. Games?
For the last 3 years 64 Oz. Games has introduced games to the blind community through two successful Kickstarter campaigns. It is run by Richard and Emily Gibbs. Richard is a board game lover and a life skills teacher. Emily is a Teacher of Blind Students and an expert in braille and accessibility.
Our first campaign focused on modern board games. We were able to create accessibility kits that allowed blind and sighted players to play board games together with over 14 different titles within the scope of the Kickstarter. This also allowed us to open our store. Since then we've expanded it to over 100 different games that were not previously available in Braille.
Our second campaign focused on creating RPG dice. This project gave us access to a brand new 3d printer, a CNC mill for creating tactile grids and a thermoforming machine to allow us to make transparent overlays for board games.
Using a lasercutter is something that we have some experience with from different hacker spaces. They are finky beasts though and often require a lot of maintenance. It is possible that we could get a lemon or it could require more work that we realize now. We could also discover this laser doesn't meet the demands that we are placing on it.
We've experienced this with our 3d printers and have done a lot of repairs on them during both of our Kickstarters.
We already have some experience working with lasercutters and have made some products with them in the past. We are familiar with the technology and it's pitfalls and if things go badly we know many experts on lasercutters as well that we can contact for advice and guidance such as our (kind of) local Houston hacker space, the good folks at Daft Creations or The Broken Token.
Other Ways You Can Help
Even if you can't contribute consider spreading the word. Share and like our posts on Facebook, Retweet and favorite our posts on Twitter and just tell people who you think might be interested.
