Let's Bring the Nyan Cat to Life

You know when you love a meme so much, you just need to turn it into a giant, mobile music-and-light show that roves around the desert serving free pastries?

Yeah. We’re right there with you. 

The Astro Cats are on a quest to launch one of the internet’s most iconic and lovable memes off the screen and into earth’s most extra-planetary playground: Burning Man. 

Your support is mission critical to bringing this magnificent dream into reality.

Who are The Astro Cats anyway?

Founded the same year the Nyan Cat blew up the internet, The Astro Cats have been bringing our space-cat obsession to the Nevada desert for the last 6 years. We are a motley crew of mischievous kitties led by an astronomer in cat tights, and we couldn’t be more excited to build our first art car. 

What’s an “art car” anyway?

The Nyan Car is a 7500 pound, 20 foot long, 8.5 foot tall, 10 foot wide two-faced mutant vehicle with 280+ square feet of plexiglass pixels powered by 7,000 full-range RGB triple-LED bulbs and a 2,000-watt generator, all built on top of a modified 4x4 pickup truck. With 1,800 fully-programmable pixels animating non-stop, and a 500-watt speaker system pumping Nyan-Cat inspired dance music, the Nyan Car will be a psychedelic late-night multimedia experience on four hot wheels. 

Our Nyan Car fits within the cherished Burning Man tradition of "art cars": mobile, interactive works of multimedia art. Some include sound-stages; others shoot fire. Art cars have reignited a sense of childlike wonder and joy in our lives, and we’d be honored to bring that sensation of awe and excitement to others.

Art cars must pass a stringent review and be licensed by the Department of “Mutant” Vehicles (DMV) before they can drive at Burning Man. We’ve already received DMV approval, made detailed 3D renderings and calculations, and determined and priced out our materials down to the millimeter.

All that remains is to fund, order, and build. 

But how do I wear this?

As a reward for your generous support, we are collaborating with The Fitz (http://www.fitztastic.com/) to develop Nyantastic merchandise that you’d be proud to bring home and introduce to your mom. We've designed an awesome suite of original Nyan-inspired limited-edition art that will be produced only for this fundraiser: 

Andrew Fitzpatrick original Round 3" Nyan Car Sticker ($10 -- $9 to the project -- $1 for the sticker!)

"I Backed the Nyan Car" Bumper Sticker -- share your Nyan Car pride! ($10 -- $8 to the project -- $2 for the sticker)

Andrew Fitzpatrick original design Trucker Hat ($50 -- $38 to the project -- $12 for the hat!)

Andrew Fitzpatrick original design Tank Top in Navy ($60 -- $40 to the project, $20 for the shirt!)

The Crew Behind this Madness

• Tuelin: Solderer-in-chief, ambassador to Germany, official Parks & Rec liaison
• Kevin: Video & audio guru, sound magician, safety meeting coordinator
• Jody:  Pole acrobat, aerialist, back-bender, crazy cat lady
• Roady: Nikola Tesla of the Playa, AC/DC king, bringer of light
• Ben: Mixologist-in-chief, Poet Laureate, social media maven
• John: LED master, wire-webber, psychedelic color crafter
• Nick: CAD wizard, gearhead, bolt badass, engineer extraordinaire!
• Sasha: Voice of the Movement, hustler, swami-in-training
• Leo: Sommelier, mechanic, bearded engine-whisperer
• Scott: DJ, male model, table-spinner
• Justin: Wild kitty of the Eastern Sierras, hunter-gatherer, man-beast
• Niko: Materials sourcerer, Photoshop & 3D-monkey, schwag design, logistics

Budget & Goals

We have received additional donated materials -- a generator, Raspberry Pi, truck rack, moving trailer, on-playa repair kit, and prototype materials -- meaning our final budget to build the full Nyan Car is $8,700, net of fees and costs of delivering fundraising rewards.  If we hit our $8,000 IndieGoGo target we estimate we will be within $1,000-2,000 of our total needs now.  If we can get to $10,000 we should have everything we need to build the Nyan Car!

We've purchased our LEDs ($2,025), a PixelPusher ($130), Plywood ($750).  We buy our steel and plexiglass this WEEK!!

​Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I give to this instead of charity?

We think of this question as another form of a question posed about Burning Man in general: What space is there, in a world with real concerns and deprivations, for the temporal and monetary expenditures of something so "frivolous"?

For one, we hope and believe that these things are not mutually exclusive. The money that goes towards this -- or towards your morning coffee, or Friday movie night -- does not and should not take the place of money and energy spent on more weighty issues.

But we also believe that frivolity and pure whimsy play an extremely important and neglected role in our lives. We believe this to be one of Burning Man's core values: rediscovering the wonder, joy, and childish exploration that are all too rare in modern life.

If this project doesn't bring you joy, you should obviously not support it. But if you feel some of the same "frivolous" excitement for this idea as we do, we hope you share in our respect for childish wonder and consider bringing a giant, psychedelic Nyan Cat into the world to be a joyful and worthwhile act.

Is this only for Burning Man/Burners?

We hope to debut the Nyan Car this year at Burning Man -- a community and event we're a part of and want to contribute to. But once the car has been built, we hope to share it as widely as possible: to bring it to other festivals, to larger-scale events, to wherever we feel the Nyan Car would be welcome and would make people happy.

Exclusivity is no fun, and we want to avoid it as much as possible.

For what it's worth, we'd like to add that while Burning Man is, of course, in many ways exclusive, it also strives admirably for inclusivity. Burning Man works to make many low-income tickets available to those for whom the ~$400 week-long ticket price is too steep, and our camp itself -- which includes many students and recent graduates with limited funds -- is representative of that diversity. Bringing the Nyan Car to the event means giving roughly 80,000 people access to this work of art -- many more over multiple years -- and we hope to expand its reach over years and across different events and communities.

We're looking at you, @MuseumModernArt ;)

How does this schwag stuff work?

Sizing: For items with variable sizes, we're asking supporters to pick a size and gender when they donate. Once the campaign is complete, we'll be in touch to double check that all the sizing information is accurate to vendor specifications.

Timing: We're running on all four cylinders to get this car ready by Burning Man, so we've indicated schwag delivery dates in October of this year, to be as realistic as possible about delivery dates. We hope to be able to put in orders and get you your schwag sooner, if possible.

Quality: What you see on our page are low-res renderings. Prior to sending off for production, we'll be ensuring that all designs are made in high resolution, and, where applicable, vector graphics. We are selecting vendors that we can all trust will deliver quality goods you'd be excited to wear.

Find & Follow Us, We're Official ;-)

• Facebook: @officialNyanCar
• Twitter: @officialNyanCar
• Instagram: @officialNyanCar
• Web: www.nyancar.com