We come across tons of Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns on a daily basis. Some good, some not so good, as evidenced by the 43.56% success rate of Kickstarter Campaigns.1 Every once in a while, we come across a crowdfunding campaign that is truly revolutionary. The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer falls into this category.
The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer re-imagines the printer. The creators of the printer, ZUtA Labs Ltd., note that nearly everything imaginable has gone mobile, why not the printer? The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer Kickstarter Campaign offers a concise, yet illuminating description of the device:
Print machines now-a-days are essentially a printhead running left and right on a moving piece of paper. We asked ourselves, why not get rid of the entire device, just put the printhead on a set of small wheels and let it run across a piece of paper. By doing so, we allow the printer to really be as little as possible.2
By replacing the slide printhead, ZUtA Labs was able to shrink the printer down to a 10 centimeters high and 11.5 centimeters in diameter device that weighs only 300g. The device, as it is today, can print a little more than one page per minute, and has both a micro USB and Bluetooth connections.
It is hard to imagine this, but the below video does a good job of illustrating the concept:
The Mini Printer is currently a reward for pledges of $200 or more on the The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer Kickstarter Campaign.
- Kickstarter publishes a ton of data about campaigns, backers, money raised, and more. They have a top-level stats page that updates once a day. The 43.56% success rate was accessed on 22 April 2014 from “Kickstarter Stats.” ▲
- Mini Mobile Robotic Printer Kickstarter Campaign ▲
