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Kickstarter campaigns worth another look

The Daily Dot covers worthy, overlooked projects on the crowdfunding site. Our favorite: media puppets!

 

Chase Hoffberger

Internet Culture

Posted on Mar 1, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 8:39 pm CDT

Hundreds of Kickstarter campaigns launch every week, with people’s hopes and dreams attached. The Daily Dot combs through the crowdfunding site to find the ones which can help entire communities.

This week on Kickstarter: videogame music, the end of batteries, and the puppets who control—er, explain—the media.

  • Japanese game audio newsline Nubuwo wants to increase its multimedia presence by hosting exclusive vocal compositions and instrumental tracks written with the intended purpose of getting featured in games. The site has over 240 tracks that hopes to run in tandem with its Videogame Music in Context interview series, but it needs to raise $4,000 in 15 hours in order to reach its $12,000 goal.

  • John Huynh has developed an adapter that turns battery-powered electronic devices into ones you can plug into a wall outlet. He needs to raise $10,000 so that he can mass-produce the small parts necessary to take the Bat Sub to market. Currently, the North Springfield, Va., resident has received $3,294, but with three days to go, will probably need everybody who’s ever been short on batteries to chip in. “Having the Bat Sub around should help reduce the tendency to leave batteries inside a device for too long, only to find it ruined at a later time,” Huynh wrote. “This will help save your devices from the dreadful problems of battery leak, corrosion, and rust which often ruin your equipment.”

  • Brooklyn puppeteers Abby, Gus, and Rob launched a campaign to “demystify how technology and media industries work” through the revival of The Media Show, a Web series that explores brand placement and explains why television characters like Ray Romano drink Pepsi instead of Coke. In order to do that, Abby, Gus, and Rob need to raise $1,000 for equipment and minimal production costs. The three are just under halfway towards their goal with fourteen days left in the campaign.

  • De Bary, Fla., native Barrie Freeman built a towering plant-holding contraption she thinks will revolutionize the gardening game and alleviate the strain on gardeners’ backs in the process. Called the Hi-Rise Harvest, Freeman’s device is a “self-contained, self-watering, maintenance-free Vertical Aqua Garden capable of growing 20 crops using a 24-inch foot print”, and she wants to take it to market. In order to do so, Freeman needs to raise $50,000 dollars, but time’s running short. She’s currently sitting at just over $5,400 with only 58 hours to go. Freeman has one vocal in England, though, backer Blair Barnette, who posted a comment on the campaign’s page: “I am SO STOKED to get involved with this from across the pond! This will hit the UK by storm if you come over here.”
  • Jason Renaud, an advocate for the Mental Health Association of Portland, Ore., wants to provide resources for more readers by expanding the reach of the Eyes & Ears newsletter, which for the past fifteen years has provided 4,000 individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses in Portland with a news resource and events guide created entirely by people suffering from the same afflictions as their readers. “There are thousands of persons who would benefit from the newsletter who do not have internet access,” wrote Renaud in the Kickstarter page’s About section. “We need to get them paper copies of the Eyes & Ears.” Renaud needs to raise just over $1,700 in the next 24 hours to reach his goal of $4,000.

Email chase@dailydot.com if you’d like to nominate a Kickstarter campaign that’s ending soon.

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*First Published: Mar 1, 2012, 5:24 pm CST