Dear backers,
Thanks for holding up so far, it means a lot to us. This update will give you a bit of an overview of what has happened so far and where we are going. There is an expected delay in delivering our products. In this update, we’ll try to cover all the reasons for the delay and what we’ve been doing to minimize the risk for our backers.
Eduponics kit materials
The Eduponics kit contains a lot of components to provide the full experience of the Eduponics Mini ESP32 development board, and it’s also the most sold product on our campaign. When we got all the materials and started assembling the kit, we found out that some things just weren’t right. Our standard has been always quite high, so we asked to examine all the materials included in the kit and dissemble them to check one by one what’s been going on.
We found some issues, like the label wasn’t the right size, missing CE/UKCA labels, the hose and water regulator didn’t fit, and most importantly, because we changed the valve, the hose of the pump can’t fit, which makes it pretty much useless.
How we went on solving it
Here are the steps we have taken to correct the contents of the kit and ensure it contains the high-quality materials that we’d expect:
- We re-purchased the pump, the new pump contains a taller cylinder to fit the hose. it also has a built-in regulator. In the picture, it doesn't have a connector but we did solder the connectors by ourselves, so no soldering is needed on your side!
- We re-purchased the label to fit the enclosure and contain the right CE/UKCA labeling.
- Eduponics Mini v2.0 PCBA was missing UKCA labeling - we fixed it by purchasing the right label to fit on.
- If you purchased the valve, you'll get a converter to fit the pump and ensure it's fully compatible.
We’ve also created a booklet that comes with both Eduponics Mini ESP32 board and the Eduponics Mini kit. The booklet will be available in digital version and is translated into both English and German.
The valve is more expensive than we anticipated.
As we mentioned in the previous update, we have upgraded our valve to the custom valve made by Elecrow. The valve price is quite expensive, more than we originally anticipated due to the custom design and molding requirements. However, you as backers don’t need to worry about that as we’ll cover up the differences. This is part of the risk and the journey we take, as makers, in making the Eduponics series come to life.
Eduponics Mini Android app taken down
A dear backer sent us a notice that he can’t access the Eduponics Mini Android app anymore. After a short investigation, we found out that during our website upgrade, we accidentally removed the Eduponics app privacy policy page. Due to that, Google temporarily took down our mobile app.
We expect the app to be online in about a week as we resubmit the app for verification after fixing the issue. Nevertheless, the mobile app is fully open source and is available in our GitHub repository.
How long did the delay put us back?
After finding out all the problems and working towards finishing the assembly of all the kits, we hope to finish everything at the beginning or middle of next month. By then, we will deliver all the products to Crowd Supply’s warehouse for distribution.
We want to thank again for all our backers for their patience and if any question arise, please do not hesitate to email us and we will reply shortly!