Unbillable Hours is our weekly round-up of what we’re doing when we’re not working on client projects, plus our most-talked-about Slack links.

In case you haven't heard: Hackaball is now on Kickstarter! Hooray!!!

Hackaball has been the most talked about thing on Slack and at our kitchen table and that entitles it to this week's Unbillable Hours takeover.

Read about Hackaball's super powers and how you can pre-order one for you or your child on Richard's blog. If you always wanted to get Christmas presents early this is your opportunity ;) If the Kickstarter funding goes through, we'll be shipping Hackaball for Christmas this year!

Allow me now to take you on the 'behind the scenes' journey of Hackaball's launch on Kickstarter ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ....

At the crux of any Kickstarter campaign is its video, and ours has its bright sides despite the London weather. For example, going back to the playground, which is precisely where our generation of makers grew up. Here it is, in its full beauty.

Now, that Hackaball can be used to create your own "Disco! Disco! Disco!" what else is there to life?

Oh, and Rachel and Al became celebrities.

We added last, but vital touches to the Hackaball's sound library. Yep, the fart sound. Aaand, Al's 15 minutes of fame are now up!

At the end of last week, before the Kickstarter frenzy kicked in, Melissa, Andrew and the Techdu team visited London South Bank University. We talked to a bunch of lovely trainee teachers about how Hackaball could be used in their classroom.

Tim wrote this great blog post about why Hackaball wasn't in fact a 2 year side project but an 8 year one; and how much side projects mean to Made by Many.

Monday afternoon, we were almost ready to launch. There was only one thing missing ...

The Kickstarter page was ready, the green button was ready too, and we gathered in the Made by Many London office for the big moment.

Tuesday, 3 March at 2pm GMT: We're live!

Ever since the launch, our campaign team has been working restlessly to make Hackaball famous.

In the evening of the launch day, we threw a Hackaball demo party to celebrate. Small people turned up in our London office to get their hands on some serious game making. If anyone has a right to tell us how stuff should work it's these guys.

Our team in New York picked up the slack and hosted a launch party on the other side of the ocean while we were getting ready for day two.

We raised amazing $15k in the first 24 hours and reached one quarter of our goal on day two.
67 hours in, people have pledged $44k to our cause to make education more fun.

There's been a wave of excitement and applause coming with every piece of coverage we got. We were featured in Wired, Wired UK, CNET, The Guardian, Core77, The Drum, and many more! Even Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop thinks Hackaball is what the next generation of hackers should be playing with.

We're being optimistic and believe that this isn't just an amazing head start of the campaign but a promising beginning of a fantastic journey. Wheee!

Continue reading

IoT

It happened! Hackaball is funded!

Hackaball is a computer you can throw. It's designed for six to ten year old kids and introduces them to basic ideas of coding, while keeping them active....

Richard Ling   ·   20 March 2015

IoT

Hackaball is now on Kickstarter!

We finally pressed that big green button on Kickstarter and launched Hackaball!

Hackaball is like a computer you can throw. It's designed for six to ten ...

Richard Ling   ·   3 March 2015

We're hiring: Senior UX/UI Designer

Made by Many’s London team is looking for a Senior UX/UI Designer to create beautiful and thoughtful digital products that have a lasting impact. Your rol...

Isaac Pinnock   ·   3 March 2015