Kickstarter hits a million backers, impoverished design students rejoice

Despite these shaky economic times, people still have the time -- and money -- for modded Arduino kits, iPhone lens and air guitar mods. Kickstarter users have now pledged over $100 million to projects, with the number of backers leaping from around 250,000 in September last year to over one million. The crowd-funding site is marking the occasion with visualizations of its vital statistics, showing, among other things, that one-time backers make up the bulk of investment. With over 13,000 projects green-lighted so far, projects still vying for our investment dollars include a caterpillar-tracked smartphone robot, a bike light that attaches to your spokes generating an 8-bit light show and an energy recovery unit that picks up on heat from a dryer exhaust. If the idea of heat exchanges gets you all hot under the collar, check out Kickstarter to help give the creators a fiscal foothold.

Kickstarter hits a million backers, impoverished design students rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.