Boosted Blog

We know it's been a while since our last update, but we've been busy and have tons of news to share with you!  We've been building up the office facility, adding new team members, and finalizing the battery and remote configurations. 

 

Office Deconstruction

 We've broken down walls, converted from carpet to tile flooring, installed a roll-up door, and rewired the electricity to 3 phase power to create our manufacturing and assembly rooms. Along with our friends at Double Robotics, we're building up a prototyping shop with a mill, lathe, drill press, 3D printer, and other equipment. 

Looking a bit bare now, but this assembly room will get busy in the next few months. 

New Mechanical and Electrical Engineers

To help us as we prepare for production, Mark and Jean-François have joined our team.

Mark interned with us last summer as we prepared for our Kickstarter campaign, and he built most of the parts on our prototypes. He just graduated with his ME degree from Stanford and will be in charge of mechanical design and manufacturing. 

Jean-François drove cross country from Québec to California last week to join us. He'll be working closely with John on the power electronics and software in the remote and motor controller.

 

Battery Configuration

We've looked into various battery chemistries and pack designs. We're currently planning on using a lithium iron phosphate cell, since it has better safety and cycle life than the LiPo packs we used earlier on our prototypes.  We're working with a fantastic supplier who's building a custom pack that's both high performance and high quality.  

 

Remote Design

We've cleaned up the design of our handheld remote, and now we're testing functionality. There are indicator LEDs to display information such as the remaining battery life on the board and remote. We're testing various spring tensions and dampening levels for the scrolling wheel to get the right feel for the throttle and brake. We're also testing various diameters of this wheel to work with varying hand sizes and gloves. Once we finish with the prototyping, we'll be injection molding the plastic components.

We also added a killswitch on the bottom of the remote for safety.  If you drop the remote, it will cut power to the motors and prevent your board from running away.

Crunch Time
We're just a few months away from our Kickstarter delivery dates. We've been making great progress, and with our new tools and team members, we're now moving even faster.  Thanks for all the support and continued encouragement!

Feel free to drop us a line any time at community@boostedboards.com.

Sho 
Boosted Community Manager 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only 2 days left to lock in the Kickstarter price of $1199

We're in the final stretch of our Kickstarter campaign, and we're so close to our stretch goal of $500,000. If we hit that goal, we can promise a fast-swap battery pack (like a cordless drill), so it will be simple to add more range.

After our Kickstarter ends, you can order via www.boostedboards.com for $1299 plus tax and shipping (estimated delivery September 2013).

New gravity defying video!  Boosted Boards prototype sliding uphill

The Berkeley Hills are famous for longboarders bombing down these steep runs... We wanted to make the first video riding (and sliding) UP the hills. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you! We are overwhelmed with all the positive support we received for our Kickstarter campaign, especially on our Facebook fan page and our Twitter since our launch on Tuesday.  We are especially grateful for all the Kickstarter backers and fans who helped spread the word about our campaign.  Thanks to you, we met our funding goal in just 24 hours and the support continues to grow.  It's hard to describe how much energy this has given our team.  

Since then, we have received a tremendous number of messages with questions and feedback. We're reading through them all and trying our best to respond to everyone as quickly as possible, although we are also answering common questions in the FAQ section of our Kickstarter page.  Thanks for your patience so far!

In the meantime, we haven't stopped working on the prototypes, and we'll be posting updates on our progress.  So stay tuned, and once again, thank you!

For every dollar pledged in the first reward tier, we promised a jumping jack.
Here's our team doing the first 30 jumping jacks. We still need to work on coordination. 

We are excited to officially launch Boosted Boards today. As many of our closest friends and family know, these past few months have been an often sleepless yet very rewarding time for our team. What started out as a common interest to find a sustainable and enjoyable method of getting around has transformed into a company and a vehicle that we are deeply passionate about. We are grateful to have a team that we're proud of, a product that's game changing, and a new Kickstarter campaign which we hope you will enjoy and share among friends. 

There's still lots of work to be done, but we're excited to be part of this journey and fortunate to have all the support from our fans. Thanks everyone!

- The Boosted Team