Somewhere in my Twitter stream I happened across an interesting Kickstarter project. If you don’t know about Kickstarter, it is where those with good ideas but without funds can post their project to garner investors. The project that caught my eye is one to create a low-cost robotic scanner for libraries, museums and archives. The stated goal is to create a scanner that would sell at cost for $500 or less.
The Kickstarter page for the project describes version 1 of the scanner, which the author admits is too complicated and expensive to meet the goal, but he seems to have learned enough to believe the goal is possible with a second version. Dubbed “Project Gado” he raised less than $1,000 of his $16,000 goal to fund the project by the “deadline” of July 21. But my guess is if he got some angel investors that could come up with the cash, he would do it. Somehow in the scheme of things $16,000 doesn’t sound like so much to get an inexpensive robotic scanner for the masses off the ground.
Just think about the possibilities — before you leave work, you put a stack of photos in a tray. Then, while you’re eating and sleeping and having fun, your photos are being digitized. Now that’s something I can get behind!
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