About

We are grateful to have amazing support from the Ohio University Innovation Center . We also want to give special thanks to Nathaniel Berger, friends, and colleagues without whose support we would not be where we are today. We also want to give credit to GRiZ for "Blastaa," the amazing song you heard in the opening video.

Our company started with a team of HvZ players who had a vision for better blaster mods—ones that were faster to complete, required fewer irreversible changes, and ones that would not break in combat. We brought in people with business and marketing experience to figure out how to make producing these mods feasible. We brought in more engineers to improve the quality of our work. Today we are a team dedicated to making the best products for people who love foam dart blasters. We believe in a community-­driven process of design. That starts with playing at events and listening to the complaints and the ideas of other players. The next step is drafting parts in CAD and sharing the designs on Facebook and Reddit. Every piece of feedback rolls in to the next iteration of the engineering design. After several iterations of feedback and internal testing, we let members of the urban gaming community test our product at real events in uncontrolled environments. The point of all this testing is to understand all of the problems and potential improvements we should make before asking anyone to pay money. After more rounds of testing and improvement, we prepare to launch our products.

Risks and challenges

Kickstarter is not a store. It is a pledge of support. It is a vote of confidence for a vision independent designers are trying to bring to life. Kickstarter has risks. It is our duty as designers to be honest about those risks and do everything we can to minimize them. The interesting side of this risk—and the reason we chose Kickstarter—is that you are getting an opportunity for a level of engagement other processes just don’t offer. We want to bring you into the process of how things get designed and manufactured.

Design

Our engineers have been running over every detail to ensure design integrity. We test each iteration to the point of breaking to ensure it will not break for you. We will continue to improve any weak points and potential usability issues until the campaign has completed and we have the funds to begin production. We feel confident the Gripshot will be successfully produced and will work better than the 3D printed prototypes.

Injection Molding

We’ve already nailed down our plastic injection molding partner; however, when manufacturing any physical goods there are sure to be unforeseen challenges. Our partner, Protomold, is the best company in the world at what they do. They cater to the specific needs of companies that need to produce small batches of high quality product, and they are experts at identifying potential problems before production even starts. We will be working closely with Protomold to ensure every part we produce is the highest possible quality and promise to be open and transparent about any changes we need to make to make sure you get the best possible product.

Fulfillment

We will pack each reward package by hand to ensure every supporter gets exactly the right reward and to keep your costs as low as possible. Our timeline includes this manual processing time. However, there is a limit to the storage capacity of our garages and the time we have to pack the rewards by hand. We have a fulfillment partner standing by to help with warehousing and packing needs to make sure we meet every deadline.

We are deeply passionate about the Gripshot and what it means for blaster modders and urban gamers. With your support, we can finally make the Gripshot a reality and take one more step toward community-driven blaster innovation.