InvenTABLE: A kid-safe power tool for cutting cardboard

We're now ChompShop! (Major Rebrand & Shipping Updates!)
1 day ago – Wed, Oct 16, 2024 at 01:49:26 PM

✏️ Why The Change From InvenTABLE? 👀

As our production partners were scaling up back in September, our team unfortunately received a cease and desist for the name InvenTABLE. This meant we needed to think fast and pivot as a young startup. We won’t lie; it was hard to say goodbye to InvenTABLE after all the memories and connections we made. But we’re the type of people who love to make lemonade from lemons, so we started brainstorming! 💡

After a few late nights and many team votes, we couldn’t be happier to welcome you to our ChompShop! We’re truly chomping to share our love of design, invention, fun, and making with all of you — which is happening very soon, in case you missed our last production update!

Our name change won’t affect your orders in the slightest, but to the folks that have been with us since the beginning, you might notice some limited edition InvenTABLE branding on your packaging, saws, accessories, and workbooks as we make this transition. 😉 

🚚 Shipping Timelines 📦

Back to business! We are on track to start shipping the first of our ChompSaws (formerly known as InvenTABLEs) this November!

• Our first 4,000 units will be arriving at our warehouse on October 20th and immediately shipped out to our Kickstarter backers! 
• Then we have another 8,000 units shipping late November (arriving in two shipments on November 23rd and November 27th) to any remaining Kickstarter backers and our pre-order customers. Unfortunately, this timeline has been delayed from our original estimate of November 15th due to a production pause during a major holiday in China… BUT we’re very confident we’ll have all orders delivered by Christmas! 
• From there, we took a leap and ordered 3,000 more ChompSaws as inventory for the holiday season. That means that at this time we have only about 5,000 units unaccounted for, so if you want an order by Christmas, get it in now! 

Again, we’re feeling very confident that all pre-ordered ChompSaws and accessories will be delivered by late November to early December at the latest, and we’re going to move as quickly as we can with all new orders. We’re so proud of the final product we’re sending your way and can’t wait for everyone to start making!

🚨 Addresses are LOCKED! 🔒 

To our Kickstarter backers, your address has been locked in with our shipping provider and we’ll begin sending out your orders next week!! If you need changes made please get in touch with us as soon as possible at [email protected]. After October 18th, we won't be able to stop your order from shipping to the currently listed address.

👋 We'll be back at the Bay Area Maker Faire this weekend! ☀️

We’ll be running a booth at the Bay Area Maker Faire all weekend from Friday, October 18th to Sunday, October 20th at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. We would love to meet you in person if you’re in the neighborhood! 

Use the link above to get 25% off your tickets to the faire!

Thank you for all the support, more great things and HUGE milestones are coming soon! 

We are locking addresses TOMORROW (10/4)! ⏰ 📦
15 days ago – Thu, Oct 03, 2024 at 10:35:53 AM

Now that we are so close to shipping (🎉), it's time to lock in your address. We are locking addresses tomorrow, and after that you won’t be able to change your shipping address yourself. Please use the following link to add your address if you haven't already, or check your address and make sure it is accurate: inventable.backerkit.com

You can also do this by clicking the survey link in the reminder email that was sent out to you today if we don't have your address yet.

If for some reason you can’t check your address on that page, reach out to us at [email protected] for support. 

After addresses are locked tomorrow, if you need to change your address for any reason, reach out at the email above and we’ll do our best to help you. 

We are so close to the finish line, and we can't wait to see what you all make! 🚀 

September Update: InvenTABLEs on a boat!
19 days ago – Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 11:51:36 AM

🦺 We’re Officially Kid-Safe Certified! ✅

We’ve always designed InvenTABLE with safety in mind, but now it’s official! We’ve completed and passed all third-party safety certifications, including ASTM F963 and the Children’s Product Certificate (CPC). This is a huge milestone for us, and it’s what we needed to start production and shipping. We can confidently say we’ve done everything we can to make InvenTABLE as safe as possible!

The certified products include:

• InvenTABLE Power Tool
• Table Accessories Set
• Hole Punch Tool
• Scoring Tool
• Project Pattern Pack

🏭 First Production Run Completed! ✅

Our CTO Max headed back to China this week to oversee our first production run, and it was amazing to watch InvenTABLE come off the production line.

We initially expected only 1,000 units before China’s holiday in October (during which factories will pause work), but we’re excited to announce that we’re ahead of schedule with 4,000 units already produced!

While Max was there, he worked with our partners to make sure the production line is as efficient as possible, participated in and informed the quality control process, and signed the "golden sample," which sets the standard for every unit produced.

🔍 Quality Control Checks ✅

Transitioning from producing 30 units to 4,000 naturally comes with a few hiccups. Here’s what we found during the production run and how we’re addressing them:

• Missing Debris Chutes: During the assembly process, we noticed that the production line was slightly imbalanced, which led to a few early units moving too quickly down the line and getting to the end without the debris chute (an important part!). To address this, we took immediate steps to balance the line and introduced additional visual and weight checks to maintain consistency.
• Noise Issues: A few units made an abnormal noise when turned on. These were set aside for inspection. We suspected some metal injection molded parts were out of spec, and added a jig that allows our assembly team to quickly check them. This hasn't been an issue since.
• Button Sensitivity: Some buttons had issues when pressed too softly, but we quickly fixed this with a tweak that won’t delay production.

📦 Delivery Details 🗒️

The first 4,000 units are scheduled to arrive at our warehouse on October 18th and will be shipped immediately to our earliest backers. These units are pre-packaged specifically for Kickstarter, including the hole punch and scoring tool. While this works for most backers, if you added a standalone InvenTABLE without the additional tools, your shipment may be delayed until the early November batch, which will include unbundled units. Similarly, some Kickstarter add-ons may arrive in later shipments, which could cause a slight delay for those orders as well.

The next 4,000 units are expected to arrive by November 8th, and the final batch by November 15th.

As you can tell, the logistics of getting everything from 3 locations (Kickstarter, Backerkit, Shopify) into our shipping partner’s system, and then coordinating shipments based on the different shipment batches we have is a little bit complicated. We are doing our best to get everything sent out in order of when they were backed, but we appreciate your patience and understanding with us during this process! But look at all of these InvenTABLE units, ready to to get on the boat!

These are being shipped via an express boat from our factory to our warehouse in the USA. Once they hit the warehouse, our shipping partners will immediately start sorting and shipping them to you. When that happens, you’ll get an update with tracking details. Be on the lookout for that!

🔒 Locking Addresses on BackerKit ⚠️

In order to start coordinating shipping, we need to lock addresses. This means you won’t be able to change your shipping address yourself. We are locking addresses on October 4th, so please double-check your details using this link: inventable.backerkit.com

If for some reason you can’t check your address on that page, reach out to us at [email protected] for support. Then, once addresses are locked, if you need to change your address for some reason, reach out at the email above and we’ll do our best to help you.

📅 One Year Since Kickstarter! ✅

Today marks one year since we launched our campaign, and what a year it’s been! Here’s what we’ve achieved together:

• Surpassed our Kickstarter goals beyond expectation.
• Partnered with fantastic design and manufacturing teams to turn our prototype into reality.
• Spent four months in China to kick off production and learn the ins and outs of manufacturing.
• Grew from a team of two to three full-time and four part-time employees (and counting!).
• Developed 11 products, including a workbook full of techniques, project prompts, and expert interviews.
• Successfully passed kid-safety certifications and received your invaluable feedback throughout.

And we’re not stopping! We’ll be back at the Bay Area Maker Faire this October. If you’re in the area, come say hi (and test out the production units)!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support! We can’t wait to see what you all make!

August Update: Timeline Changes and Safety Certifications
about 2 months ago – Thu, Aug 29, 2024 at 12:26:54 PM

Hey everyone! We’re into late August going on September now, and it’s high time for an update! It’s been a little while since our last one--our team has officially returned from China and have been engrossed in safety certification testing. We can now say that safety testing has gone well, and we should be receiving a final summary by next week!

We take children's safety very seriously, and we know that you do too. As a brief summary, we found some unexpected issues during the early phase of safety testing and had to make some changes. These are an overall improvement for the tool and for the user experience, but they did impact the delivery timeline a little bit. In our last update, we said that we would begin shipping at the end of September to early October. We now anticipate that we’ll start shipping to our earliest backers on October 18, and the fulfillment process will continue into November.

This extra time was necessary to get the safety certifications we need to ship products to the US and Canada. There’s a lot that went into this delay, and a lot of minor changes to the tool as an outcome of the safety certification--read in detail below!

⛑️ Safety Testing 📊

Earlier this year, we consulted multiple safety certification specialists to come up with the list of certifications and tests that best fit our product for the US and Canada. These certifications include (among others) ASTM F963, CPSC, CA Prop 65, and CPSIA for the US, and SOR/2011, SOR/2018, and ICES-003 for Canada.

There are 114 tests total and we have passed 112. There are two more to go:

• InvenTABLE Power Tool: We had to add an additional warning label to our packaging to pass the last of the children’s safety tests, which is now being re-printed and sent to the facility for approval.
• Toys & Games Project Pattern Pack: One of our off-the-shelf metal pieces for the Project Pattern Pack failed the lead content test, so we found a new part and have resubmitted it for lead content testing

These are both very small changes that can be completed quickly. We will be receiving our final report by next week!

🔧 Necessary Changes 🔉

While we had a high degree of certainty early on that we would pass most tests, the units that came off of the assembly line for testing performed a little bit differently from the samples we had been iterating and testing during the final design process. There was one major problem: there was a lot of variance in the maximum noise level reached by the first units that came off the line. Some of the best units stayed under 80 dB, which is well under the safe limit of 85 dB. But many were exceeding 85 dB when the unit was cutting. Not only is this a bad user experience, but it begins to inch into problematic noise levels and would cause the InvenTABLE to fail some key safety tests.

Rather than implementing a quick fix, we decided to make more significant changes to improve reliability.

To address this, our manufacturing partners as well as our engineering team all grouped up in one room for a few days to brainstorm how to reduce the noise. We made a lot of changes including tightening tolerances, and adding additional noise and vibration dampeners in key areas. As a result, the InvenTABLE now consistently operates below 85 dB, averaging around 75 dB while in use, making it much safer and more enjoyable to use.

🪛 Additional Minor Improvements 🤔

Making the necessary changes for the noise levels gave us a little window of opportunity to make other improvements that we had previously saved for later because the parts needed changing anyway. There are a lot of small changes here and there, but here’s how they impact the experience of cutting with the InvenTABLE:

• It’s now easier to remove the lid, and the lid more reliably aligns to be flush with the cutting head opening. This makes it easier to push cardboard through when at the maximum acceptable material thickness.
• It’s easier to open and close the drawer, for smoother maintenance. And, there are now no openings in the drawer area through which debris might enter the interior of the InvenTABLE.
• The switch now has an over-center mechanism to ensure that it reliably clicks into position. We had previously tooted our own horn about the design, but it turned out to be a bit inconsistent during assembly. The over-center mechanism makes it consistently awesome. (Toot!🎺)
• The case is more resistant to breaking. This helps us ensure that the InvenTABLE will arrive safely to customers, and also helps the product last longer even for energetic little makers (it’s not indestructible, and the housing is still plastic--best not to drop it).

While these changes are hard to capture in photos, here are some recent product shots to give you a glimpse of the InvenTABLE that will be coming to your door in just a few months:

📅 Timeline updates 🚢

All of these small changes and the lengthened safety certification testing pushed our timeline back by a few weeks, and because this now overlaps with a major holiday in China (during which factories take a well-deserved break), there is an additional week's delay to our timeline. The first 1,000 units, which are the outcome of PVT, will be produced and will leave China in October before the holiday, but subsequent shipments will only be produced afterwards. Now that we’re closer to the finish line, we have some more detailed dates. Here’s the updated schedule:

• The first 1,000 units are expected to arrive at our warehouse on October 18th and will immediately ship to the first backers.
• The next 4,000 units are expected to arrive in our warehouse on November 8th, followed by another 4,000 on November 15th, and 3,000 more on November 21st.

This means that some Kickstarter backers will receive their pledge rewards at the end of October, but most will receive them sometime after November 8th. Most Shopify pre-orders will be delivered sometime after November 15th. After November 21st, we expect to have stock in the warehouse so that new orders can ship immediately from within the US, which means we’ll be officially launched and actively selling!

To keep things on track, Max will be heading back to China during Production Validation Testing to make sure that the production line is as efficient and reliable as possible, and the quality control is up to our high standards.

🏭 Scaling Up 📈

To make this happen, we’re scaling up production as fast as we can. As it turns out, it is tough to coordinate lead times of all the different parts and processes needed to make a final product! It takes multiple months from the day we communicate we want more inventory to the day that we receive that inventory in our warehouse. We wanted to minimize the impact of lead times on our fulfillment, so we started mass-producing some parts even before finishing safety certification testing. Among other things, we’re already producing/receiving these at scale:

• Motor assembly
• MCU
• Parts of the cutting assembly
• Accessories set
• User manuals
• Packaging

We share this with you because we want to provide some reassurance that we’re doing everything we can to keep our pace high and deliver quickly. We know it’s hard to wait, and we’re right there with you pushing for everything to be done faster.

🤔 What else have we been working on? ✍️ 

• Developing the Inventor's Workbook, which has involved a lot of writing, project testing, expert-interviewing, and illustrating (this one is a full-team effort!). One recent interview we did that will be featured in the workbook was with Simone Giertz!
• Creating lots of instructional and troubleshooting content for our website so that you have all the resources that you need to start using the InvenTABLE as soon as it comes to your door
• Designing more cardboard props and projects for the monthly project subscription that we'll be launching after InvenTABLE is released (see: stretch goal #3)

We’re in the home stretch now, and it’s crazy to look back at the last 11 months since the Kickstarter campaign. We’ve started from a little homemade prototype, and with all of your support and confidence, we’ve been able to create a sturdy and fun tool and scale up manufacturing.

We’re so excited for you all to receive your rewards and pre-orders in a few months. In our next update we hope we’ll be telling you the first units are on a boat, and that we’re locking addresses!

Thank you for the continued support and belief. If you have any questions or concerns, or just want to say hi, reach out to us at [email protected].

June Update: Testing & Certification Kick Off
4 months ago – Wed, Jul 03, 2024 at 07:40:54 AM

Okay, it's just a little late to be the June update... but we've got a lot to say about what we've accomplished last month so we think "June Update" still feels right! See below for some wins, details on what's next for manufacturing, and a sneak peek at packaging! 

⏱ Timline Updates 🗞

None! We don't have any changes to the current fulfillment timeline at this point. In February, we estimated that we would start fulfillment in late September to October of 2024, and we are still on track for that. We will continue to update as we progress through manufacturing and testing!

🛠️ We’ve completed tooling for the InvenTABLE! 🏭

In our last update, we shared that we were kicking off the tooling phase. Now, we’re excited to share it’s coming to a close! We did multiple trials with the injection mold tools, making little adjustments along the way to get it right. After 3 rounds of trials, the parts look and feel great. Not to mention, it was surreal to see our invention coming out of such a big injection mold tool. Check it out in this vlog we posted on TikTok!

💭 So, what’s next? 📅

This week, we are moving into the Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) phase. EVT is where we build test units of InvenTABLE with the injection molded parts and the same components we’ll use in the final version, and test the functionality. Sometimes, there are some small changes required as an outcome of this testing, but right now we expect it to go very smoothly (Knock on wood!🤞).

The next step is Design Validation Testing (DVT), in which we make sure the InvenTABLE meets both cosmetic and environmental requirements. Because the units we are building during EVT are so close to the final product, we are actually combining it with DVT and evaluating both this week. 

This also means that we can soon officially begin compliance testing. After our review, we will be sending somewhere between 30-50 units to testing agencies to get certifications and check that we comply with toy safety regulations, electrical standards, etc. This is a huge hurdle for InvenTABLE. Safety and reliability are so important to our mission and we want to ensure we can get the certifications we need. For that reason, we have done a lot of pre-scanning for compliance with earlier prototypes. Through this pre-screening process, we’ve gained confidence in our design. We are excited to kick off the official compliance and reliability testing to see that work pay off!

Linking a helpful guide from our manufacturing partner Kaizen Dynamic on the difference between EVT, DVT, and PVT (Production Validation Testing) here!

We have also learned a lot about the standards in different countries and regions. We are planning to create a page on our website to share more details about when to expect InvenTABLE to be available internationally. Stay tuned for that!

✨ Sharing some of the (big) little victories 🤏

For those that have been following InvenTABLE for a while, you probably know that much of our team has been in China for over 3 months now! We are so glad that we’re here. We have incredible partners in the Kaizen Dynamic team that has been helping with product development, supply chain, and manufacturer relations.

Being in person has allowed us to test new prototypes and make small adjustments quickly. So, we wanted to share some of that with you all and give you a peek into some improvements that would have been really hard if we didn’t have the support to take this trip.

The power button: We have gone through many iterations of the power button. It needs be large and easy to press, and can’t get stuck in either position. But we want the button to feel chunky and tactile when you click it. It turns out this was a little bit more art than science! Our colleagues at Kaizen Dynamic prototyped a lot of approaches and would regularly bring them in for us to try out any time one was ready. We almost felt like Goldilocks saying “this button is too soft” or “this one is too hard.” If we had to collaborate remotely it would have been really hard to iterate like this, and we may have ended up with something that worked but wasn’t the best. But being here in person gave us the chance to try a lot of approaches. And let us tell you--now, that button is just right.

Dust collection: We also made more changes to the dust collection tray than we anticipated. The drawer design was straightforward, but we wanted to make sure the InvenTABLE would turn off when the drawer was opened (safety first!). To do this, we implemented a switch that would only be pressed when the drawer is inside the machine. Our initial designs for the switch interfered with the drawer though, sometimes making it hard to pull out, or most times making it so easy that the drawer would push out on its own and stop the cutting. This was tricky, because the issues weren’t consistent to reproduce and we had to spend a lot of time testing changes. After all our iteration and testing though, it just works. The drawer is easy to remove, but when you push it in, it clicks. It feels like the drawer wants to be in the InvenTABLE--which is exactly how it should be!

The lid: We noticed through testing that if you place the lid on the InvenTABLE in the wrong orientation, it is really difficult to take off. To remedy this, we added divots to the InvenTABLE housing to make it really easy to lift the lid off no matter how you place it. This is a great example of something we only would have caught in person, because we only caught it due to our own human error!

We could probably gush about the little improvements we’ve been able to make for the length of a whole book, but we’ll leave you with that for now. If we hadn’t had as much support from you at the start of our journey, we might not have been able to go to China in person for such a long trip. We’re so glad that we had this opportunity, and we think it will show through in the product when you all receive your InvenTABLEs later this year.

We are heading back to the US in a few weeks once we’re through with engineering & design validation testing--and can rest easy knowing that we were here to make sure that every detail is perfect!

✂️ Cardboard Cutter, Cardboard Packaging 📦

Getting a finished product safely across the globe on a ship, then to your front door can be a perilous journey! We need our packaging to transport the InvenTABLE safely. And, as inventors passionate about the merits of a sustainable material like cardboard, we really want a fun package design that only uses cardboard as opposed to packing foam or other less sustainable materials.

Check out what we came up with below! This fun package is all cardboard, and does a great job of protecting the InvenTABLE. Not only that, but once you break your box down, it becomes your first material to cut on your new power tool! We’ve printed practice shapes to cut out throughout the box, as well as a more complicated 12-sided die on the bottom that you can roll to come up with project ideas!

We also have some packaging designs for the table accessories pack & hole punch. You’ll notice some fun characters, that each represent an accessory that goes with the InvenTABLE. We think these awesome illustrations reflect the playful spirit of making with the InvenTABLE, and hope you all feel the same way.

🙏 Thank you! 🎉

As always, we feel the need to express our gratitude and overall excitement to have such a great community of backers and fans. We know we couldn't have taken such a big swing without your support, and being able to invest ourselves fully in this project has led to the InvenTABLE being better than we could have imagined. We can't wait for you all to see it, hold it, and cut a lot of cardboard.

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hi, then reach out to us at [email protected]! See you in the next one!

👋 P.S. 📫 

If you still haven't completed a backerkit survey with your address information (there are about 500 backers who haven't) we will not be able to ship your pledge rewards. You can navigate to inventable.backerkit.com to check your survey status or request a new link. If this doesn't work for you, contact us at [email protected] for help. We want to make sure everyone gets their InvenTABLE!