Project Update #10: Simple Machines Made Simple by Chase Roberts
Books are here!!! – The books finally arrived! I don't know how we did it. But we fit 16 pallets of books into a residential garage (in addition to the roughly 150 boxes of Computer Engineering for Babies and Big Babies that were already in there). And we're starting to ship orders out as quickly as we can. It doesn't look that impressive, but I promise, it is. I had thought all the delays were over, because the books were on a boat, and they told me "You should receive these around May 13th." There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, May 13th came around. Then the 14th. No books. Instead, I got a message saying, "560 cartons were required to be inspected by the US customs department." What they actually meant was, "US Customs is holding onto 11,000 books, and we have no idea when they'll be released and you'll get them." I think basically every delay that we could have run into, we did run into. I've looked up the name of this phenomenon about five times over the last two weeks. "Murphy's Law." I did get a small shipment of books about two weeks ago, and have had to rework about half of the books for one issue or another. The two biggest issues are that some of the wheels aren't spinning very well, and the aglet (the plastic handle at the end of the string) for the pulley is sometimes falling off, because the knot isn't quite big enough in some cases. I've reviewed my old scout handbook and have re-learned the Ashley stopper knot, and am getting quite good at tying it over and over and over and over. I'm a little scared to find out what the failure rate of these 11,000 books that just showed up yesterday is. I talked to the manufacturer about these issues as soon as we discovered them, and they supposedly addressed them. But Murphy's Law... We'll see over the next few days as we unbox and test how many we have to set aside to be reworked. The fortunate thing is that most of these CAN be reworked. There are a couple of issues that can't be solved without destroying the book. And that's just sad. Fortunately, those un-fixable problems are much more rare than the fixable ones. So I've shipped out about 200 of these first books that showed up, and will be reworking the rest. Some praise from some of the first Kickstarter backers: In the next few days or weeks you will get an email saying "Your order is shipping," with a prompt to double check that I have the right shipping address. And you can update it if you need to. And then a couple days later, you should get a tracking number emailed to you. Most of the US orders are going out via USPS Media Mail which takes about 4-8 business days. Some of the larger 3+ book orders might go out via Fedex. And any orders outside the US are going to be shipped directly from China, just because it'll be faster and cheaper. If you're outside the US, please keep an eye on your tracking number to make sure your book doesn't get stuck in customs or anything. Thanks so much for being a part of this. The end is in sight! Cheers, Chase
The books finally arrived! I don't know how we did it. But we fit 16 pallets of books into a residential garage (in addition to the roughly 150 boxes of Computer Engineering for Babies and Big Babies that were already in there). And we're starting to ship orders out as quickly as we can.
It doesn't look that impressive, but I promise, it is.
I had thought all the delays were over, because the books were on a boat, and they told me "You should receive these around May 13th." There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, May 13th came around. Then the 14th. No books. Instead, I got a message saying, "560 cartons were required to be inspected by the US customs department." What they actually meant was, "US Customs is holding onto 11,000 books, and we have no idea when they'll be released and you'll get them." I think basically every delay that we could have run into, we did run into. I've looked up the name of this phenomenon about five times over the last two weeks. "Murphy's Law."
I did get a small shipment of books about two weeks ago, and have had to rework about half of the books for one issue or another. The two biggest issues are that some of the wheels aren't spinning very well, and the aglet (the plastic handle at the end of the string) for the pulley is sometimes falling off, because the knot isn't quite big enough in some cases. I've reviewed my old scout handbook and have re-learned the Ashley stopper knot, and am getting quite good at tying it over and over and over and over.
I'm a little scared to find out what the failure rate of these 11,000 books that just showed up yesterday is. I talked to the manufacturer about these issues as soon as we discovered them, and they supposedly addressed them. But Murphy's Law... We'll see over the next few days as we unbox and test how many we have to set aside to be reworked. The fortunate thing is that most of these CAN be reworked. There are a couple of issues that can't be solved without destroying the book. And that's just sad. Fortunately, those un-fixable problems are much more rare than the fixable ones.
So I've shipped out about 200 of these first books that showed up, and will be reworking the rest. Some praise from some of the first Kickstarter backers:
In the next few days or weeks you will get an email saying "Your order is shipping," with a prompt to double check that I have the right shipping address. And you can update it if you need to. And then a couple days later, you should get a tracking number emailed to you. Most of the US orders are going out via USPS Media Mail which takes about 4-8 business days. Some of the larger 3+ book orders might go out via Fedex. And any orders outside the US are going to be shipped directly from China, just because it'll be faster and cheaper. If you're outside the US, please keep an eye on your tracking number to make sure your book doesn't get stuck in customs or anything.
Thanks so much for being a part of this. The end is in sight!
Cheers,
Chase
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