The Focus Fusion Society Forums Financing Fusion Focus fusion crowdfunding campaign: Where? What rewards? Will you pledge?

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  • #1495
    DerekShannon
    Participant

    Howdy, fusion folks-

    We’ve discussed crowdfunding in the past, but now that we have announced that we’re officially in the planning stages of a crowdfunding campaign to support the final push for focus fusion feasibility, I wanted to start a new thread for your feedback. This will be a major effort modeled after such successful campaigns as the Planetary Resources ARKYD space telescope, aiming for a similar raise of $750k to $1M.

    What do you think? What rewards would *you* want? What amount would you pledge to donate, regardless of rewards? Join the discussion here, and we’ve also asked folks to email lpp@lpphysics.com to volunteer help in spreading the word, developing media, or any other ways you come up with.

    To get the discussion going, I’ve shared a list of possible rewards for your feedback. It’s still a work in progress and will need to evolve based on what crowdfunding platform is used. For example, the “Solar Light” reward is the kind of charitable/cause reward that would most likely be against Kickstarter guidelines, but would be fine on Indiegogo or another platform. Similarly, we’ll need to decide on Fixed vs Flexible funding–Flexible means we’ll get to keep whatever funds are raised, but pay a higher fee if we don’t make the target–Then again, Fixed funding means we need to raise our full goal or get nothing.

    $1 /everyone – Printable PDF folding activity–Create your FOCUS FUSION FORTUNE FLOWER
    $10 – Awesomely informed – Receive newsletter, feel awesome
    $25 – Awesome science ahead of the curve – Receive pre-prints of publications resulting from this crowdfunding, including an EXCLUSIVE video link walking you through the science
    $42 – The answer to everything, and your key to a PERSONALIZED PLASMA PORTRAIT – Send us an image of yourself or the creative subject of your choice, and we’ll re-capture it through the same camera used to image the fusion plasma pulse!
    $55 – All of the above + membership in the Focus Fusion Society
    $75 – Power TOMORROW, Power TODAY – Fund tomorrow’s unlimited energy while addressing energy poverty TODAY – A solar lamp will be donated in your name to provide 4-hours of clean, bright light to help families in the developing world study & work after dark
    $100 and up – IMMORTALITY AMIDST THE IONS – Your name will be engraved on a plaque that will remain affixed to Focus Fusion-1
    $125 – Fuse your way to MARS – Membership in the Mars Society or Planetary Society…
    $150 – pB11 BRACELET OF POWER educational kit
    $200 – Power to the PEOPLE! – 2 SOLAR LAMPS IN YOUR NAME
    $325 – SEE THE SCIENCE – Personal guided tour of the FoFu-1 lab
    $420 – Set of FOUR pB11 Bracelet educational kits
    $450 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 1 – Small lab relic (ceramic fragment, small gasket) – $500 – + optional engraving
    $550 – STEER THE SCIENCE – *YOU* get to set the parameters for a FOFU-1 shot ;-D
    $650 – Power a family – send FIVE solar lights to fight energy poverty IMMEDIATELY in the developing world
    $1000 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 2 – Large copper gasket or equivalent relic
    $1050 – + optional engraving
    $1750 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 3 – Receive a copper rod used in earlier iterations of FoFu’s electrodes, a viewport etched by FoFu’s plasma, or even a switch-blasted spark plug!
    $2500 – SUPER-STEER THE SCIENCE – After appropriate training, YOU GET TO PRESS THE BUTTON to fire FoFu at your desired parameters
    $5000 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 4 – A High Voltage switch plate from FoFU-1’s original high voltage switches (limit 24)
    $10000 Power a SCHOOL to fight energy poverty in the developing world + SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Ultimate level – Aluminum hot plate damaged by FoFu-1’s mightiest blast! (limit 4) with optional engraving
    $150,000 – NAMING RIGHTS – Focus Fusion-1 is descriptive but a little bland, but for this amount you can fix that! Just imagine, the ExxonMobil Focus Fusion-1 machine……
    $500,000 – Pending technical success, receive the 1st FoFu generator that comes off the assembly line (estimated delivery: 2019)

    #12848
    Francisl
    Participant

    I like your list of items and the prices. The Smithsonian items could be a good speculative investment for the right persons or organizations.

    Do you have the ability to handle a large quantity of orders?

    #12849
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Those that require a lof ot work from LPP should be a limited in number such as:
    $42 – The answer to everything, and your key to a PERSONALIZED PLASMA PORTRAIT
    $325 – SEE THE SCIENCE – Personal guided tour of the FoFu-1 lab
    $450 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 1 – Small lab relic (ceramic fragment, small gasket) – $500 – + optional engraving
    $550 – STEER THE SCIENCE – *YOU* get to set the parameters for a FOFU-1 shot ;-D
    $1000 – SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Level 2 – Large copper gasket or equivalent relic
    $2500 – SUPER-STEER THE SCIENCE – After appropriate training, YOU GET TO PRESS THE BUTTON to fire FoFu at your desired parameters
    $10000 Power a SCHOOL to fight energy poverty in the developing world + SCOOP THE SMITHSONIAN Ultimate level – Aluminum hot plate damaged by FoFu-1’s mightiest blast! (limit 4) with optional engraving

    These ones should probably be delegated to reduce the overhead:
    $55 – All of the above + membership in the Focus Fusion Society
    $75 – Power TOMORROW, Power TODAY – Fund tomorrow’s unlimited energy while addressing energy poverty TODAY – A solar lamp will be donated in your name to provide 4-hours of clean, bright light to help families in the developing world study & work after dark
    $125 – Fuse your way to MARS – Membership in the Mars Society or Planetary Society…
    $150 – pB11 BRACELET OF POWER educational kit
    $420 – Set of FOUR pB11 Bracelet educational kits
    $650 – Power a family – send FIVE solar lights to fight energy poverty IMMEDIATELY in the developing world

    #12850
    Lerner
    Participant

    These are a lot of good ideas, but clearly the levels of the rewards would have to be higher. It would be good for Derek or someone else to re-figure the levels of contribution for these rewards on the basis that we would not spend more than 1% of the money contributed on the rewards. So, for example, a reward for a $100 contribution would not cost more than $1, including our time to fulfill it. Roughly, we would want fulfillment to take less than 1 minute for a $100 contribution. So anything at that level or less would certainly have to be in electronic form, something that would take a few clicks to fulfill. And this is just a starting list—more ideas invited!

    #12851
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Eric, 1% is a little low. I would say the range average should be somewhere in 3-8% range not to discourage people too much – even credit cards give you 3% cash-back 🙂
    Yes ideally most rewards should be postponed, automated, outsourced and/or can done in bulk so not to impede actual work but because of these savings other rewards should be better to attract more (and more generous) people.

    #12856
    DerekShannon
    Participant

    @FrancisL The quantity of actual “orders” should be limited by the quantities of material we have for those rewards, will get exact inventory when awards are officially posted.

    The solar lights would for sure be out-sourced to the nonprofit partner already doing those, after reaching out to three I have had some positive discussions with OneMillionLights.org — Also with the caveat that this kind of reward would likely require IndieGoGo as the platform, since Kickstarter doesn’t like charitable causes/rewards we don’t make ourselves.

    The pB11 bracelets might not make the final cut, since they would take the most in-house work and so far I haven’t been able to recreate Rezwan’s lovely prototype (http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index.php/blog/article/aneutronic_jewelry)

    #12860
    Breakable
    Keymaster

    Hi Derek, I will push this idea a little and see what happens. Please propose more concrete tasks to do!

    #13160
    DerekShannon
    Participant

    Crowdfunding update from LPP’s February 2014 report, available here (click for video!).

    [em]Crowdfunding Plans Move Forward as 60 Volunteer – New video + March 9 livestream event! [/em]

    As LPP, in cooperation with the Focus Fusion Society, moves forward toward launching its first crowdfunding drive, over 60 volunteers have come forward to help by signing up at LPP’s website. In crowdfunding, contributions are solicited on central websites, such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The volunteers, from fifteen countries, have started to publicize the crowdfunding effort and have themselves pledged over $12,000. In addition, volunteers are starting to take on other tasks, such as selecting the best photos to upload to LPP’s new website, planned to go live in late March.

    On March 9, LPP will host our first crowdfunding “meet-up” in New York City, from 2PM to 4PM Eastern at Tekserve on 119 West 23rd Street. For those unable to attend in person, the event will be livestreamed via Google+ Hangouts on Air, from LPP’s new Youtube channel.

    The initial crowdfunding effort is planned to kick off on Earth Day, April 22. It will aim to raise the money needed for the project’s most expensive set of equipment—the beryllium electrodes that will replace the tungsten electrodes now in the works. Beryllium will be needed for the final part of the research drive to demonstrate scientific feasibility because of the intense x-rays that will be generated as FF-1 approaches its highest performance. The x-rays are absorbed in a tiny layer of tungsten, and will vaporize it. But beryllium will be transparent to most x-rays and will spread out the rest harmlessly. However, beryllium is far more expensive than tungsten and the electrodes will cost as much as $250,000, something crowdfunding can supply.

    In the run-up to the crowdfunding, LPP needs publicity and it got some when LPP investor Peter Arneson posted a well-written description of the project on the Contrarian Investor website. The lively discussion about the post was continued at the Tesla Motors website. The discussion increased traffic on LPP’s website and motivated a wave of inquires about investments.

    Fall 2013 Focus Fusion Cleantech NYC talk now available

    In other video news, LPP has launched our own YouTube channel, separate from the Focus Fusion Society’s still valued presence at http://www.youtube.com/FocusFusionSociety and linked to our Google+ Page. The new channel’s first video is a recording of a talk by Eric at the NYC Cleantech Opportunities event in November 2013. Share it or other videos to introduce Focus Fusion to your network!

    #13204
    JimmyT
    Participant

    Idea for gift: Autographed portrait of Eric next to his toys.

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