Program Update 4 / Last chance to lock your survey and purchase Add-Ons for MarsVR!
almost 6 years ago
– Sat, Jun 09, 2018 at 09:34:44 PM
Greetings CrowdExplorers,
Our team will be travelling out to MDRS next week to begin the photogrammetry scans of the facilities (inside and out) and the one square mile of terrain, using drones and high-resolution cameras. We will be documenting everything we do and taking video for a short documentary film that will come out this summer. We will also soon be featured in the Red Bull blog. In the past month, we were already featured by Space.com, Mars Daily, Spaceflight Insider, and Mondo 2000. In particular, the Mondo 2000 piece was very in-depth on the project, and we are hoping the Red Bull article will be similar.
We recently met with Dr. Greg Chamitoff, a former astronaut and professor of engineering at Texas A&M. He has a group of 50+ students that have been working for the last two years on SpaceCRAFT VR, which is a project to create a VR environment that has real space physics and science models coded into the platform. We committed to work together long-term, and in the immediate timeframe, our MDRS terrain models and photogrammetry/3-D models will make an appearance in SpaceCRAFT VR. In addition, Dr. Chamitoff and members of his team will be joining our project as Core Developers, and working closely with us to make MarsVR Phase 1 (and beyond) a reality.
We have other exciting partnerships that we have not yet announced, including one which we hope will upgrade the suits used at MDRS to include VR-ready cameras to enable future real-time coordination between crewmembers at MDRS and MarsVR participants, enabling our vision of astronauts and people back on Earth using VR to work together to explore Mars.
Tomorrow (Sunday, June 10th) is the last chance to purchase add-ons for the Phase 1 Kickstarter before we lock the surveys and begin shipping out rewards. You can add on any one of our three embroidered patch designs, a metal medallion (which are super popular so far -- everybody who has seen them physically has been very impressed!), or any of our digital rewards. Please visit use the survey link you received in your email recently, or visit marsvr.backerkit.com
Every little bit helps as we make our dreams using VR to support the human exploration of Mars a reality.
I'll see you on Mars (in VR!)
-James Burk
Program Manager, MarsVR
BackerKit surveys are coming!
almost 6 years ago
– Fri, Jun 01, 2018 at 04:50:58 PM
Greetings CrowdExplorers,
Soon, you’ll receive an email from us with a special link to your BackerKit survey. It’s important to respond to your survey as quickly as you can since we need this information to fulfill your rewards.
You don’t need to create a BackerKit account to fill out your survey. When you receive the email with the survey, simply click the survey link to respond. Answer the questions about your reward preferences, provide shipping information, and (if you'd like) purchase add-on items to support our program. You don’t have access to this survey link yet, but it will be available soon via email!
After you respond to your survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final counts on June 15th.
If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://marsvr.backerkit.com
If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact BackerKit support at https://marsvr.backerkit.com/faq#contact-us
If you have any problems that BackerKit is not able to address or any other non-reward-related questions about the MarsVR Program, please reach out to us at [email protected]
Thanks,
-James Burk
Program Manager, MarsVR
Final Kickstarter Wrap-Up
almost 6 years ago
– Thu, May 31, 2018 at 11:21:36 PM
Greetings CrowdExplorers,
We did it!
The Kickstarter for MarsVR Phase 1 is a success and will be fully funded by Kickstarter. THANK YOU to all of our backers for believing in us. We promise to create for you a high quality virtual reality environment that we can all be proud to be a part of -- one we can all use to inspire the public, especially all of the young people out there.
We topped off the night by learning that our project has been featured in a local TV news piece at KJCT Channel 8 (an ABC affilliate in Grand Junction, Colorado.) Many thanks to Robert Madsen and the teams at Synaptix Games and AeroScout for getting our project some awesome publicity! We are looking forward to working with you on the MarsVR Program efforts.
While we did not meet either of our two stretch goals, we are committed to delivering a completed open-source virtual reality environment that will work on HTC VIve / Oculus Rift / and a PC/Mac/Linux machine with a high-end graphics card. We are also committed to giving you a high quality terrain model at the MDRS of at least one square mile, creating several mission scenarios for crew training, and creating educational materials to help people learn our environment and how to customize it. We will also likely have car/laptop stickers for sale in the future.
Here are the final Kickstarter stats:
$31,482 raised (114% of Goal)
198 Backers - THANK YOU!
16,485 people watched our Trailer Video
9 press appearances
100+ social media posts
Tomorrow you will receive a survey based on the reward level you selected. It will ask you things like: what full name you'd like to be recognized with, what type of embroidered patch you'd like (if you pledged for one of those or added to your existing pledge), and your postal mailing address for shipping any physical rewards.
Please fill out the survey, and stay tuned for us to provide regular news & video updates on the program. Watch our Program Website at MARSVR.IO and sign up for our Newsletter there (see the form near the bottom of the main page) to ensure you get all of our future updates.
Thanks again for your support on the Kickstarter, and we will NOW DEFINATELY see you on Mars (in VR!)
-James Burk
Program Manager, MarsVR
Final Hours of Phase 1 Kickstarter!
almost 6 years ago
– Thu, May 31, 2018 at 05:46:56 PM
Greetings CrowdExplorers,
We are now in the home stretch — there’s only a few hours left (it ends at 9PM Pacific time tonight.)
It would be great if you could tell your friends and colleagues about it... see if they are interested in joining us as a backer for Phase 1. Nobody will ever have this chance again! The best link to promote is: http://bit.ly/MarsVR1
I had a long discussion with yesterday with Dr. Robert Zubrin on the project and its future. He is very impressed with how we’ve been able to meet our goal (his quote: “We belong in the Kickstarter Hall of Fame!”) He reaffirmed some of the ideas he mentioned on the Kickstarter Trailer Video such as astronauts partnering with the public back on Earth to explore, and how we could try all that out well at the MDRS. We also geeked out on how we could solve some of the technical challenges at the MDRS including bandwidth. We have some ideas and potential partners we haven’t announced yet that may be able to help.
So the future is bright for MarsVR and the Mars Society because of the pledges you have made for this project. Thank you for everything you have done to make this project a reality.
The development team is mobilized and will be meeting soon to plan out our June Sprint, which includes all of the Photogrammetry capture work at the MDRS. We will be using professional gear (including drones) to capture the facilities and terrain. Part of our team was featured in this news article yesterday in the Daily Sentinel newspaper in Grand Junction, CO.
We commit to providing regular updates to the community we are building (with your help.) I have also updated our Program Roadmap which will live permanently on our main Program website (marsvr.io) and I'll make sure to keep it up to date as we wrap up Phase 1 and begin Phase 2 and beyond...
You’ll hear from me again tonight with a final wrap up of the Kickstarter numbers and details on the backer surveys we’ll be sending out.
I'll see you on Mars (in VR!)
-James Burk
Program Manager, MarsVR
36 Hours Remaining - We passed $30,000 and on the way to first Stretch Goal!
almost 6 years ago
– Thu, May 31, 2018 at 01:29:00 AM
Greetings CrowdExplorers!
Only 36 hours remaining, and we are at 111% of goal and passed $30,000! A big THANK YOU to all of the backers that have pledged to our project. If we get to $35,000 by tomorrow 9pm PST, we will increase the amount of terrain we capture at the MDRS, work on additional mission content, and provide ALL BACKERS with a laptop/car sticker. Please consider upping your pledge -- you can add an additional Metal Medallion for $45 (that's a special $5 off for the last 2 days) and 1 or more embroidered patches for $20 each. Every little bit is helping so please consider this to assist us with our stretch goal. We will be recognizing all donors in the environment, at a prominence in line with the amount they pledged. This recognition will be PERMANENT in the MDRS VR Environment, and since it will be open sourced, will persist for many years.
We'll have some exciting updates coming over the next month as we begin scanning the terrain and facilities at the MDRS. So even though the Kickstarter is ending tomorrow, our transparency will go on. Thanks again for all your support on this project!
I'll see you on Mars (in VR!),
-James Burk
Program Manager, MarsVR
