Ever miss going through your snapshots using a slideshow projector? Mint Digital product designer Benjamin Redford does, and it is for this reason that he developed a tiny projector that flashes your Instagram photos on any flat surface.
The Kickstarter campaign is ongoing for the creation of this interesting product that caters to the modern photographer who shoots with his mobile phone. Mint Digital also supplied a promo video, which provides a demonstration of the product.
“The prototypes and the design for manufacture are done. We just need your help with tooling costs and to find out how many we should order on the first production run,” says Redford in the promo video.
Projecteo is not an accessory to your mobile phone; it’s an entirely different device. This means that you don’t hook up Projecteo to your phone when you want to project your pictures. Here’s how it works:
Redford said that they are hard at work on Projecteo’s web component, which will allow you to select the Instagram photos to be placed on a slide reel. Each reel will have nine images. Your photos will be “melted” onto a 35mm Kodak film strip and will be developed in the way regular photographs are processed, only in full color. Then, using a circle cutter, the reels will be cut away from the strip, and each of them will be placed inside a tiny wheel.
When your wheel is done, just pop it into your Projecteo, hit the power switch, turn off the lights in your room, and enjoy the view. You can flick through the photos by turning the wheel.
Another interesting thing about Projecteo is that it’s made for people to disassemble. Redford says in Kickstarter, “This will not only make them easier to recycle but it means you can pull it open and see what’s going on inside. There, you will find a super bright LED, capacitors and resistors, a switch, a decade counter and three batteries. Feel free to hack away! We can’t wait to see your creations.”
Redford claims that if things go as planned, they may be able to roll out the Projecteo units to the project backers in late February. “With successful funding, we will be able to make Projecteo between mid-December and mid-January. After manufacturing, units will be drop tested to the American standard and EU/FCC certified, which should take a maximum of two weeks. We’ll then need to test our fulfilment process to make sure the Instagrams you choose on the site are matched with the physical wheels,” he says.
The Kickstarter project currently has a total of 94 backers with $2,332 worth of pledges (the goal is $18,000) and only 34 days left. If you like what you see and you want to support the project, head on over to the Projecteo Kickstarter page.