Kickstarter allows some really cool projects to become reality by giving startups the opportunity to be funded by small, individual commitments of support. (I know a few of us on the site have helped fund some projects and took great satisfaction in being part of something new. It also doesn’t hurt that sometimes the funding also yields an early units of whatever is being created. ) One project that I really hope becomes reality is B-Square’s Modular Solar Powered electrics.
B-squares are solar power cells that have magnetic connectors at each corner for connecting one solar panel to another. Since there are a variety of different panels that will, hopefully, be available, you can just “daisy chain” solar panels or you can add in one of the “specialty panels which include, a specially designed iPod/iPhone module, an LED module that changes color, an Arduino module and more. (For those who don’t know, Arduino is an open source hardware prototyping platform that hackers use to “do their thing”. It should be incredibly useful for B-square to include Arduino as it opens the door to all kinds of creative tweaking and new uses for the device.)
Also, they plan to have a battery square that you can use to power things when there is no sun as well as using the solar panels to charge the battery square.
Imagine what you can do with B-squares. Do you want a charger for your iPhone? You can build one and it can even be cubed shaped. Want to build a solar powered coaster? You can do it! The only limit of B-squares is your imagination.
If you like the B-square idea, then head on over to the kickstarter website and donate some money to help make B-Squares a reality.