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Making a Physical Product

b.jonw.com

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Re: Making a Physical Product

#31

Post by sequoia »

DividesByZero wrote: post #12

"I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming up. " Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.

> It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.

People have been making games of chance since long before advanced mathematics. Being a statistician doesn't necessarily mean you can design a great game - the opposite holds as well.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#32

Post by willtheperson »

learc83 wrote: post #19
FigBug wrote: post #6

I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app. I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the to…

Do you mind if I ask what was the quantity for your injection molded part, and what company you ended up going with. Last time I tried to price injection molding it was way too much.

My dad runs a small plastic injection molding company. He's got a single bread and butter product they make, but he's always looking for new ideas.

Is there a way for people to easily connect with manufacturers in the USA? My dads shop is really small and hungry vs some shop you could find in a google search with lots of machines (and expensive)

Re: Making a Physical Product

#33

Post by curt »

FigBug wrote: post #6

I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app. I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the to…

Wrote a few articles a couple years ago for HN on physical products here's one of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840896

elaborated a bit more here: http://curtgeen.com/post/7575880635/expanded-part1-design

I've been out of it for a few years but if you have any questions I should be able to point you in the right direction.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#34

Post by curt »

marban wrote: post #11

Did anyone come across some good articles on dealing with suppliers on alibaba (test-runs, QA, IP, shipping, customs, etc.)?

don't deal with alibaba, contact the manufacturer directly. Most have reps in either Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan that you can talk with, just need to find them.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#35

Post by DividesByZero »

sequoia wrote: post #31
DividesByZero wrote: post #12

"I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming up. " Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.

> It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics. People have been making games of chance since long before advanced mathematics. Being a statistician doesn't necessarily mean you can design a great game - the opposite holds as well.

That's true, but I'm sure it would have helped while the author was trying to balance the game out to better understand the sources of particular imbalances, rather than having to guess-and-iterate on them.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#36

Post by SimianLogic2 »

Good article. I've been working on a board game prototype on and off for a couple of years and have decks of cards with things taped on them that look very similar to your dice. My plan was to perfect the mechanics and then just make an iPad app, but I think this demonstrates a boutique print run is not that unfeasible.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#37

Post by muratmutlu »

Loved this post, great that he wrote a rails app and nice to get the costs at the end too.

I tried to make a wi-fi kettle with a wifi module in that had a API, the prototype alone was a huge expense (£25k+) and to get it into production was around £200k (CE certified etc). In the end I just wrote up the blog post (here http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the-twettle-p...)

Props to anyone who makes something physical, it's dedication, passion and investment

Re: Making a Physical Product

#38

Post by peterevans »

jeffandersen wrote: post #2

In case you miss it in the middle of the article, these are the instructions for the game: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0218/2060/files/spacedice.p...

I did miss it, thanks. It would be nice if the instructions were linked on the site itself, of course, but I didn't see them there.

Re: Making a Physical Product

#39

Post by retroafroman »

willtheperson wrote: post #32
learc83 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind if I ask what was the quantity for your injection molded part, and what company you ended up going with. Last time I tried to price injection molding it was way too much.

My dad runs a small plastic injection molding company. He's got a single bread and butter product they make, but he's always looking for new ideas. Is there a way for people to easily connect with manufacturers in the USA? My dads shop is really small and hungry vs some shop you could find in a google search with lots of machines (and expensive)

Getting listed at Thomasnet.com[1] would be a good start.

[1] http://www.thomasnet.com/products/injection-molding-custom-9...

Re: Making a Physical Product

#40

Post by nollidge »

EStudley wrote: post #3
jeffandersen wrote: post #2

In case you miss it in the middle of the article, these are the instructions for the game: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0218/2060/files/spacedice.p...

All that work and there's still a typo on the first sentence, second page.

And the directions are still pretty confusing. For example, I had no idea the debris' orientation mattered until I saw the examples. And what happens if there's a dispute about whether the debris is aiming at a planet or not? And also, can I keep a planet if I didn't roll a sun with it? I assume not, but it's not explicitly clear. And what's the difference between orange and yellow space debris? Also, the How to Play section indicates I should only keep planets and black holes, but don't I also keep stars so that my planets stay habitable?
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