Dear Backers,
Happy holidays! Here are some updates on our production for Petoi open source robot dog Bittle.
We have stocked 4000 sets of Bittle shells and 3000 batteries on our shelves. 3000 sets of NyBoards and wireless modules are still at the PCBA factory and should arrive on Dec.15th. We have finalized the design of the internal and external boxes for the Bittle kit, and will produce 5000 sets next week. The servos are a little behind schedule. We have made 30000 sets of servo cases, and they are sent to another factory to print our logo. Their micro-controllers and the gears are ready. But the motors will only start to arrive on Dec. 8th. Then we will put all the pieces into functional servos. There are 1000 sets of intelligent cameras and sensor packs in production. They will be added during the final packaging.
We had to stock way more inventory than needed to meet the manufacturers' minimum order quantity. You can imagine how hard the negotiation and cashflow were during the past months.
On Nov. 15th, we did a pilot production of 15 assembled Bittles. We realized that our offer of assembled Bittle would add 500 more hours of labor. I designed several 3D printed tools to improve efficiency, but we still need to hire more people to keep up with the schedule. While waiting for all the components to arrive, we have started partial assembling and packaging. For example, we are pre-assembling the upper legs and main body frames. After the internal boxes come, we will also sort the kits by different color themes. After sorting the common items, we need to check your order preferences and include your customized add-ons and address labels. We will be careful, but please excuse us if we made some mistakes in the contents.
I'm merging Nybble and Bittle's codes on Github so that both can work with NyBoard V1. We will resume the shipping of Nybble after updating all the manuals. We are still finalizing the BiBoard. We hope to ship them with the main batch and get its basic drivers ready by delivery.
In the meanwhile, we are running stress tests on the Bittle samples. They will also get the necessary certificates for international shipping. We have sent several test packages to different countries to validate our courier's channels. They usually take one to two weeks to deliver. We still expect to start shipping in December, but the delivery may happen over January and February. The supply chain will halt for about one month starting in early Feb due to the Chinese New Year. So we should ship out all current orders before that.
We have sent out the formal survey and weekly reminders to all backers. So far, 82% of the backers have completed the survey. If you haven't, please check your spam folder for "petoi pledgebox survey". We need your shipping addresses and order preferences to prepare your special packages. We will refund some overpaid add-on shipping after all the orders are fulfilled.
I would stop here and continue working on my tight schedule. I hope everyone stays safe and healthy during this holiday season. You can email support@petoi.com for any questions. You can also follow @petoicamp on social media for more frequent updates.
Bests,
Rz and the Petoi Team