Welcome to Infinum Dock DIY, here's everything you need to know
This project started in December 2019, and preception started a little earlier.
And for hisorys sake, I believe it's worth telling the story of how all this started.
Our Founder, Alyeldin Shahin, was a Robotics Mentor at Melvindale High School. While mentoring he overheard a student complaining to his peer.
"Gosh my thumbs hurt" "Why?" "I've been up all night 'texting' our my english essay on my phone" "Why not just checkout a chrome book?" "I have no wifi at home, those things are useless without wifi"
Aaaand scene.
And it began, early on we understood that the problem in this situation was 2 things
- Form Factor
- Internet Access
What Alan did (the student that was 'texting' his english essay) was remarkable. Instead of relying on Broadband (Which we know is insanely expesnive), Alan used cellular tech.
And so, the Infinum dock was made. A few prototypes, the first one: https://youtu.be/1CSnt6bSuIk https://youtu.be/nqZXrH0vC1s
It all started with make shift parts from Amazon, and a really bad 3D print.
Graciously crowdfunded by Doordash tips, I worked my ass of to fund the Engineers that made this project possible.
And finally, we streamlined the project and got everything ready for manufacturing.
But alas, every story has a pivot, and our pivot begins here. The Chip Shortage
We could not gather enough pre-orders, especially for a product that no one has seen the final phase yet. And the pathway to that, for such a trivial problem would prove too long
So we decided to make the files DIY and open source. All of us have benifited so much from open source projects. And it awesome to finally give back.
This does not mean that we will not still provide our own manufactured solution, but what it does mean that we can create a community of those who see a genuine opportunity to change a students life.