Hey robot enjoyers,

Thank you again for being here! If you'd like even more Short Circuit, feel free to join our community on Discord. 💚

Now that we're a week post-Pintopia and your inboxes have likely calmed down a bit, here's a more detailed overview of what's next:

By now your card should have been charged for your initial pledge payment. It appears that 34 of you had failed or errored card payments on Backerkit's first attempt to collect funds. That's perfectly okay, and happens - especially with large event such as Pintopia where multiple charges pinging a card appear suspicious to some banks - you have time to fix this!

To assure the smoothest experience possible, please do try and correct your payment within the next week!

Some helpful links about how to do so:

🔗 Why payments fail & how to fix them
🔗 How to update your payment method

Thank you for being on top of this! Receiving payments in a timely fashion helps me keep the production of all our lil guys moving as expected.

I am working away at the backend of the campaign, and I plan to send out surveys on the 26th of February (one week from now). Smoke tests may go live a day or so before then, I'll holler in this space when they do!

If you're new to the Backerkit experience: the survey is where you will make choices to confirm which pledge level and campaign add-on rewards you would like to receive, and then you will have the option to add additional items to your order if desired. During the survey you will also fill out your shipping information, so I know where to send your rewards. The cost of any additional add-ons and shipping will be charged later on.

This information can be edited at any time up until surveys lock - and your address locks separately, so you are able to adjust where your goodies are headed up until fulfillment itself!

Pay-Over-Time backers will receive their surveys automatically once their final payment has been made.

If you backed my first Short Circuit or Spooky Circuit campaign, you may be accustomed to seeing shipping charges estimated up front when filling out your survey or making a purchase through the pre-order store. This time, that will not be the case - shipping will be calculated after all prototyping is complete, and charged with any additional add-on costs when it comes time to place the final bulk orders!

I use weight-based shipping profiles to determine these costs, and while I have an approximate range of what to expect for some of the new items, I cannot accurately complete these until I have prototypes of everything on hand to weigh. If you'd like an early estimate based on your location, please refer to the chart on the main campaign page or feel free to reach out to me at any time.

Timeline wise, as also noted on the Story page, I've added a lot of padding to account for our first foray into plush! I commissioned the Byte prototype back in early November and we're currently awaiting our third and hopefully final round of fiddly little edits. After I've seen them in person to confirm the details, we have up to a few months bulk production time, and then over a month of shipping to me (plush orders are physically much larger than pins and travel by sea).

The Python prototype was also paid for a few weeks ago, and we should get a first look at them sometime after the Lunar New Year (most suppliers are located in China and take a much-deserved break during this time)! Their potential prototyping time was also accounted for in the original estimate of February 2027.

Anyone who ordered only some of the smaller items, such as pins and stickers, can expect earlier fulfillment (likely August-September 2026). The plush-sized bandanas will ship to me with our soft robot friends, as they're being handled by the same supplier, so are on the same timeline as the plushies in general.

If you missed out on Pintopia but still want to grab some pins, bandanas, banners, keychains, magnets, plushies, or stickers -- you're in luck! The Pre-Order Store is open and offers individual selection of many of the items funded by the campaign, along with the opportunity to help unlock the Python plush.

Backers of the campaign proper will have the chance to help unlock Python and add more items to your orders during the survey, so sit tight for another week!!

Now that we've got the administrative update out of the way -- a few of my amazing suppliers shipped out samples to me just prior to going on break for the Lunar New Year -- so onward to fresh pictures!!

The banner sample arrived in person first, which I'm delighted to say looks just as excellent as expected.

Then a day later, I was surprised with pin sample mail!!

So naturally, I loaded up the banner even more~

This is everyone other than Softwere, Else, and Octave (I'll be having them sampled as well once my pin manu is back from break!), plus some duplicates (put two Mini Pause and two Northern Lights Honeypot on there for fun), accidental variants (green and gold ear Nibble), and sample-only variants that never got mass produced (the Fire and Water versions of Leaf), so this is about how full the banner would be with the current complete collection.

While taking photos, I made a couple attempts to show off the material. It seems sturdy and is very smooth to the touch!

Like any fabric, it is possible to put a run in it while shoving the pin posts through if you're not gentle. I'd recommend over cork board (safest) or carefully putting pressure on either side of each post with your fingers (emphasis on the carefully part of that approach, of course). I accidentally dinged it a bit because I did my stabbing over couch cushions - I should know better! But it's been hanging up for a few days now and seems to take the weight of hella pins in stride, so I'm pleased with the quality.

Pin mail also means we finally get to see the complete Northern Lights samples with their epoxy layer added, so here's a closer look at them:

And of course, a first proper look at Heap in that colorway!!

Mini Pause looks even more adorable than I could have anticipated, and the level of detail on such a small pin blows me away --

Really just, itty bitty??

Another fun aspect of the newest pins: the Void Line bot-boards feature black star clutches, so Light was given matching yellow versions -- and then the Northern Lights alternates have cute little blue hearts, because I could not help myself. (Yes I absolutely need to do a Transistor variant in this colorway in the future regardless, because these really are too perfect for that.)

And then TODAY: the updated bandana sample arrived, and YES the sizing and placement of the component space works perfectly now!!

Absolutely DELIGHTED with them now, they're perfect.

Same breezy satin material, same delightfully gigantic size -- but now with the perfect pin interface, as intended.

That's all for now, you'll hear from me next when survey smoke tests are out! The majority of folks who expressed interest in the Python plush did also back the campaign for other items, so I'm excited to see how our purchase-to-unlock progresses once surveys go live.

Have a fantastic week! 🐺🐉💜