New Disruptors 59: Shell Game with Dan Shapiro

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Dan Shapiro created the game Robot Turtles out of scissors, clip art, and a printer to offer asymmetric play: kids and adults can play together and both can enjoy the experience. He brought it to Kickstarter to sell a few hundred copies, and sold over 25,000. In his workshop, Dan explains how the game developed, the Kickstarter proceeded, and how he's fulfilling it.

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Things we mention in this episode:

View a set of photos and videos I took while visiting Dan, including shots of his 2D laser cutter at work.

Candy Land "is a crippled Markov chain coupled to a push-pop stack." Dean Putney, who I have now referenced a million times, was a guest on the show in November 2013. I just received my copy of his book and it is fantastic! Huge and wonderfully printed. Fulfillment by Amazon lets companies store their stuff in Amazon's warehouses and have them manage shipping stuff to your customers.

Dan's friend Joe Heitzeberg (with his friend Ethan Lowry) created Poppy, which is an apparatus that turns an iPhone into a 3D camera and viewer. It went into commercial release a few weeks ago and can be purchased at Poppy's site. Joe is working on Kickmailer, a back-end processing system to help Kickstarter projects manage fulfillment.


The New Disruptors is a podcast about people who make art, things, or connections finding new ways to reach an audience and build a community. Glenn Fleishman is the host, and he talks with new guests every week. Find older episodes at the podcast's home.

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