AKRON, Ohio – When Akron-based TinyCircuits owner Ken Burns launched a Kickstarter campaign for his company’s tiny video game console keychain, Thumby, he was hoping to generate enough interest to fund the project in 30 days.
Much to Burns’ surprise, Thumby received the full amount of requested funding ($15,000) in less than two hours when the campaign launched Sept. 28. As of Sept. 30, the project has received more than $61,000 in funding by more than 1,400 donors.
“We’ve done four Kickstarters before and they’ve all been successful, but nothing like this,” Burns said. “We had early reviews of Thumby and they were positive. But to be fully funded in under two hours is great.”
Thumby is a pet project TinyCircuits principal engineer Ben Rose created five years ago. He showed off the programmable keychain at several events, but the project was on the back burner until earlier this year, Burns said.
“This is my favorite product we’ve ever made at TinyCircuits. I’m really excited to finally get it out there and see what games people make for it,” Rose said.
Rose was inspired by the tiny screens on fitness trackers, but wanted to be able to play a game on a similar-sized screen instead. The tiny circuit board he designed ended up being the basis for Thumby, he said.
“Making the first prototype wasn’t easy, but the real challenge was designing something that we can produce in volume — I made about 10 versions to get there,” Rose said.
The TinyCircuits team spent the past six months developing the game console keychain. Thumby is TinyCircuits’ smallest and most powerful product to date. It measures 1.2-inch by 0.7″ by 0.3″ and has fully functional electronics, including a buzzer, battery, power switch, gameplay buttons and a micro USB to allow for charging and programming. Users can program the playable keychain using the MicroPython programming language. Thumby was built on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 processor. Initially it will be available in gray with a black directional pad and red A/B buttons.
Thumby comes programmed with five 90s-esque video games:
- TinyBlocks – A classic puzzle game
- Space Debris – A space shooter game reminiscent of Asteroids
- Annelid – A snake game in which the player collects food
- Delver – A dungeon adventure game where the player can collect and buy weapons and battle monsters
- Saur Run – The player is a small dinosaur that runs and jumps
Thumby will be manufactured at TinyCircuits in Akron and will be available for purchase in 2022. The retail price is $19. It will be available for purchase on the TinyCircuits website, on Amazon and at other retailers, according to Burns.
“We are pretty well suited to start production following the campaign,” Burns said. “The neat thing about is that we actually do our own electronics manufacturing here in Akron. We have a whole assembly line. And we work with Akron-based plastics company David Wolfe Designs.”
Fourteen people work at TinyCircuits, but Burns might add to his team if the Thumby release goes well, he said.
Thumby will be TinyCircuits’ first product intended for general consumers. Its previous products have been kits intended for maker and do-it-yourself audiences.
The Thumby Kickstarter campaign will continue until Oct. 28. Additional project funding will allow TinyCircuits to produce the device in different colors.
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