Success! (And ways to contribute if you missed the Kickstarter)

Running a Kickstarter campaign is not for the faint-of-heart. Five grueling weeks of non-stop self-promotion can really take a lot out of you - even if you're a natural-born extrovert like me. But we did it! We even managed to raise $4,155 over our initial funding goal - though still $3k under our stretch goal to fully fund a Spanish-language version.

Several people have asked if it's still possible to contribute to the project, since the Kickstarter campaign is over and we still need more funds, and the answer is Yes!! We are still able to receive contributions through our non-profit fiscal sponsor, Filmmakers Collaborative, and all donations are tax-deductible in the US. ANY amount is welcome.

Another way you can help is by posting a "Worse Than Poop" selfie. We ran a contest to see how many people we could get to post selfies taken next to a mode of transportation that was either "#worsethanpoop" or "NOT #worsethanpoop". Perhaps not surprisingly, the "NOT" category was much more popular, and images are still coming in - this one from Luis Villa of Costa Rica, taken while visiting the Bay Area! (Can you tell what is 'unusual' about the photo?)

Luis Villa at the Palo Alto transit center - our most recent #worsethanpoop selfie!

To post your own selfie, just take a photo of yourself next to a clean, or dirty, mode of transportation, and a sign that says either "#worsethanpoop" or "NOT #worsethanpoop". Then post the photo on Facebook or Twitter with a hashtag (that's important!), like this: #worsethanpoop. Or, just email your photo to me at worsethanpoop -at- gmail.com.

Bill McKibben Likes Us! (and the Ethics of Flying to a Climate Rally)

With ten days to go in our Kickstarter campaign - and $5,000 still left to raise - I've started feeling a bit desperate. So I wrote to Bill McKibben this morning about our project, hoping he might help to spread the word. It felt like a vain hope - I mean, I've written to plenty of bloggers and journalists already about this project, and most of them don't respond. Plus, I decided to write to the leader of the climate movement two days after some really, truly bad news about the state of the climate came out, and a few hours after his most recent article in Rolling Stone hit the Internet. Getting any kind of a response seemed highly unlikely at best.

So imagine my joyful disbelief this afternoon, when I saw this tweet:

Yes, this is from THE Bill McKibben. And yes, I did tell him we were thinking of attending the climate rally in NYC.

I wrote him back and thanked him, profusely - but what I didn't ask (I hate to bug the guy, he's so busy trying to save the world) was whether or not he thinks that flying across the country to attend a climate rally - ok, THE climate rally - is actually a responsible use of fossil fuels. I have a feeling he would argue that it is. (Read his article - I think you'll see why.) Especially since we would (of course) offset all that carbon. But still. I'm curious.

What do you think? Is it ethical? Are YOU going to be in New York? Why (or why not)?

Elliot & Vanessa Go to Maker Faire

Hard to believe - but somehow, until today, we had never made it to Maker Faire: the incredible two-day festival of delirious DIY-engineering-crafting-creativity that happens every year a short 30 minute drive from our home in Palo Alto.

You know you're going to see cool stuff when the car across from you in the parking lot is an electric Fisker. (Note the solar-paneled roof.)

This year, our friend Christopher invited us to help at his booth: LEDlabs makes an iOS app that drives LED displays - using anything from live video, to shadow puppetry, to photos of the world's youngest climate scientist:

Elliot up in LED lights at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2014

We had been warned in advance that Maker Faire was huge, and crowded, and overwhelming. It was all true. We decided early on to treat it like New York City: to accept that we'd never be able to see it all, and that whatever we saw would probably be pretty cool. Overall, the approach seemed to work.

Grace from Bare Conductive helped Elliot do some mixology on a paper DIY turntable

My personal favorite: scooter-powered spirograph!

I got really inspired at a talk by designer/builder/educator Emily Pilloton, of Project H. She shared several projects in which she had worked with teenagers to design and build meaningful, useful structures for their communities - building not only community resources but also resilience and self-esteem. SO COOL!

Emily Pilloton from Project H, sharing incredible stories of what she calls "love and audacity".

Elliot meets a random wandering robot at Maker Faire 2014.

Jon Sarriugarte of Form & Reform let Elliot ride his electric trilobite (and wear his cool leather helmet)

Maker Faire can be overwhelming - the noise, the crowds, the lights, the constant stimulation. But towards the end of the afternoon, I found the perfect antidote at the SJSU interactive media booth: a biofeedback station that tracks your brainwaves, and allows you to control images of rocks on a screen by making your mind clear and focused. Who knew it would be possible to meditate right next to a Tesla coil powered by the sound of grinding guitars? And that it would feel so great?

Meditation Biofeedback, courtesy of SJSU.

Experience Electric... at Google

Earlier this week, I got invited to be an EV Ambassador for the California Better Ride campaign. The first event was yesterday, at Google headquarters in Mountain View. I decided to go because it was close by, and I figured it might give me an opportunity to promote Worse Than Poop! Plus I'm always going on & on about how much I love my Fiat 500e - so I thought it made sense to go to a place where someone might actually listen.

Googlers waiting patiently to drive electric Cadillacs, BMWs,Porsches, Fords, Fiats, and Smart Cars.

Cute! But not as fun to drive as the Fiat 500e...

The event was smack in the middle of a school day, so unfortunately Elliot wasn't able to join me. But I had a lot of fun. I got to test-drive a Smart EV, and to chat with a lot of very smart people. Over lunch, for instance, I had an interesting conversation about the future of transportation with a fellow named Seth, who rides an electric skateboard and works on the Google autonomous car project. I even got to ride a Google bike!

The only thing cooler than a BMW ActivE electric car is a Google Bike!

FrankE the Fiat 500e, happily charging in the solar shade at Google.

The Google campus is a pretty amazing place - part theme park, part office park. They had a catered lunch - with multiple cuisines on offer, plus an ice cream truck - in the parking lot. Probably the most surreal experience was during a conversation with a Google employee about the Tesla rangers who came to his house to repair his Model S: over his shoulder, I spotted a group of six people pedaling down the street on a bright yellow contraption. The Google employee didn't bat an eye, and explained that it was a mobile conference room. 

A Tesla Model S charging under the Google solar canopy. Not one but TWO Tesla Roadsters were parked on the other side.

Once this project is over, I might have to go get a job at Google. I hear they have an environmental non-profit wing...

Elliot Visits the Stanford Solar Car Project

Yesterday, Elliot and I were invited to Stanford University's Automotive Innovation Facility, to see a presentation about the Stanford Solar Car Project. 

Luminos, the latest Stanford Solar Car, came in 4th in the 2013 World Solar Challenge. Stanford Solar Car Project is America's top solar car team - and the best undergraduate team in the world. 

Three Stanford Solar Cars were on display. Richard Lui tells Elliot about Xenith, which competed in the 2011 World Solar Challenge.

Luminos team member Anna Olson describes the enviable discomforts of driving the solar car in the outback.

Definitely not a comfy seat! Solar Car racers take 4-hour shifts behind the wheel, to keep from falling asleep or dying of heat stroke.

Bike to Work Day!

Today was the SF Bay Area Bike to Work Day. Elliot and I got up an hour early, to greet people at the CalTrain station.

Kathy Durham, Palo Alto's Safe Routes to School/Commute coordinator, gives Elliot goodie bags to hand out.

We made a giant poster and handed out flyers - along with free bagels, coffee, and goodie bags. Elliot even dressed up in his professor costume. Crowd funding has made us shameless.

Vanessa and Elliot, in between waves of cycle commuters.

Sven Thesen at 7am, waiting for commuters and chanting "Worse Than Poop!"

Towards 8am, more people started  arriving - including the Mayor and the City Manager.

Elliot & Vanessa with team Bike Palo Alto - including Kathy Durham, Mayor Nancy Shepherd, Chief Transportation Official Jaime Rodriguez, and City Manager Jim Keene.

One cyclist, when he heard about Worse Than Poop!, asked Elliot to sign his flyer.

The lucky recipient of Elliot's very first autograph.

Of Psycho Butts and Strange Coincidences...

Elliot has been reading a lot lately. This morning, he was too busy reading a very funny book called "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" to feed the cat. I decided not to get mad; I let him read, and fed the cat myself. The book is actually really funny - and I want to support Elliot's reading habit. 

Later this morning, at our local farmer's market, Elliot and I ran into Eugene Cordero: friend, science advisor to the project, and "the genius behind the Green Ninja". He was with his wife and her cousin. "Let me introduce you to Andrew," he said. "He's visiting from Australia, and he writes children's books." So we shook hands and chatted for a few minutes. Elliot ran off to get something to eat with his dad.

Eugene told me to tell Andrew about our project - so I did, and when I got to the part about pooping cars, Eugene said - "Andrew should find that familiar territory. He just wrote a book about psycho butts." 

It took me a moment to register this. "Hold on." My brain was searching through inner recordings of Elliot's non-stop monologues about his favorite authors. Who was it that wrote the psycho butts book? "Are you..." click, it came to me: "Andy Griffiths?"

"Why yes!" he said. He looked surprised.

I uttered an expletive. "Oh my god. Wait! There is someone you HAVE to meet." I ran off to find Elliot.

Elliot, Andy Griffiths, and Eugene Cordero at the California Avenue Farmers Market

Andy/Andrew turned out to be not just Eugene's wife's cousin, and house-guest, and one of the most famous children's book authors in Australia - but also an incredibly nice guy. He indulged Elliot in a long discussion of the intricacies of several of his titles. He told Elliot all about how the books get made. He even promised to sign Elliot's book copy when he comes to Elliot's school next week for an author visit. (He's currently on a book tour of the US.) 

Could the world be any smaller?

Carbon-free Transportation: Part 1

As a thank-you to our Kickstarter supporters, we're creating a series of videos featuring Professor Elliot looking at alternatives to pooping cars. In each episode, Elliot and his camera-toting mom will visit a different expert to learn about a new form of carbon-free transportation.

Our first episode features Nissan Leaf expert Maddi Hausmann:

Blast off

Tuesday night we hosted a cocktail party at the home of Sandra Slater and Drew Maran, to officially kick-off our campaign to crowd-fund Worse Than Poop! We had grown-up cocktails, and "poop cocktails" for the kids. (Annie Talbot even brought "pee-pee syrup" - oh-so-realistic-looking orange-flavored simple syrup - to mix in with the CO2 spritzer. I'm not sure if she had any takers.)

Sven Thesen the Biking MC, and our first two guests: Hamid Saadat and Gary Hedden

Sven Thesen played Master of Ceremonies. We showed the Kickstarter video, and Maddi Hausmann (EV aficionado and Leaf sales rep for Nissan Sunnyvale) interviewed Elliot about his involvement in the project. We set up a pledge station, and people cycled through, making pledges to the project.

Sven and Elliot toast to launching Worse Than Poop!

Note to all you future crowdfunders out there: if you decide to set up a pledge station, at which multiple people will be pledging, be sure to station someone super tech-savvy at the station ALL NIGHT to supervise the process. Don't let this be you:

Towards the end of the evening, we were up to $3300, and feeling really good. Then, suddenly the amount dropped to $600. WTF?!

It turned out that a lot of people didn't understand Kickstarter's double-log-in procedure - which requires backers to log in, and OUT, of both Kickstarter AND Amazon. So several people thought they were pledging, when in fact they were simply undoing someone else's pledge, and attributing it to their own account. Suffice to say, it's taken us three days to sort this out, and I'm still not sure it's completely resolved. Lesson learned!

The good news is, even without all the pledges from Tuesday night entered into the system yet, we have already raised $2790, and I expect we'll be over $5000 by the weekend. So we're off to a strong start!

Sandra & Drew's beautiful home filled with supporters of Worse Than Poop!

And the even better news is that so many people have been coming out of the woodwork to support this project. We have 41 backers already on Kickstarter - and more every few hours. It's awkward putting yourself out there, asking everyone you know to back your film - but sometimes people really surprise you with their kindness and generosity. It sounds corny - but looking around on Tuesday night at the loving and supportive community around me, all there to help us make a difference in the world (and have some fun in the process), I felt truly blessed.

Earth Day, here we come...

It's Sunday night, and we launch our Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday. Less than 48 hours to go! I'm nervous, and exhausted. Tonight at dinner, we asked Elliot if he remembered when he first heard about the project and agreed to do it. "I remember you came to pick me up after school, at Kids Club," he said. "And I remember, you said, 'I've got an idea!...'"

The rest, as they say, is history. Or soon will be.

Yikes! We launch in less than 48 hours! (From our first "Professor Elliot" photo shoot, June, 2013) 

As we prepare for the intensity of the campaign, a few people have pointed out to me that not everyone knows what a "Kickstarter campaign" is. So, in a nutshell: it's a way of crowdfunding a project - in this case, by using the Kickstarter web platform.

Crowdfunding is a way of gathering financial support through many individual donors, most of whom donate small amounts. Running a campaign is supposed to be by turns grueling, mortifying, and exhilarating. Missy Laney, of the Sundance Institute, told me it's like having a newborn baby in the house. You spend every waking moment on it - and you don't sleep much. (You can see why I'm feeling nervous!)

In our case, we are also running an "all or nothing" campaign - meaning we won't get a penny unless we raise at least our goal: $21,000. This is the bare minimum it will take to make Worse Than Poop! the film we know it needs to be. In reality, it will take more than this - but $21k will get us far enough to make it happen. And as with all crowdfunded projects, the more people who find out about it, the more likely we are to meet our goal. 

This is why you, dear reader, are so important. You have the power to forward this post to your friends, to like us on FaceBook, to follow us on Twitter, and to tell everyone you know about Worse Than Poop!  Starting on Tuesday, for as little as $5, you can become part of the solution, part of a movement that will change our world for the better, one pooping car at a time. We'll also have many awesome and fun rewards for you - fabulous tokens of our affection that you won't find anywhere else. So stay tuned... and if you haven't already, please take the Poopie Pledge to support us on Tuesday! 

Petersen Automotive Museum

Last week, I took Elliot to LA for spring break. We had planned to go see the LaBrea Tar Pits - but when we got there, we decided to first check out the Petersen Automotive Museum across the street. 

We never made it to the Tar Pits. The Petersen Museum is amazing.

Elliot boards the first exhibit at the Petersen: an electric streetcar.

I'll admit, I was initially skeptical. I mean, I'm making a movie about how gas-burning cars are ruining my son's future - and it seemed likely this place was just going to glorify the internal combustion engine. But the very first exhibit (which Elliot got to climb around in) was a streetcar. And - unlike the Mercedes Museum (which I got to visit last year) - the Petersen had plenty of electric cars on display. Like this one from 1917:

Elliot fell in love with the 1917 Detroit Electric - an all-electric car designed for affluent ladies, and the first to include curved glass.

And the pièce de résistance for Elliot - one of the only un-crushed EV-1 cars on the planet:

OMG: an actual EV1! (Minus the motor and drive-train. Thanks, GM.)

The museum also had some wonderful life-sized replicas of early 20th century LA streetscapes, markets, and gas stations.

Elliot gives an olde time gas station the thumbs-down. Looks pretty - but still worse than poop.

The bookstore even had a DVD of a PBS series called E2, about  sustainable transportation. (They didn't, however, have any EVs among their matchbox cars for sale.)

My only beef was with the interactive kids display on the 3rd floor, which included a section about powering automobiles into the future. The section on battery electric cars (situated in between bio-fuels and hydrogen on the road to a clean-energy future) featured the EV1 and some classic "un-marketing" by Saturn/GM: phrases like "electric cars are expensive" did their best to discourage anyone from getting too enthusiastic. I was so mad, I forgot to take a photo.

But I did take a photo of Elliot next to the giant matchbox car racetrack. We raced three cars, and the Lamborghini won. (Surprise, surprise!)

Elliot races matchbox cars at the Petersen Automotive Museum in L.A.

Countdown to Kick-Off

It's official: we are launching our Kickstarter campaign in 15 days. Or should I say Kickstartr? It seems they have changed their name again. (Just kidding. Note the date on that post.) At any rate, I am now madly preparing for what everyone tells me will be a very grueling (groveling) experience.

On April 22, Earth Day - one year to the date after the idea for a pooping cars movie popped into my head - we will go live, and find out how many people actually want to see a gas car take a dump.

If you're still reading this, I'd be ever so grateful if you'd head over and take the Poopie Pledge to support our campaign! Every little bit of support - moral, financial, and social - really makes a difference. 

Filming in the rain...

As we get ready to launch our Kickstarter campaign, we're filming some interviews with experts on carbon-free transportation options. Today, we filmed two interviews in San Francisco - in between flashes of lightning and torrential downpours! 

Elliot asks Wendy Becktold about her electric Extra-cycle.

EV Shopping with Elliot

Our family went shopping for an electric vehicle last weekend. Elliot was thrilled - he even passed up a play date with his best friend so he could join us.

First, we tested a Ford Focus EV. It belongs to our optometrist, who wants to sell it so he can get the new Rav4 EV.

At first I wasn't too keen on it - the styling feels dowdy to me, though Elliot & his dad thought it looked "sleek". But inside it was pretty sweet - the good doctor got leather seats, and the Focus driver seat comes with an electric adjustment nob that rivals a La-Z-Boy for comfort & adjustability. Upside: a 6.6kWh charger means it fills up on a level 2 charger in 3-4 hours. Downside: no DC fast charger.

Later we test drove the Chevy Spark, and Elliot asked about that:

Our last test drive was in a 2013 Nissan Leaf, so new it was still covered in plastic! (And seriously off-gassing. I told Elliot to hold his breath until we could roll down the windows.)

Elliot - high on that 'new car smell'.

The 2013 Leaf also has a 6.6 charger, and a ChaDeMo DC quick charge port, and a "braking regen" drive mode that feels almost as fun as the BMW Active-E (and helps increase range).

While there was no clear winner, we felt that the combination of 3.3 kWh (read: slow) charger and current lack of fast-charging infrastructure for the Spark put it in last place. I liked the look of the Leaf (in silver, anyway), and the braking regen is a big draw. Plus the Leaf is a clear winner on trunk space. And most importantly, the speed of quick charging on the Leaf makes it a viable car for longer distances - and a better model for encouraging others to go EV.

But the cost of the Leaf (we were quoted $362/month for a three year lease) is almost double the cost of the Spark ($199) and significantly higher than the Ford ($225).

The upshot: we're going to wait until after we do our taxes to see how much we can afford - and hope that in the meantime the 2013 Leafs come down in price!