Daniel Solis

Thanks so much to the most recent backers and pre-orderers (including the $1 backer ^_~ )! Because of these generous folks, we can send the first free copy of Happy Birthday, Robot! to Kids Need To Game . There are two more copies ready to send to this great cause as soon as we reach the next pre-order milestones. Each pre-order gets more free games to kids in need. Thanks again and spread the word about Happy Birthday, Robot!

Rin sent a ton of new first drafts for the next batch of Happy Birthday, Robot! illustrations. You can pre-order a PDF or Print+PDF bundle here . New pledges also allow more free books to be sent to Kids Need To Game, a charity encouraging more gaming among kids in 1st through 9th grade. Here's that URL once again: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danielsolis/happy-birthday-robot (If you want to see more of Rin's artwork, visit http://www.rinaiello.com/)

The first 24 hours were so successful, the goal was met and then some. Your enthusiasm exceeded my wildest expectations. That visceral urge to meet a clear, tangible goal is now resolved sooner than I thought. But there are still 60+ days until the funds are actually pooled together to print the books. Unfortunately, there are also lots of people who want to pre-order, but see that the goal has been met and think they missed their chance. (Which is not the case, as the last seven backers can tell you.) So, that leaves an interesting and happy dilemma. How do we spread the word that you can still pledge and pre-order PDFs and PDF+Book bundles? The answer came from Purple Pawn's recent blog post discussing the charity Kids Need to Game . [Teacher] Brian has been running an after school games club for 1st through 9th graders at his school in Denmark. [...] "I have been able to document, with information given to me by several of the teachers and parents, that almost 60% o...

I want to thank all the backers who pledged their financial support to this game with such enthusiasm. I obviously over-shot that deadline or under-shot the $ goal, but either way we won! Thanks to popular demand (and because the deadline was set 70 days from now) I'm making two special offers: * Any further $10 pledges are pre-orders for the full-color PDF and black-and-white printer-friendly PDF. * Any further $30 pledges are pre-orders for the PDF+Print bundle. (Not signed/numbered, but still hardcover full-color books.) That covers your shipping and handling, even if you're outside the U.S. (Feel free to chip in extra if you want to cover those extra costs, though.) Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We're giving away a free Print+PDF bundle to the first ten libraries, schools or after school programs who sign up. If you know a US library, school or after school program that would like to have a free copy of Happy Birthday, Robot!, send me a message through kickstarter or on twitter @danielsolis . (You can see examples of HBR in the classroom here and here .) In your message, please include: Shipping address for your library, school or organization to send the book when it's printed in a few months (Sorry, this offer is only available in the US for now.) Email to send the PDF when it's available in May. Whether your organization would prefer to remain anonymous. There are only 10 offers available right now, so it'll be on a first come, first serve basis. I'll update this post as soon as I get signups in my inbox. 1: Children Youth and Family Collaborative - COVERED! 2: Derrick Thomas Academy - COVERED! 3: [Anonymous] - COVERED! 4: North Plainfie...

Those are actual kids in the classroom playing Happy Birthday, Robot! Innumerable thanks go to Cassie Krause for running the game for her class. They were split up into groups so they could play on their own. Teacher's comments: "One of the girls that was playing is far below grade level in all subject areas, and she did a GREAT job of participating and writing the sentences.* She has actually begged me all week to play.* She felt success in this writing activity, which is something that she doesn't feel very often during writing time, because she struggles to correctly articulate her words. However, with the idea of not having to write a complete sentence, because someone else could help finish it, it motivated her to write the best she could. "[…]My principal was asking me about HBR, because he saw the story on my board.* He knows that I'm a gaming nerd, and likes to give me a hard time about it.* I showed him the dice, and the PDF to read through.* He...

Check out the fun story that Cassie Krause' class of 4th graders created by playing Happy Birthday, Robot! Happy Birthday Robot! Robot glanced outside sadly because he couldn't go outside. Robot saw rain, but he was still in a good mood. Robot wanted to play in the rain, so he went to ask his mom. Robot's mom said okay, and Robot was extremely happy, but it suddenly stopped raining. Robot's friends came to his house and they went out to eat at Robot's favorite restaurant. His favorite restaurant was The Oil Shop and he loved motor oil baked casserole. Robot ordered his meal happily and for dessert he had a battery cake with chocolate oil. Robot's friends gave Robot an oil gift and they went to the park. Robot and Robot's friends played on the swings all day. Robot had a fantastic and wonderful birthday! The End Here's what the kids said: "Can we play it again?" "That was awesome!" "Duh! Robots love oil!...