Yes, what is up on those Canadian handmade V4's, I do remember those were supposed to be being shipped ?

@jaultman -

1. -- Is this still on track? Yes, we are seeing samples of these plastics later this week. They have been created in China and will be shipped tomorrow or the next day.

2. -- Were you able to get the molds made for Six? They are still in progress. We will see them tomorrow or the next day.

3. -- Was mold design for JD completed as anticipated? JD was submitted for mold design and we will see results later this week.

4. -- What is the current design status of Roli? Our design group has finished the Roli design and will be presenting it tomorrow to us for review. The only thing waiting for submission is the gearbox for the Roli chassis. We are sourcing gears this week and should have a clear "next steps" on those parts next week.

@Robot-Doc - As mentioned in my 2nd last post, we fixed a small bug with the firmware and needed a few days to correct it. We wanted to ship ast week but held of until this week so everything could be smoothed out. We have now gathered all of the orders and are boxing them up this week to ship out. You should be able to see many of the orders on the "Engineering Office Live" camera (sitting under the giant whiteboard). The only thing we are waiting on is a huge order of servos which is sitting at customs waiting for us to pay the brokerage and tax and pick it up. These are the last thing we need for Developer Kits.

So bottom line... Jason are you shipping anything this week? We understand your delays we really do, but all we (maybe I should speak for myself) are asking is when you say you are going to ship... you ship... Repeatedly telling us you're going to ship and then don't has got to stop, dude... Just give us a concrete date and stick by it... That's all we are (I'm) asking... I am not seriously upset but I am frustrated that's all...

@Richard R - We emailed all of the "First Batch" customers this morning with a quick update. In summary, we are starting to ship today, and will have all orders shipped by next week! The delay was caused by some small firmware bugs we wanted to iron out before shipping any orders. The time required to figure them out was undefined so we did not want to set a date (if we did set a date it wouldn't mean anything as we did not know how long it would take to work out the bugs). Now that it has been worked out, everything is moving along

Over the next few days, we are programming the boards, packaging them up and shipping them out. All of the "First Batch" customers will be receiving an email when their order leaves the office. Everything will go out within the next 7 days.

@Jason... Sorry for dumping on you man... Had one of those days and probably one too many beers... Thanks for the update...

Gears for Roli? Are you now switching to making the chassis "in house" instead of the Dagu Rover 5 as the base?

What about import duties and taxes for people overseas? If for example I order a JD and Roli to the Netherlands, I'm looking at well over $200 duties. That is, if the value is properly declared on the customs form.

I asked Jason if my order can be sent marked as a gift to avoid the duty etc. which he said he would do where possible. It may pay to send similar. This would at least work for the hand made first 20, China made ones may be different. At the end of the day it is our responsibility to think about the duty and taxes though.

I am in the same boat and was stung before when I was talking with ThingM about the BlinkM. Long story short, they sent me one FOC but didn't mark it as a gift. The import duty/tax was more than the BlinkM would have cost me to buy from a seller over here. You live and learn though.

There are ways to claim back import duty/tax too though. At least in the UK there are. They aren't simple though.