After a rather long break the blog is back. Let's summarise what has happened recently.
What has happened?
We had coming a broad test that was planned on épée and foil before final production. It is the last big milestone before actual production. (fingers crossed)
Quick catch-up
We have two main groups for testing. First we cooperate with clubs who could dedicate time and resources for testing. Second the clubs and fencers in the early preorders. The orders in the first 100 could request a set of test devices in advance and get their order later once production is ready.
Preorder started
In march the final design was revealed and the preorder started.
Fortunately the orders were placed rather quickly. So we focused all our attention on developing and actually making a few hundred of the pocket boxes. Due to our previous experiences it wasn’t really shocking that to materialise a concept will probably result in some unpleasant surprises. What we did not anticipate is that all steps will do so. Tackling one minor issue after another added up pretty quickly and we clearly underestimated how much delay together they will cause. Long story short, we will definitely need to revisit our timeline in the next post.
What are we doing now?
We assembled, tested and shipped these units. Since last week around 80 clubs received their test sets. Pandemic-normally a majority of the packages were delayed and a few temporarily lost in transit. Though most of them arrived by now just in time for the easing restrictions.
What will happen next?
First of all due to the delays in production integrating foil with epee was also put on hold for a while. So most of the clubs have now epee only devices but in the coming weeks we will enable foil via a software update. It’s one of the top priorities now.
Second, we will have a detailed roadmap of what exactly is being developed and when to expect them. This would help all the testers know what they can expect and it will come handy grasping the capabilities of the system for the rest.
Third, we will release tutorial and test videos on a regular basis on how the features work and about the things under development.
Now production is projected to start by the end of June. It’s admittedly the most optimistic scenario and there are a handful of things that could still go wrong. But that goal is now pretty much in sight and we want to make the process as transparent as possible for everyone involved.
