Pre-launchThe Commander is planned for Kickstarter in April 2027, once a working prototype has been tried in the water. No board has been built yet and nothing is on sale. Get told when it opens.
SubCommanderTell me at launch

The campaign plan

Planned for Kickstarter

We plan to fund the first batch of Commander boards on Kickstarter. This page sets out the plan as it stands: the pledge levels, the goal and what it pays for, the timetable and the risks.

Tell me when it launchesPlanned pledge levels

A plan, not an offer. The campaign has not opened, and it opens only if the prototypes pass their trials.

£4,000planned goal, all or nothing
30 dayslength of the campaign
April 2027planned launch
Sept 2027planned delivery
UKposted to, at launch
Why it has not launched

No Commander has been built. The design has been checked on a computer and the firmware run against a simulated boat, and that is all. Kickstarter asks hardware projects to show a working prototype, and so do we. The pictures of boards on this site are 3D models made from the board files; the campaign page will carry photographs and film of a real, working Commander, or it will not open.

Rewards

Planned pledge levels

The campaign is for the Commander alone. Each board reward is one finished Commander: assembled by hand, its firmware loaded, and tested on a rig before it is posted. Postage is extra and is added when you pledge.

£79

Commander, early bird

First 15 backers

One Commander: assembled, its Pico 2 W soldered on, firmware loaded and tested.

£89

Commander

No limit

The same Commander, once the early-bird places have gone.

£5

Supporter

No limit

No board. Our thanks, and every project update.

Planned levels. They are fixed on the day the campaign opens. How they were worked out. The Mini and the RX40 receiver come later and are not in this campaign.

The goal

What £4,000 pays for

The goal is the least that pays every bill for a first batch: about 45 Commanders, the one-off costs, the fees and the postage.

It does not pay for much of the time it takes to build them. Each Commander pledged for beyond the goal leaves about £50 after its parts and fees, and that is what pays for the building.

Kickstarter is all or nothing: if pledges fall short of the goal, nobody is charged.

Three figures are estimates and not quotes: the parts total (taken from an earlier priced parts list and adjusted for the Pico), the pressure sensor's price, and the compliance work. If any comes in much higher, the pledge level or the goal changes before the campaign opens. The hand-wired prototype and the first boards are paid for before the campaign and are not in the goal.

Compliance paperwork and an emissions checkUKCA and CE. An allowance: no test house has quoted yet£1,500
Parts, bare boards and a stencil for about 45 CommandersAbout £30 a board with its bag and box, VAT, and an allowance of 8 per cent for boards that fail£1,307
Kickstarter and card fees5 per cent to Kickstarter, plus 3 per cent and 30p a pledge for card processing£332
PostageCollected with the pledges and paid straight out again£220
A proving round of boards before the batchFive boards, and parts for two or three of them£150
Labels, printed instructions and postal packaging£100
Towards the time to build themEach board takes about an hour and a half to assemble and test by hand. At the goal this pays for only a small part of that£391
Total: the goal£4,000

Timetable

From breadboard to the post

Eleven months, if the trials find nothing serious.

The campaign cannot start before the water trials are filmed, so every week lost on the prototypes moves everything after it. The dates are a plan and will be kept up to date here.

  1. Bench tests and fixesThe firmware, the sensors and every failsafe tried on real hardware.
  2. First boardsA few bare boards and a stencil, assembled by hand and brought up on a bench supply.
  3. Water trials, photographs and filmReal tanks and a real transmitter, in a boat, under water.
  4. Pre-launch pageThe Kickstarter page goes up for review, the source is made ready to publish, and the launch list is told the date.
  5. The campaignIt opens only if the trials passed.
  6. Funds arriveAbout two weeks after the campaign ends.
  7. Parts ordered, boards built and testedBy hand, a few a day, each one tested on a rig. The compliance paperwork is done in the same months.
  8. Rewards posted

Source available

Published with the campaign

On the day the campaign opens, the Commander's firmware and setup page are published in full.

Backers can see what they are backing: not a description of what the board does, but the code that does it. And whatever happens to this project afterwards, the people who have a board can keep it working.

The licence the source is published under will be stated with it.

  • The firmware. One Arduino sketch, with plain-English comments throughout: what each setting does, and what each failsafe does and why.
  • The setup page. One HTML file. Open it on a computer and it runs against a pretend boat, so you can try a change before it goes near the water.
  • Free tools. It builds with the free Arduino program and the Arduino-Pico core. Nothing to buy and no account.
  • No programmer. Your own version loads over the Pico's USB socket, and the original goes back the same way.
  • The circuit too. The circuit diagram and the parts list come with the board, so it can be mended.

Risks

What could go wrong

Kickstarter asks every project to say this plainly. So here it is, before the campaign.

  • A first product from a one-person company, built by hand. Every board will be assembled and tested by one person. If that person is ill, or many more boards are pledged for than planned, delivery takes longer.
  • The first boards may need changes. The circuit will have been proved on a hand-wired prototype and on a first round of boards before the campaign. A batch can still surprise. Every board will be tested before it is posted, and the budget allows 8 per cent of boards to fail.
  • One part has one maker. The pressure sensor comes from a single maker. It has a named stand-in with its own pads on the board, but that one has no tube port and would need a small cap made for it. The controller is a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, which Raspberry Pi has said it will make until at least January 2040.
  • Approvals. Before any board is posted it needs its conformity paperwork. If a test house finds a problem, that means a change and a delay.
  • The goal pays the bills, not the labour. At the goal the pledges cover parts, boards, fees, postage and the compliance work, with little left for the time to build the boards. That is a risk to the maker, not to backers: the boards still get made.
  • A submarine can be lost. This board makes that less likely, not impossible. Failsafe depends on the boat being trimmed to surface with empty tanks, on a receiver that stops its pulses when the signal goes, and on the board staying dry.

How they will be made

Small batch, built by hand

The bare boards and a solder-paste stencil are made by a board house. Everything after that is done by us: paste, placing the parts, soldering with hot air, fitting the connectors and the Pico, loading the firmware, and testing every board on a rig with tank motors, servos and a receiver before it is packed.

How it was designed

With AI, and said so

The circuits, the board layouts, the firmware, the phone setup pages and this website were drafted with an AI assistant (Claude, made by Anthropic), working to the designer's requirements and decisions. The design-rule checks and the simulated tests were run the same way.

Nothing is offered on the strength of that alone. The campaign waits until a person has built the board, measured it and sailed it.

Want to back it on day one?

Join the launch list. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You get an email when the date is set and another the day the campaign opens, in time for the early-bird pledges.

Tell me when it launches