Durham, NC - ShopBot Tools, Inc., today launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign (handibot.com/fund) to support development and distribution of its latest hardware innovation, the Handibot smart power tool. This 30-day campaign hopes to raise $125,000, and one of the main rewards for contributors is to get a first-run Handibot Smart Digital Power Tool six weeks after the close of the campaign.

The Handibot Smart Power Tool won an Editor's Choice award in May when it was introduced at MAKE Magazine's Hardware Innovation Workshop. It is a portable robotic power tool designed to enhance creativity and productivity at construction and remodeling jobsites, in rapid prototyping, and in countless DIY projects. The Handibot tool features an App-Driven, one-button "Start;" it can be run from a smartphone or tablet, as well as from PC's. If you've heard of 3D printers, then think of the Handibot as a '3D Cutter' -- you can use the Handibot to cut, drill, and carve in wood, plastic, and aluminum with computer-controlled precision. To see video of the tool at work, visit www.handibot.com.

ShopBot President Ted Hall explained, "The Handibot tool delivers precision cutting, drilling, machining, and carving. That's because full-up CNC (computer-numerically-controlled) technology is operating 'behind the scenes.' The Handibot tool features uncompromised components for open development and expansion of functionality (6-axis control, I/O, power, configurability)." ShopBot developer David Bryan emphasized, "CNC tools are not usually thought of as job-site friendly. With traditional industrial CNC, you have to take your material to the CNC tool. With the Handibot, you can bring the tool to the material, wherever you need to work."

The Kickstarter campaign will fund an initial production run of Handibot power tools by ShopBot, and also enable development of a web-based eco-system where anyone with ideas for apps can collaborate with app developers in an open source software and hardware environment. "One company can't possibly come up with all the interesting job apps that can be put to work with a Handibot tool," Ted Hall explains. "So we look to the crowd to think of apps for the tool and work together in developing them." See the campaign at handibot.com/fund. Handibot(TM) is a trademark of ShopBot Tools, Inc.

About ShopBot Tools, Inc. (www.shopbottools.com) Founded in 1996, ShopBot's unique mission is to make the empowering technology of digital fabrication widely accessible and usable. ShopBot's subtractive digital fabrication tools, working across a range of sizes, deliver the power, precision and reliability of digital tools traditionally costing thousands of dollars more.

With almost 7000 tools at work around the world, ShopBot Tools, Inc., is one of the largest producers of digital fabrication equipment for small-to-midsized manufacturing, DIY, and education markets. All

ShopBots are designed and built in ShopBot's Durham facilities.

ShopBot supports the growing DIY/maker movement with 100kGarages.com, a free resource that enables people with ideas for custom products to connect with others using digital fabrication tools to prototype and make them. ShopBot recently created the 100kSchools.org website to help teachers and educators make use of digital fabrication technology.

In 2008, ShopBot was named to the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America and was recently named one of the top-25 North Carolina companies to watch by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.

Source: ShopBot Tools