Now on Kickstarter: 3D Printed Survival Kits

Matthew Bruns of Salt Lake City went on his first camping trip at the age of three months, leading to a lifelong love of the wilderness. He recently decided to channel that passion into a career by creating Arctic LLC, a startup dedicated to affordable and creative products for the outdoorsman. He hopes to launch his first product, a compact, 3D printed survival kit, by early next year, and is currently raising funds via Kickstarter.

What sets Arctic LLC’s survival kit apart from others is its design, which incorporates key tools into the box itself. Bruns created a 4″ x 2.7″ x 0.8″ box whose lid slides open with an impact-resistant locking panel doubling as a magnifying glass. A tiny compass is embedded in the corner of the panel, and 53.6″ of parachute cord, or paracord, wrap around the box, which can then be clipped to one’s belt or backpack with the attached carabiner.  By making essential items a part of the box itself, space is freed up to carry more supplies within it.

Those additional supplies are also offered by Arctic. A pledge of $15 will get you the survival box with its built-in supplies, but raise your contribution to $35 and you’ll be sent a full kit including a water purifying tablet, a whistle, a mini LED flashlight and more. The kit is attractively marketed, with several options for customization. Customers are given the choice of three colors: white, black, or UV green, which glows under UV light. The parachute cord that wraps the box comes in multiple colors with names like Zombie, Black Widow, and Yeti.

“When lost or stranded, you can never have enough resources to help you survive, and often most [people] don’t carry the necessary items or tools,” says Bruns. “Our goal is to change that by making a survival box that is affordable and compact enough that you have the essentials wherever you go.”

Bruns hopes to eventually garner enough support to purchase injection molding supplies to make his kits. In the meantime, 3D printing has been an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to get started.

“The advantage we have with 3D printing is that every item we make is carefully looked over individually,” Bruns explains. “We can recycle our materials and have zero waste while manufacturing our products.”

Bruns’ goal is to raise $5,000 by August  30th, and spend November through January manufacturing the kits to be sent out to their backers by February 2016. A week into the campaign, he is about an eighth of the way to meeting that goal. Should the project be a success, he hopes to expand his business with additional camping and survival gear, as well as apparel–he also lists several stretch goals to increase offerings to backers should the campaign reach $10K, $15K, or even $20K. If you’d like to back his inaugural venture, you can do so here. Let us know if you’ll be adding to your survival supplies through this campaign over in the 3D Printed Arctic LLC Survival Kit forum thread at 3DPB.com.