Update and Stretch Goals

First and Foremost: THANK YOU!

We have successfully met our funding goal and we could not have done it without each and every one of you - our wonderful backers. When we started this project, none of us had any experience with crowd funding at all. Thanks to Jason Schein and all the great people at Experiment.com, we took our first steps into the unknown, but still had no idea what to expect. What occurred was a massive outpouring of support from around the country that we could not have even dreamed of when we started. We will make sure to keep all of you updated as we round the corner into the Field Season. The preparation, travel, digs and data will all be shared as much as possible to try and make you feel like you will be right there with us exploring the Mesozoic fauna of northwestern Colorado. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Now, back to business! At the time of posting this, we have five days left on the BBPI Paleontology Grant Challenge Grant. Our competition has a suite of great projects and rather than becoming complacent after meeting our funding goal, we are going to make a big push to finish strong in the challenge. If you know anyone that might be interested, please pass along our information to them. As a reminder, the number of backers will decide the challenge, so even if they can only donate $5, that will help tremendously. Hopefully, it also has the added benefit of getting them excited about paleontology! UPDATE: As I was literally writing this lab note, I was notified that the project deadline was extended to April 7 as we knew but the competition ended on March 28, which means....WE WON THE CHALLENGE! I just want to say thank you again to all of you who supported us and we will be releasing a couple more lab notes as thank you presents later this week. I left the above text because we are still going to make a push the last few days, but now the focus is that every little bit toward the summer project will help!

The last thing I wanted to talk about here is stretch goals. If you are unfamiliar with that they are, they are basically pie-in-the-sky goals set for any money that is raised after the funding goal is reached. We did not include these originally because we did not know if we would be able to raise the minimum, let alone surpass that amount. However, we did! So in light of that, here are items that any money over the initial asking amount will go toward (in order of priority):

1. More food for volunteers. We buy in bulk, but even so, we spend about $50/week per person on food for the crew. Many hands make light work and the more volunteers we can feed, the more we can accomplish this summer.

2. Shelter for Site 1. Last summer prospecting site 1 was an adventure. The base camp area never seemed to have wind speeds drop below about 15mph with regular gusts that felt up to 30mph or more. Our tents normally stayed standing, but our initial group shelter was destroyed within 20 minutes of setting it up and staking it out (we had no prior knowledge of the wind gusts in the area). It was an easy up and the metal sheared at 4 different points. The remainder of the week cooking and eating dinner found us huddled up against the non-windy side of our vehicle. Ideally, I would like to provide a portable, durable structure for the crew to eat and rest in after a long day in the field. Initial research into designs that can withstand this kind of wind resulted in yurts, tipis and domes. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to contact me.

3. More materials. We use a lot of plaster and burlap to make sure the fossils are safely transferred from the dig site to the lab for preparation. Any more of these materials we can get would be helpful.

4. Rollover to next year. Any extra money we have after the first three items will roll over into the next field season!