Steve Wozniak Just Backed A DIY Computer On Kickstarter—And So Have 12,000 Others

The creators of Kano, a kit to assemble your own mini-computer, asked for $100,000 on Kickstarter. One day short of the end of the company’s campaign, they’ve raised $1.35 million from nearly 12,000 backers including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler. Alex Klein, one of the three creators of Kano, says people from 44 countries have chipped in (though the majority—some 40%—are American).

Why do these people, all of whom presumably own readymade computers from which they clicked the “back this project” button on Kickstarter, want to build their own machines? It has a lot to do with Kano’s sleek look and its promise to teach them how computers actually work. To do that it uses something called the Raspberry Pi, a $35 British micro-computer that got a lot of attention earlier this year when it hit the twin milestones of shipping a million British-made units and 2 million overall.