Kickstarter

After a two-year absence from the industry, former Gap designer Patrick Robinson is making his way back into fashion by crowd-funding a brand named Paskho via Kickstarter.

More on Robinson's new venture when you click here.

Kickstarter is the go-to platform to fund creative endeavors in art, design, technology, music, etc., and now funders and creators can discover and manage projects on the go.

Kickstarter for iPhone and iPod touch launched today, providing a mobile platform with a completely optimized project page, navigation pane, and creator dashboard.

Not familiar with the site? Kickstarter is a place where ideas become reality. Inventors post their prototypes on the site, set the financial goal that'll make their project come to life, and people who like the idea will choose to "back" the project with various monetary pledges. If the site doesn't hit their funding goal in the allotted time period, the pledges are returned to the backers.

Don't underestimate the power of the people — the most funded project on the site earned over $10 million. So download the app and let us know about the unique projects you discover (or create!).

Not all fairy tales are about princesses, as a new toy for girls is out to prove. Goldie Blox, a construction toy and book series for girls, is ready to show little ladies that engineering and fun aren't mutually exclusive. The story's star is a young inventor named Goldie who fashions a belt drive out of pegs, axles, wheels, and ribbon, right alongside her readers.

As an engineering student at Stanford, Debbie Sterling observed a startling deficit of women in her department. Over 89 percent of engineers were male, due in no small part to the construction toys, like Lego and K'Nex, that targeted boys and fostered their early interest in engineering and science.

Trying to make sense of why there are so few females in the field, Debbie discovered that, generally, girls like to read and boys like to build, so she combined the two to create a toy, Goldie Blox, that uses girls' natural verbal skills to teach the important spatial skills that engineers need. The project has yet to reach its Kickstarter goal of $150,000, so, if you're interested, consider contributing to its campaign.

For more details on Goldie Blox from the creator herself, watch what Debbie has to say about her project after the jump.

There's something so satisfying about reaching over and whacking a snooze button first thing in the morning — a luxury that, until now, couldn't happen with a standard iPhone alarm. The team at Distil Union hopes to give the giant snooze button of yesterday another turn in the spotlight.

Snooze (intended to retail for $50) is a simple alarm clock iPhone dock with a big rubber snooze bar on top, a compartment to place your iPhone, and a pass-through holder to keep the iPhone cord tidy. The no-fuss product allows you to easily reach over and quiet your alarm or incoming phone calls — without knocking your cell phone off the bedside table.

With three wood varieties, two rubber colors, and an added aluminum style, Snooze is available in several different designs. It's convenient, too: the non-slip silicone bottom keeps the dock from sliding around and a removable insert accommodates iPhones with a bumper case. The custom Snooze app — similar to the classic iPhone Clock — features a range of alarm sounds, a clock display with dimming functionality, and the capability to change the length of the snooze period.

If you're interested, head over to the Snooze Kickstarter campaign to support the project and "keep the dream alive."

Developed by three female Stanford graduates, Roominate is a brand-new toy designed to encourage a passion for math, science, and creativity in young girls — a DIY "dollhouse" that kids can build, design, and wire with electricity. We wish we'd had one when we were little.

The creators, Alice Brooks, Bettina Chen, and Jennifer Kessler, all engineering and neuroscience majors, were bothered by the significant lack of women in their math and science classes, so they developed Roominate as a way to develop young girls' confidence and enthusiasm toward the sciences. So many of the more tech-based toys are marketed toward boys, but girls love gadgets and technology too, right? Answer: yes, of course!

Aimed at girls ages 6 to 10, the Roominate kit includes wooden building pieces and circuit components that come together to make attachable, stackable rooms. From fans and lights to motors and buzzers, it offers plenty of possibilities for a wired house. Interested? Check out the project's Kickstarter Campaign to help fund its efforts.

For a device as valuable as the iPhone, we're guilty in not treating it with the respect it deserves. A case like the Cellhelmet ($45) is exactly what we need to keep our iPhone secure from clumsy drops and accidental sidewalk spills. Available as a Kickstarter project, the team behind the Cellhelmet case guarantees the iPhone 4/4S it holds against physical damages.

Made in the US out of polyurethane, the Cellhelmet claims to protect the phone enough that you wouldn't even need to submit a repair claim. The Cellhelmet doesn't cover water damage, but should you drop, step on, or somehow break the phone they'll repair it, and if necessary, replace it. Similar to a wireless provider's phone insurance, all claims for repair or replacement on an iPhone requires a $50 handling fee. One year of coverage gets your phone as many damage claims as needed, and just one replacement per policy.

We've tried too many wireless speakers with dim, disappointing sound qualities that we've almost given up hope on a reliable and attractive mobile audio system. Until we came across the Zooka wireless speaker for iOS devices ($90 or $150 for a limited-edition glow- in-the-dark version) on Kickstarter.

Zooka connects via Bluetooth to any iPhone or iPad and includes a 3.5mm audio input when Bluetooth is unavailable. Made of medical-grade silicone, the speaker slides onto the device and includes a rechargeable lithium ion battery and plays audio for up to eight hours.

Check out the Zooka's awesome audio quality in a video after the jump.

You love Kickstarter. You also love Stumbleupon. Thankfully for you, Hype Machine created Kickstumbler, a website that lets you stumble new Kickstarter projects that you may not have seen otherwise.

Using it is as simple as you thought it would be: just click the "Try It" button on the homepage, and you'll be taken to a random Kickstarter project. Click the "Kickstumbler and Next" buttons on the top corners of the page to see other random Kickstarter projects, from art to technology, publishing, fashion, and more. You can even narrow down your stumbles to one of Kickstarter's 13 categories, five cities, see only video, or projects that are popular, just launched, needing funding, or ending soon. You can even tweet or "like" your favorites on Facebook to spread the word. Kickstumbler is free, so put your dollars to good use by funding some cool projects!