Well it certainly is an interesting build. I'm not sure how practical it is, but the engineering that needed to go in to something like this must have taken some time. You've got the arm that moves back and forth with a "sticky" block to flip the pages, then you have a camera taking photos that has to somehow angle itself to properly read the pages and correct for it. To be fully automated, does the software process the images and chop them out properly, assembling everything and making some kind of PDF file or a directory full of numbered images?
There are some major issues I think that will always hamper scanning a book that is intact. For example, near the center binding the pages will often be curved and the text will tend to get distorted. Even more so in thicker books. Glossy books will also be difficult to scan with a flash-based photo.
You are much better off sawing off the binding to end up with flat pages and then use an autofeed scanner that flips pages, if you don't mind destroying the book (at least the bound version). You will still retain the original book but will need to bind it again some other way.
I wish you luck in your Crowd-Funding endeavour. I'm just not so sure what the market is for something like this, but it is a clever bunch of engineering and software required to do it. Perhaps there are other uses, like scanning rare older books or something that requires a more delicate touch? Perhaps that niche may be better suited... like museums or rare book collectors or in libraries?
Most books I need today are available as PDF directly from the publisher or a digital download from somewhere. I have a few old books laying around from 1920's with that old brown paper and very nicely put together leather binding that looks like art. It might be nice to scan it, and I would probably just flip through the pages manually and take photos and stitch them all up together later in a PDF.... that's if I actually cared about the content more than the antique quality of the physical book. The information is all old anyways and out of date (it is a medical book). Any of my old rare classical literature is now available digitally anyways so if all I care about is the text I can find it.
So you see the dilemma. Most of the books I have that are worth scanning for the content, I can get a digital version of anyways these days. The rarer books that don't exist digitally I would rather keep the original anyways and I may not be particularly interested in the content as it is likely too out of date to be relevant. However, having a digital copy would prevent the original physical book from being handled. So this again sounds like it would be great for museums or libaries or people who have rare older books that they don't want destroyed by over-use but still wish to enjoy the content or to share it with others without further damage to the book.
Good luck and let us know when you start the campaign. It would be nice to get some statistics on how long it actually takes to do each page, or a time-lapse video showing an entire book being scanned with a timer.
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