Let's say a student is not funded during the summer months but has a cool research idea that even their advisor thinks is tractable and important to the scientific community, and this student wishes to devote an entire summer pursuing research on this topic and forgoing a summer job / internship.
Can the student attempt to raise money on the Kickstarter or GoFundMe websites?
Are there any obvious restrictions or academic violations for doing so?
To me, it seems like a creative way to raise money, and I feel people would back the project too.