According to Australia-based Knog, bike bells generally look and sound a bit ugly – but what if they were streamlined to fit the existing profile of a handlebar and sounded like an angel playing a glockenspiel? That’s a big “what if” – but if their recent success on Kickstarter is any indication, thousands of bell-ringing cyclists also…

Although we’re just as excited as anybody else about the future of manufacturing – particularly AR applications, Cloud-based CAD and improvements to digital fabrication workflows – our appreciation for traditional craftsmanship techniques is still shining as bright as ever. Among others who have taken manufacturing goods to the complete opposite end of the spectrum is…

For some, the sight of a school lunch tray might bring memories of rubbery fish sticks, generic ketchup and grape juice with strong notes of cardboard – but for artist and furniture maker Kim Markel, the sight of a school lunch tray means one thing only: tasteful opportunity. The late-blooming furniture designer, who left a…

Forget a smaller iPhone or iPad Pro, the real winner of yesterday’s Apple keynote was something that most people will never get to hold in their hands – let alone see. Revealed on stage by Lisa Jackson, Apple’s SVP of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, Liam is an industrial robot designed for no other purpose than…

Hanging out with the world’s most famous bands including Metallica, Coldplay, The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones might sound like a fantasy for most, but for Ross Garfield (AKA “The Drum Doctor”), it’s just a part of everyday life. Since 1981, the drum specialist has been making house calls and “tour calls” to fix…

Apple’s Jonathan Ive has a lot of notable achievements under his belt, but suffering through the Sacha Baron Cohen treatment has never been one of them – until now. Baron Cohen – who you may know as the mastermind behind such characters as Ali G, Borat and Bruno – is currently promoting his latest film,…

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a bevy of “Maker Videos” that document how a traditional craftsman works and the philosophy behind his or her work. In contrast, there’s been a growing parallel interest in the strange fascination of destroying manufactured objects, too. But despite all of the iPhones dropped off of parking garages,…

Despite what seem like a seemingly endless array of sneaker models and colors in existence today, the competition for having the tightest kicks on the block is a heated one; it’s getting harder to find that “one of a kind” pair. In what started out as a necessity to stand out from his high school…

Although wood is a considerably easy material to work with, replicating designs by hand can be difficult unless you have years of experience and a penchant for crafty jigs. Inspired by key duplicators that are common in any hardware store, the Clone 3D is a professional grade copy carver/pantograph that allows existing objects to rotate…

It was exactly a month ago when Mattel and Autodesk teamed up to introduce the $300 Thingmaker 3D Printer; an updated take on the toy company’s original household “toy” manufacturing device of the same name from the 1960s. Not surprisingly, other toymakers want to get in on the “affordable” digital fabrication revolution, too. Hasbro – a…

It’s always good to end the week on a high note – and more often than not, insane garage inventor Colin Furze ends up somewhere in the top three of our highest notes to end the week on. For his latest stunt, “The Furze” – somehow still alive – created a Firework Rocket Launcher that somehow…

A team of Harvard researchers have recently designed a new self-actuated material that is tunable for different architectures – or in other words, a material that can flatpack a design and pop it back into its 3D form when needed. The thin-walled three-dimensional structures – which can withstand the weight of an elephant when folded flat…

Although simple in functionality, few writing or desk tools have been reimagined quite as much as the humble pencil sharpener. Whether your Prismacolor-sharpening technique consists of microwaving the pencil for 8-seconds before hand sharpening to avoid lead breakage, or if you prefer chiseling away at an old carpenter’s pencil with a gardener’s knife, there really…

Since founder Eric Singer created the first hardwood wayfarer sunglasses style in 2009, Portland, Oregon-based Shwood has only continued to push the boundaries of what’s possible for materials in sunglass frame design. Particularly, sunglasses made from natural materials that are continuing to resonate with the outdoor enthusiast market. Since creating the original hardwood frames, the…

Between news of the Apple Car, the introduction of hands-free driving from Tesla and Google’s continued development of self-driving cars, 2015 shaped up to be one of the most interesting years in recent memory for the automobile – yet, 2016 is already shaping up to be even crazier. Not one to be left behind automakers, Goodyear…

Between a colorful variety of open source sex toys and the ability to have 3D scans of a fetus 3D printed for sharing with the whole family in advance of birth, you’d think we’ve seen the full gamut of possible uses for today’s digital scanning and fabrication technologies. If the Nudee from UK-based Firebox is…

It might not be the most common thing to do, but building one’s own home from scratch is surely one of the most satisfying things to do – especially if it’s built from trees that you felled yourself. Unless you’re one of the few who has the time on their hands to build a log cabin…

Although ready-to-assemble furniture first emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the majority of flatpack furniture as we know it didn’t come until later when Gillis Lundgren, a Swedish draughtsman, wanted to design a table that he could fit inside of his car. Soon after, Lundgren had created a ready-to-assemble table that he presented…

In the vast and wonderful world of guitar pedals, it can be hard to stick out from the crowd, but 21-year veteran guitar pedal builder Zachary Vex just might have developed the strangest and most unique pedal to date: the Z.VEX Candela Vibrophase. Powered entirely by a tea light candle, the vibrato/phaser is a highly-efficient…

Comprising of 3,000 wood pieces, 2,000 marbles, and the patience of a 16th Century Zen Master, the Wintergartan Marble Machine by Swedish musician Martin Molin is certainly unlike any other instrument you’ve seen before. Although the machine looks like a highly-complicated loom that could knit you the most satisfying sweater ever, it is instead a…

Used widely during World War II, the legendary Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was a four-engine heavy bomber used for strategic bombing and was beloved for its ability to sustain devastating battle damage and bringing crews back safely. Today, for $9,500, airplane fanatics can own one of three original unused propeller blades from the B-17 that…

We’ve seen how viable direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) is as a method of reliably producing metal parts in industries ranging from aerospace to dentistry – but what about industries that regularly depend on structures made from multiple metal materials for different structural needs? Standing at the intersection of machine learning, advanced printers and cloud software…

With over eight million Raspberry Pi units (and rapidly counting) floating around in garages, classrooms and pockets around the world, the $35 System on a Chip continues to be one of the best learning tools for those interested in software and hardware development since it was introduced four years ago. Today, the Raspberry Pi Foundation…

Like most other New York City businesses that have been handed down through generations, The Gramercy Typewriter Company has been keeping tradition alive year after year despite the continual threats of technology. Founded in 1932 by current owner Paul Schweitzer’s father, the shop is currently being transitioned over to Paul’s own son Jason after 84…

Rarely do we ever hear “mobility scooters” and ” Harley-Davidson motorcycles” in the same sentence, but now that we have, we can’t help but wonder how or what a mash-up of the two might look like. In any case, it would probably be very close to the recently-redesigned Afiscooter SE mobility scooter from Studio Lama.…

On his YouTube channel How To Make Everything!, curious human Andy George explores everything that it takes to make everyday objects – from food to industrial goods – entirely from scratch as a way of better understanding complex manufacturing and production processes that are often taken for granted. To do so, he travels the world and…

Exvacator. Excavator. Mycrotocle. Motorcycle. Chaty. Yacht. When playing Scrabble, or even Words with Friends for that matter, the act of untangling anagrams is half the fun. But what if these brain-twisting anagrams existed as real world objects? JVG, a Madrid-based CGI studio, recently asked themselves that question as part of a design and rendering exploration…

Colin Furze has already established himself up there among the craziest YouTubers, but the insane garage inventor always seems to have something even crazier to share with us. Earlier this week, the UK plumber-turned YouTube sensation managed to turn one of the simplest of things – a tea kettle – into something worthy of multiple…

Along with Spencer Nugent, industrial designer and concept artists Scott Robertson has a special place at the top of our favorite design process educators list. Long before YouTube allowed educators to upload their tutorial videos, Robertson published a handful of design sketching DVDs through The Gnomon Workshop – DVDs that became so popular, they were difficult…

Despite having hundreds – if not, thousands – of significant and innovative changes happen underneath the hood over the past five decades, the distinctive silhouette of the Porsche 911 has largely remained the same. Regardless, the teardrop-shaped 911 still sits at the top of the list for car aficionados and noobs alike for its timeless…

There are few things capable of sending one flying off the badassery scale, but setting land speed records on a motorcycle is certainly one of those things. When he broke not one but 76 land speed records on a motorcycle between 1929 and 1937, Ernst Henne effectively earned himself enough badassery to last into the…

With most flat-pack furniture, material and structural integrity are often sacrificed for lower costs to the consumer and less of a headache for the retailer to ship, store and deliver. While cheaper, this furniture is also much more susceptible to breaking and thus, needs to be replaced more often. Well, it appears that Italian industrial…

For years now, the promise of on-demand athletic shoe manufacturing hasn’t lived up to its hype. While the top brands have presented various interpretations of what a “3D Printed Shoe” would or could look like, little has trickled down to the consumer other than the option to customize colors a la Nike iD. Needless to…

For those who grew up in the 1960s, making toys took on a quite literal sense, thanks in no small part to toy manufacturer Mattel. The company, which had only just introduced Barbie and would later introduce Hot Wheels, managed to bring the same manufacturing methods used for mass manufactured toys into living rooms around…

While most commonly found in topographic maps to illustrate elevation changes, contour lines can be equally effective for product designers and engineers during the design iteration stage. Among other reasons, it’s a quick and easy way to add subtle design features – such as a groove or a lip – without spending too much time…

For decades, DIY and skate culture have gone hand-in-hand across countless mediums. Whether it’s creating a custom skate deck design, a layout for a backyard skate ramp, a skate video, or even a t-shirt brand, the skateboard community has always kept their creative energy sharpened to a T. Aiming to keep this energy alive and…

When they first unveiled their Mark One carbon fiber 3D printer in San Diego at SolidWorks World in 2014, the MarkForged team – led by former aerospace engineer Greg Mark – started off with a legendary bang. Not only were they the first company to unveil a 3D printer capable of producing carbon fiber race…

From the resurgence of movie franchises based on comic book characters to the growing trend of vinyl record sales and hi-fi audio, the demand for bringing back the past has never looked (or sounded) as good as it does today. For Fuseproject founder and designer Yves Béhar, this meant bringing back one of the most…

With over a million views on his primitive technology-related videos, the YouTuber appropriately known only as Primitive Technology has indeed found the recipe for viral success. While primitive technology and streaming video might go together as well as oil and water, a recent surge of views in survivalist-related content – particularly those that document primitive…

Whether it’s a cantaloupe, an anthill, or even raw steak, there’s no shortage of what’s possible for testing the effects of casting or pouring molten metal in or on natural objects – at least, as evidenced by a rising tide of YouTube videos of people doing just that. While pouring molten aluminum in both anthills…

Whether he’s preparing for the zombie apocalypse with his Slingshot Zombiehammer with Skull Ejector or devising new ways to split Oreo Creme with his Oreo Separation Pump Gun, Jorg Sprave of The Slingshot Channel never seems to be out of ideas when it comes to DIY weaponry. Could his latest creation be his most crazy…

If you count yourself amongst one of the early adopters of the iPad Pro, chances are you’ve also been using the device for the bulk of your digital sketching purposes, too. But for users who still prefer analog sketching with paper for the earlier part of the ideation process, digital sketching – iPad Pro or…

These days, it seems like we rarely go a week without some crazy blacksmith vying for YouTube view counts with an attention-grabbing blade design. Regardless of whether the skilled blacksmiths are recreating Jaime Lannister’s Sword from Game of Thrones or demonstrating the process of repurposing a circular saw blade into a usable knife design, we’re…

According to Cornwall, UK-based traditional wooden boat builder Ben Harris, a wooden sailing boat is perhaps the most glorious instrument the human hand can build. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, his mother even said that his first word was ‘log’. Having been working with wood professionally since the young age of 15, Harris first cut his chops…

Although we’ve seen a fair share of 3D printing applications for midsoles in modern footwear design, we’ve been yet to see any additive manufacturing technique that’s been practical enough for creating uppers on a mass scale, too – a critical missing component of being able to manufacture shoes on demand. Designers and engineers at Nike, Adidas,…

It’s not easy to take on the task of improving upon one of the world’s most simple and well-loved toy building block designs – particularly if that building block is LEGO. For Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, however, creating their modernist “Japanese LEGO” wasn’t just about building a new toy; it was also about communicating an…

At nearly 200 years old, the simple bicycle is still a complex design challenge that many have used for testing the limits of materials, processes, and design – particularly in the more recent age of digital fabrication. Although the two-wheeled frame design has remained largely unchanged during this time, developments made from both large companies…

Although we tend to stick to hardware development and design process news here on SolidSmack, we’ve been known to stretch our creative muscles a bit into other creative categories – because, why not? As suckers for documentations of any given creative process, we couldn’t help but ogle over the lastest Designed on Surface series release from…

Known for his many design sketching videos over the years ranging from basic perspective and rendering techniques to strategies for developing ideas quickly, industrial designer Spencer Nugent has long been heralded as a savior in an industry that puts sketching skills on such a high pedestal. But nearly just as important as having a row…

Existing somewhere between the land art of Robert Smithson and traditional metal manufacturing processes, Copenhagen-based designer Andreas Konradsen has successfully created what is likely the first chair design to be fabricated using a natural body of water. Konradsen, a recent graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design, created the “Ripe…