This week EngineerVsDesigner sat down with the young founder of a new tool company that has redesigned the traditional shovel as we know it, Mr. Stephen Walden! We’ll talk to Stephen about how he got the idea for his product, how he developed it as a non-designer/engineer, and how he is going about leading his…
Brought to you this week by a plate of steaming beef tips served with a horseradish, frog leg, and maple syrup reduction dart to the jugular, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re heading down South to pull out some old Delta Blues favorites. We’ll start things off on the right foot with some mellow Muddy…
The last time I used straws to make something other than a spitball shooter had to have at least been in primary school when we were tasked with building a bridge as part of our civil engineering curriculum. Besides being used as an educational tool, we’ve seen some innovative uses for drinking straws in the…
With plans to launch this fall, MatterRemix is entering the browser-based 3D modeling game with a slightly different twist from what we’ve seen with other browser-based modelers: What if users could take existing STL files and give them an Instagram-like photo filter ‘remix’ for creating custom, sharable, 3D printed goods?
Brought to you this week by 3 field mice singing mariachi songs while sitting in a hot tub and drinking strawberry milk jiggles, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want…
After being stuck in an engineering job that left her feeling like ‘a coma victim’, design engineer and artist Nicole Hodson decided it was time for a change and decided to switch things up a bit by studying furniture crafting techniques. Flash forward a few years later and her company Ciseal has become a go-to…
Just one month fresh out of college, graphic designer Jeff Sheldon of Downington, PA found himself moving through quite a few life milestones: he married his high school sweetheart, relocated to a different state (Vermont), and started a full-time job. Soon after, the young designer found himself continually daydreaming about launching his own brand centered…
Founded in 2010 by students from Aalto University in Finland, ideas2cycles aims to bring wild and new bicycle design concepts to market as quickly and efficiently as possible. Using 3D printing to speed up their development process, the small company consisting of a single industrial designer and an engineer have found a unique and affordable…
As we all know, getting from 2D to 3D in various CAD packages has typically involved importing multiple sketches, centering at the origin of the XYZ, and building out from there. At the recent SIGGRAPH Asia however, a new software by the name of 3-Sweep was previewed that allows a user to extract 3D data…
It came with little surprise that those having the most fun at the Faire were those that required a (very happy) chaperone. From the crowd surrounding the ‘Make-Your-Own Marshmallow Shooters’ stand to the long line waiting to get into the ‘Learn How to Solder’ tent, you might have mistaken all the kid-centric excitement as a…
It’s no secret: 3D printing and other methods of digital fabrication are more popular than ever before. From access to 3D printers becoming increasingly easier to 3D modeling tools that even 5 year olds can use, the presence of 3D printing at this year’s Maker Faire highlighted just how far 3D printing has come in…
The sweet smell of Asian-Infusion tacos and extruded plastics over the sound of kids screaming “I want to solder next!” or “Hey Dad, look at this 3D printer!” could only mean one thing: you’re at a Maker Faire. Held this past weekend at the NY Hall of Science, the New York Maker Faire drew record…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re pulling out some of our favorite tunes to start the day off on the right foot to. We’ll start with First Aid Kit…
While the iPhone 5S shares many similarities as the iPhone 5 (as expected), the iPhone 5C is an entirely different manufacturing ballgame. In the announcement keynote, Apple’s VP of Design Jony Ive confidently noted that the iPhone 5C is ‘unapologetically plastic’. Those two simple words are still burned into my brain over a week later…
For those who have tried Phillipe Starck’s Parrot Zik headphones, you might be familiar with the up/down swiping for adjusting the volume—among other touch-sensitive controls on the headphones themselves. While some non-audiophiles may scoff at a pair of $400 headphones, the design is truly a step forward in how we interact with our audio devices.…
This week EngineerVsDesigner sat down with one of the design engineers behind the all-in-one ‘Machine in a Box’ Microfactory, Mr. Jeremy Fryer-Biggs of Mebotics. The Microfactory is a combination 3D printer, mill, and laser etcher. We’ll talk with Jeremy about everything from how the individual components on the machine compare to other systems on the…
It’s been a dream of sci-fi fans for years: the flexible, semi-transparent digital newspaper that can fold up and be placed under your arm. That dream is a tad bit closer to reality today as Chinese researchers have released a video of their recent developments in creating the necessary materials for further developing flexible and…
Repurposing existing industrial products into a static sculpture is a beast to tackle in itself, but what about creating kinetic sculptures that actually…play decent music…and have a social message behind them? Artist Pedro Reyes has done just that with his collection of eight new instruments created from repurposed firearms. Built in collaboration with several musicians…
To say that your trilogy of design-centered documentaries are all available on Netflix Streaming is no easy task—especially considering that the intended audience is in no way attracting the same crowds as say, Arrested Development. Yet director Gary Hustwit has earned those bragging rights and has also—to some degree or another—given mass audiences a peak…
Stepping back into the school routine after a summer of endless squirt gun fights, milk chugging competitions, and road trips to obscure Route 66 destinations can be hard…we’ve been there. Or perhaps you’re not a student but the first sight of a big yellow school bus and lunch box displays at your local Whole Foods…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re stepping back a few decades and dustin’ off our dancing shoes with some great Motown classics. We’ll start with some Diana Ross love…
Brought to you by three salamis and four corn chips singing Tina Turner songs into a bowl of bean dip, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it…
When the MakerBot Digitizer was announced a few weeks ago, it was considered a milestone for bringing 3D scanning to the masses. Could it be that a better and cheaper 3D scanner will be entering the market before Christmas as well? The Rubicon 3D Scanner is the Indiegogo project launched yesterday that aims to lop…
This week we stopped by the Dassault Systèmes headquarters outside of Boston, MA to talk with SolidWorks CEO Bertrand Sicot about what we can expect from SolidWorks 2014 and other SolidWorks products as we approach the new year. We’ll talk with Bertrand about everything from what’s new in SolidWorks 2014 to what we can expect…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re celebrating the end of summer and the upcoming best season for getting your annual candy corn fix. We’ll start with some Julien Dyne…
This week our very special guest is a guy with his own woodworking YouTube channel by the name of Frank Makes, Mr. Frank Howarth! Frank’s background in architecture helped him design and build a super kick-butt woodshop that he uses to create stop-motion films of the development process of various woodworking projects. We’ll talk with…
When most people think of the word ‘frugal’, manufacturing their own silverware and flatware using household appliances and items found around the apartment don’t usually come to mind. When it comes to conceptual experiments in small scale manufacturing however, that’s a different story. Using everything from a disassembled embroidery hoop as a rotating cast in…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re steppin’ in the time machine and heading back to 1960s California to do some sunset surfin’. We’ll start with the Mermen and move…
To begin with, I don’t know whether to file this under ‘Fabrication’ or just plain crazy—but either way, it’s definitely a spectacle to behold. In preparation for the launch of the new Nike Free Flyknit (a mashup between the popular Flyknit shoe and Nike Free Midsole), Nike China decided to pull a ‘guerilla-yet-not-really-guerilla’ marketing campaign…
After School Smack is a new feature here on SolidSmack where we talk with current design students about the current happenings of their budding design careers. We’ll discuss everything from how they’re approaching the wide-open field of industrial design to how they’re keeping their portfolios fresh and their mind in the game. To kick us…
Love it or hate it, McDonalds food is here to stay. While little can be done to ween people off of the iconic convenience food, simple ways of re-thinking existing design elements in the McDonalds ecosystem can have a dramatic domino effect worldwide—15% of the total weight of a McDonalds order is packaging alone. Take…
To coincide with the Design Museum’s The Future is Here exhibition—a showcase displaying some of the most pioneering pieces of the new industrial revolution—the Museum caught up with iconic industrial designer Ron Arad to discuss his thoughts on 3D printing…and why he thinks it’s being abused now more than ever.
Few things could be as satisfying as the primal act of burying yourself deep in the Latvian woods for the winter season making knives by hand, yet the talented crew at John Neeman Tools lives this reality every day. Their mission? To use their blacksmith and woodworking knowledge that’s been passed down through many generations…
Brought to you by five ounces of auditory meatloaf spraying from the oven at 320 beats per minute, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it on SolidSmack?…
While there are plenty of books on the various methods of fabrication techniques, a select few ever appear on the subject of modelmaking and protoyping for product design purposes. Sure, there is value in learning dovetail joints and proper bandsaw maintenance, but the core values of these existing books tend to veer into ‘shop class’…
Ever wonder what a LEGO garden would look like? TogetherFarm founders Matt Stormont, Joe Aakre, and Doug Holcomb have set out to recreate what it means to have a backyard garden through the use of LEGO-inspired bio-plastic building blocks. With a retaining wall design that requires few materials to haul and eliminates the need for…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’re bringing the party to you with an eclectic mix of house music that’s sure to get your…well at the very least, your fingers…
It seems like everybody has a favorite product from the Back to the Future series. Whether it’s Marty McFly’s Nike Air Mag Sneakers, a Delorean, or the Black and Decker ‘Hydrator’ that turns a Bagel Bite into a full-sized pizza in seconds. Personally, I’ve always dreamed of owning a Hoverboard. While there have been a…
BMW just announced that their new i3 electric car was heavily inspired by the latest in tablet and smartphone designs. Given that the automotive industry is usually on the forefront of trends that trickle down into other facets of design, does this mean that the frosted overlays, thin typeface (Helvetica Neue), flat graphics, and gradients…
For those of you who have implemented the new Power Surfacing plug in for SolidWorks into your toolset, your work has no doubt taken a more organic route. For those unfamiliar with the plug in, Power Surfacing allows you to design complex freeform Class A surfaces in SolidWorks without the headache of patching trimmed surfaces…
For his ‘about’ section on his Behance profile page, designer Francois Xavier Saint Georges of Montreal describes his work as “low tech, bare hands, and experimental”. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that his slingshot design is entirely void of the actual ‘slingshot’ itself. With his clever go-anywhere design, you can pack this badboy…
For the first time ever, the National Endowment of the Arts took an in-depth look at the field of Industrial Design and yesterday released their report Valuing the Art of Industrial Design: A Profile of the Sector and Its Importance to Manufacturing, Technology, and Innovation. The results? Not surprisingly, being an industrial designer is pretty…
File this under your ‘reasons to get a CNC machine in the near future’ if you don’t already have access to one. OpenDesk is the new open source furniture design resource from the team behind FabHub that aims to explore new models for open and collaborative design of digitally fabricated free modern furniture designs that…
Brought to you by six apple Jolly Ranchers dissolved in stomach acid, a deep fried butter stick and three chili chimichangas, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want to share…
As reported by SolidSmack last week, MakerBot has announced that the MakerBot Digitizer 3D scanner is ready for pre-order. In the announcement video released today, MakerBot Founder and CEO Bre Pettis encourages you to “blaze a trail into the future…this is an amazing adventure we get to go on together.” So it is.
Ah, the memories of learning about manufacturing techniques back in freshman year of design school. I’ll never forget when my Manufacturing Processes teacher pulled out a run-of-the-mill plastic car model kit and explained to us the process and complexities of injection molding. Flash forward to today, I find myself reverse engineering at least a handful…
The folks over at WhiteClouds Labs certainly know how to strike the iron when the iron is hot. Their recently released video of Elon Musk’s (who is he again?) Hyperloop concept in 3D printed form is quite possibly the most satisfying rendition of any and all concepts posted since the open source initiative went into…
You may have noticed a more frequent collection of 2D printing-based news here on the ‘Smack in recent weeks. Why? Well…because in this 3D printing-obsessed world, it’s become a refreshing mental break to see new ways of doing something that for decades was done literally the exact. same. way. every. frickin’. time. Additionally, 2D printing…
Been feeling a little inspired to sketch out some robot designs after recently seeing Pacific Rim? Me too. Lucky for us, the studio behind all of the animatronics used in Pacific Rim (on a side note: holy crap, they actually used animatronics for those scenes?), Legacy Effects, has been celebrating Robot Month with a 3D…