Even with the massive convenience that digital fabrication technologies have afforded us, you’ve got to admire those who are actively keeping the primitive manufacturing arts alive. Sculpting, woodworking, and blacksmithing are just a few of the ancient crafts that still manage to draw the eye with their personalized, handcrafted looks — not to mention insane, mesmerizing…

Do you know what’s cooler than playing a musical instrument? Playing friggin’ 20 instruments at the same time. Ukraine-based indie rock band Brunettes Shoot Blondes wanted to do something different for their newest single “Houston”’s music video, so they took 20 different instruments, crammed them inside an old 19th century grand piano, and fit them…

With much of the world turning a newer, greener leaf, many people are finding ways to incorporate a “greener” lifestyle with 21st-century technologies. In the case of Rotterdam-based design studio The New Raw, this means letting citizens create their own recycled furniture. The studio created the ‘Print Your City’ initiative: a recycling project first introduced…

Even if you’re not some hotshot designer or engineer, being your family and friends’ resident Mr. Fixit can be just as good of a title. But now it’s time to take it up a notch and get your workshop organized. Here are 10 storage tips on how to turn your garage into a streamlined workshop…

Even with the prevalence of touchscreens and touchpads, no piece of input hardware can interact with a computer quite like the traditional mouse. Introduced as a prototype in 1964, the very first personal computer mouse has let users edit their Word documents, play video games, and altogether explore a digital world created by 1s and…

The first Star Wars movie came out in 1977 and cemented itself as one of cinema’s most popular franchises. To bring this story set in a galaxy far, far away to life, director George Lucas used brilliant set design, vehicle design, costumes, special effects, and some of the best sound design of the time. Case…

We’ve featured many woodworking workshops before on SolidSmack—but they’ve always been stationary; idle abodes usually found in garages where woodworkers can live in isolation to work on their craft. While these isolated environments certainly enable many artisans to concentrate better, it doesn’t leave them with a lot of flexibility to work on projects further from…

For those who haven’t tried it yet, Overwatch is a cartoonish multiplayer video game set in the not-so-distant future. With a diverse roster of characters—from the giant talking ape Winston to the gun-slinging cowboy McCree—Overwatch’s cast is as wacky as it is all-inclusive. One of these wacky characters—a Swedish engineer by the name of Torbjörn—is…

It’s usually never official until a sizeable multi-national company does it. While smaller electronics companies have been using paper and other recyclable materials for their products for years, Samsung is only now catching onto the environment-friendly trend. In a recent press release, the electronics division of the company has announced that instead of using plastics…

Much like LEGOs, modern modular design kits contain various pieces that let the user build various structures. Desks, shelves, pot holders – depending on the kit’s materials, the user can make an assortment of things from a cleverly-designed family of attachable components. TikA by TiKA Lab are modular kits comprised mainly of different-sized connectable wood…

Every war begins when one side is pushed to the breaking edge; and when you see the abuse this ANYmal robot is being put through by these scientists from Robotics Systems Lab in Switzerland, you’ll know just where this particular feud started: Like many robot dogs, the ANYmal is a four-legged mechanical robot weighing 30kg…

While he is best known for setting intricate matchstick pieces aflame, there is undoubtedly more substance to YouTube creator BLACKHAND than your average pyromaniac. Case in point: his wooden smartphone photography slider using little more than wood and a few metal fixtures. Beginning with two reasonably large holes drilled into a piece of wood, he…

They may only look like letters on a sign to you, but sign painters play a critical role in advertising a company’s trade. Take a look at the Disney logo and how it immediately makes you think of Mickey Mouse and his cast of pals. Or the Coca-Cola logo. Noel B. Weber has been in…

Contrary to popular belief, solving a Rubik’s Cube DOES NOT automatically make you a smart person; it just means you have the problem-solving skills and the fortune to not be color-blind to piece together a multi-colored cube. Still, it does help pass the time and draw the attention of passers-by as you flick between the…

There’s something about epoxy and wood that creates some of the most fascinating wood pieces we’ve seen—be it a side table, a bowl, or in this case—a hand-carved pendant light. For his latest wood project, YouTube creator Modustrial Maker combined epoxy resin and LED strips into a cookie slab to create his hanging pendant light:…

For years we’ve been watching industrial designer Eric Strebel’s insightful design process videos; videos that show how he goes about making products from start to finish. Starting with concept sketches, he follows a traditional design process of moving on to CAD models and then various forms of prototyping—yet, we’ve never really heard the man speak…

You may know Airbnb as the website you visit whenever you forget to book a hotel and need a place to crash during your vacation. What you probably didn’t know is the company has an experimental in-house design studio called Samara that works on projects far beyond home sharing and the ethics of using someone…

In possibly his oddest/coolest video yet, designer Eric Strebel breaks down the making of a one-of-a-kind toilet paper holder. But unlike the version you have at home, which has no technology whatsoever, this rectum-cleaning receptacle holds a couple of smartly-designed magnet discs to make pulling the right amount of toilet paper squares a one-handed process.…

Despite the unpredictable nature of CEO and founder Elon Musk, Tesla cars are still taking the industry by storm. With their all-electric motors, many argue the vehicles are better in every way compared to just about any gas-guzzler…provided you don’t have to travel more than 300 miles at a time between charges. The company’s latest…

EWhile it’s important to make your design projects look good, this goes double for the tools you use to peddle your craft. How else are clients going to know you make well-made products if the sketchbook you’re using has a Hello Kitty cover on it? Taking a break from working on commissioned projects, Eric Strebel…

If you’ve ever wondered what miniature technology gnome is responsible for the delay you experience when writing on your Amazon Kindle or other E Ink device, it’s due mainly to the slow TFT backplates behind the screen that register the pressure points from your stylus. Transforming pressure data into something you can see on-screen may…

As far back as anyone can remember, batteries in our phones, flashlights, laptops, and other gadgets have all been powered by lithium-ion batteries. And while both the disposable and rechargeable versions could easily power tech of the late 90s and early 2000s, the 2010s and beyond see the introduction of more power-hungry machines. Though the…

When you think of something on two wheels with a motor, chances are it’s fast, heavy, highly dangerous, and takes an entire assembly line to construct. What if you just needed a 3D printer? Well, 3D printer production company BigRep and their NOWLAB innovation branch are bringing us something lighter, sleeker and (almost) completely 3D…

We talk a lot about 3D printers, but most use plastic or resin materials. Rarely do we have the pleasure of seeing a ceramic 3D printer which uses honest-to-goodness earthen clay to print an object. The Cerambot does exactly that – it takes your standard Kaolinite clay material and allows you to builds shapes, sculptures…

While many Earth-based A.I. systems are meant to eventually replace the tasks of humans, NASA’s International Space Station is currently exploring the benefits of A.I. so their astronauts will simply have someone to talk to. After all, space can get pretty lonely sometimes, and seeing as the only thing between you and the black abyss…

Despite it being used often in manufacturing, carbon isn’t the most biodegradable material; meaning, it will take years to decompose that excessive carbon fiber waste from a multitude of design projects these days. Further, recycling carbon fiber isn’t necessarily an easy process either. Because the mixture of resin and carbon is so stiff, it becomes…

Three years ago, we covered the Ghostkube – paper engineer Erik Åberg’s origami-inspired creation made from wooden cubes of different shapes. Instead of using scraps of square paper though, the Ghostkube is composed of small, interlocking wooden cubes designed to move together in unison. The result is one “master” cube–a kinetic sculpture which can be…

Even if you have just a grain of knowledge about the automotive industry, you’ll know how resilient Toyota is. This resilience is mostly due to what the company calls “The Toyota Way” – an adaptation of the kaizen philosophy where everyone, from the head honcho to the interns, work together to further improve the business.…

Thomas Ollivier isn’t like some designers – he was born in the 20th century. There are so many products from that time, that inspired the products of this time, but Thomas has made the correlation even more direct. Using decades-old products as an inspiration, the French designer rebranded the ancient gadgets with apps and programs…

You don’t have to be an absolute green thumb to understand how plants eat, breathe, and even generate their own bio-electricity. But can a plant use its own bio-energy sources to power a robot? Thanks to a recent project by MIT scientists Harpreet Sareen and Pattie Maes, we now know. Elowan is a self-driving robot powered…

Even though most people can’t play a lengthy rally, almost everyone can have a good time playing ping pong (or table tennis, if you live in other parts of the world). The games are fast, the equipment isn’t expensive, and the ping pong table itself makes a nice place to store junk whenever you’re not…

Not as many self-sufficient folks live off the grid like they used to, but the way of living is still as self-gratifying as it has ever been. How cool would it be to say you got your food from your backyard or your new leather shoes from last year’s cowhide? Living on a farm still…

With more houses becoming almost sentient with their built-in A.I.s and voice-activated functions, it can feel a tad creepy coming back home to find some invisible guardian controlling your personal living space. That said, mui is attempting to bring some of that analog connectivity back into the digital home. It isn’t a hovering know-it-all like…

If I’m to be truly honest, the infinite possibilities of LEGOs can be a bit daunting when it comes to building. When someone 10 years younger than myself can make a masterpiece out of the same 500 bricks I’m given, it can feel disheartening to even begin my own creation. Not as many adults have…

Back in 2016, Nintendo released the NES Classic Edition – a miniaturized version of their 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (called the Famicom in Japan). The console came preinstalled with 30 of the console’s best games. With titles like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, and Super Metroid included in…

Back in 2001, when Apple was still known as just a computer company with fruit logos on its computers, it released the first iPod. Unlike other media players before it, this white block used a touch-based scroll wheel to play songs, skip tracks, and scroll through menus. This may seem old hat by today’s standards,…

Take one look at an empty soda can, and you may think “trash,” but to sculptor Noah Deledda, he sees an aluminum canvas ripe for setting his hands on to create something truly unique. Though Noah is a sculptor by profession, he doesn’t work with just any sort of wood, rock, or conventional metal. Neither…

Quick history lesson: László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian photographer, painter, sculptor, and all-around artist who helped revolutionize the art scene during the early 20th century. Think of him as a sort of Leonardo Da Vinci of his time, if you will; he took photos, built buildings, designed products – if it involved any form of…

As anyone who has used a AR/VR headset for gaming purposes would know, it’s always more fun to play with friends. Well, the same concept applies to AR/VR on an industrial working scale, which is why Onshape has paired up with VR virtuoso Magic Leap to create a 3D design app for the headset. Temporarily…

Fans of open hardware that also just so happen to like using a Mac, your prayers have been… slightly heard? According to the internal service readiness guide for this year’s MacBook Air, Apple has made their new laptop’s battery a self-removable one. For context, ever since MacBooks and MacBook Pros with retina displays were released…

The Leatherman Wave was released back in 1996 and was the first Leatherman to feature accessible blades without opening the handle. People must have loved cutting things to ribbons because it became the company’s bestselling multi-tool ever. So it only made sense for BRANDMADE.TV, a documentary YouTube channel, to show how this iconic multi-tool gets…

Sure, the initial impact and risk to life in a fender bender are pretty frightening; but having to deal with the insurance company and getting the car fixed afterward is just as terrifying. Affidavits and scamming auto shops are only a few of the terrors which should scare you into never hitting another vehicle again.…

Halloween may be over, but that hasn’t stopped YouTube creator BLACKHAND from making one of his creepiest chain matchstick pieces yet. SolidSmack previously covered one of his chain matchstick reactions, but while the old one was a hodgepodge of smaller matchstick structures stuck together, this new one is a bit more… bare bones. His latest…

To keep up in a modern age where everything is better when it’s the size of your thumb, The Raspberry Pi Foundation have created an updated version of their old 2014 Raspberry Pi 3B+ quad-core processor, simply called the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+. Loyal followers of Raspberry might recall the company releasing a miniaturized…

While bikes, scooters, and maybe even unicycles are cool, nothing beats riding on a plank of wood on wheels at top speed with reckless abandon—particularly when said board has some pretty killer artwork on it, too. Tye Sheehan may be a civil engineer during the day, but during his free time, he makes some of…

Finding other people to do your grunt work for you just got a heck of a lot easier. Online manufacturing network platform Xometry, known for being one of the best on-demand manufacturing platforms, has announced a new RFQ (request for quotation) service which allows users to scout for quotes on die casting, stamping, and extrusion…

To say the technological world is changing rapidly is an understatement. It would be more accurate to say the industry is on a train going non-stop towards the future and should it ever remain stagnant; the whole world could go mad from lack of innovation. Thankfully, companies like Lenovo are working with other like-minded organizations…

Computer graphics nuts will be happy to know NVIDIA has once again announced a new graphics card to their ever-expanding repertoire. Dubbed the Quadro RTX 4000 to continue NVIDIA’s streak of confusing names, this new graphics card is a midrange GPU powered by NVIDIA’s Turing and RTX technology, bringing ray tracing tech to a broader…

The title says it all: MegaBots – a California startup company that makes frickin’ GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS – has just made the designs for its Iron Glory robot available to the public. The catch? You have to buy a $25 poster featuring a MegaBots CEO sitting atop the fighting mech. But considering you’re forking over…

Back in February 2018, Nike challenged innovators around the world to come up with solutions to two significantly impactful athletic footwear issues: material waste and how to improve the recycling process to create more useful resources, footwear-related or otherwise. Over 600 applications came from around the world, with five winners tasked with creating new inventions…