Let’s face it: the days when learning for kids meant going outside to play are dwindling fast. Instead of experiencing the outside world for themselves (or reading about it in a classic paper bound book), children of this generation are more content to sit in front of a screen for hours on end and absorb…

… and I’m not just talking about those square watermelons you’ve seen before. While square watermelons are the fruit’s most famous shape in Japan (you know, apart from its natural round structure), they aren’t the only shapes found in glorious Nippon. If the sight of a weirdly-shaped melon confuses you, you should know that growing…

Rather than forcing chunky peripherals on your head or hands via VR or AR, real holograms are the stuff of science fiction: true interactive displays which humans can interact with on a more personal level. The day when such a display would come to fruition was thought to be right up there with flying car…

Sure, everybody and their grandma loves Pixar’s Toy Story, which came out a mind-boggling 23 years ago. Since then, two more sequels (and an upcoming fourth movie) have capitalized on the wonders of computer animation and the fear (or joy) of having your childhood toys come to life. YouTube creator Rihito Ue is no Pixar…

Unless you’re some kind of overzealous morning person, no relationship has had a worse breakup than someone who is separated from his bed. Even though more and more folks are working from home, most still have to get their sorry butts out of bed to get the job done. Bedchill might change that. This isn’t…

Even though they’ve come a long way in a short amount of time, no search and rescue robot can truly replace the skillset of a human fireman—at least, not yet. Apart from better decision-making skills, humans aren’t as clumsy when it comes to lifting heavy loads off of disaster victims. Still, they are only human,…

When we last saw YouTube creator ThisOldTony, his basic rear framework for a chainsaw-powered go kart was up and ready for action. Everything seemed to be going well… until he turned it on for the first time. As it turned out, the worn chainsaw and sprockets were just too far gone and sensitive for any…

Not everybody sees a chainsaw and immediately thinks “wood cutting tool”. Thanks to pop culture, some are more likely to bring up images of Jason from Friday the 13th than a lumberjack doing his job. Well, YouTube creator ThisOldTony has the same problem – only instead of seeing fictional serial killers, he sees the ideal…

Despite its myriad of uses, not everything can be solved with the common Swiss Army Knife. There are times when you need something with a bit more “oomph”; be it a heavy-duty multi-tool for the outdoors, or just one which latches onto a keychain for easy access. In the case of the classic Leatherman tools,…

For those who think of black as the darkest color known to man, they’ve likely never heard of Vantablack. Created in some dark, unknown location by Surrey Nanosystems back in 2014, Vantablack absorbs 99.96% of all ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light which passes through it. Fast forward to 2016 when researchers created ‘Vantablack S-VIS’ –…

We’ve seen his tips on how to make the ultimate dust mask and resin casting boxes, but for his newest video, designer Eric Strebel is going way back to where he starts all his ideas: his sketchbook. As any designer worth his salt knows, sketching preliminary ideas before executing them in CAD or on the…

Despite its ability to coax millennials with its sleekly-designed products, the Apple name isn’t necessarily known for hardware durability. Ultimately, when your phone or laptop could easily become impaired from even the tiniest amount of moisture or a mini dust cloud, “sleekly-designed” isn’t going to cut it for many. In a recent iFixit article, a…

We’ve all had remarkable careers as air drummers at least some point in our lives. And no matter how musically incompetent we think we are, there’s always a beat sitting somewhere deep in our bones just ready to bust out. For folks who want to take their air drumming mastery a step further, the Oddball…

Kids these days might not have a taste for them, but back in the day, superheroes didn’t rule the movie world; superspies did. And no one was more famous than British secret agent James Bond. Created by writer Ian Flemming, the fictional spy has 24 films and countless novels spanning decades; inspiring both kids and…

Back in the day, when video game software was all pixelated and had far less storytelling capacity than the games of today, console hardware was somewhat primitive. Instead of connecting to the internet to play with strangers online, you needed to have actual friends to invite to your actual home. And instead of using a…

I’m not much of a car nut, but even I know the automotive industry is making huge strides in taking new technologies and using them to make cars faster, more efficient, and most importantly, safer than ever before. Take, for example, the brake-by-wire system that was first incorporated into the 2014 F1 racing cars. While…

For many of us, math wasn’t exactly our strongest subject back in school; just as you’re beginning to grasp the concept of numbers, along come letters, symbols, and shapes to boggle your mind further. Suffice to say, we were lucky enough to pass the subject; but for the current and future generations, understanding 3D concepts…

Contrary to popular belief, there is much more to a bicycle than simply pushing your legs to make the wheels go round. Take for example the bike’s drivetrain, which transfers all your leg power to the drive wheels. While there are a ton of variations, most drivetrains consist of a front wheel, chain, and rear…

Forget their proposed drone delivery system; Amazon just solved one of the biggest problems for engineers, designers, DIY’ers, or anyone handy enough to use a screwdriver: identifying a screw. Don’t you just hate when you find one of those buggers under your sofa or behind the fridge and have no idea where it came from or…

Not everybody knows how to play the game, but almost anyone can appreciate the quality of a good chess set. The smoothness of the pieces, the feel of the metal – it makes you wonder how some of the most expensive sports equipment is used on a tabletop “board” game. But not New York designer…

While most folks say the best way to make a burger is by hand, a majority of them likely aren’t doing it over and over again on a daily basis. Some people love flipping patties as much as Spongebob Squarepants, but unlike the yellow cartoon sponge, they most likely want more from life than smelling…

It seems like just about everyone these days runs on a steady stream of either coffee or cola. When the world turns at such a blistering pace, it only makes sense for you to be able to keep up, right? Well, YouTube user The Q may have taken the expression a biiiiit too seriously… Instead…

After a two year absence from Kickstarter, Joe Freedman is back with another way to make drawing (and math) easier. While his previous Cycloid Drawing Machine was more for professionals and art fans who wanted their drawings as intricate as the inside of a kaleidoscope, it wasn’t exactly cheap. Since he did all the laser…

Humans these days are so dependent on the technologies our ancestors created. From the simple wheel to the high-tech computer, it feels like living without these inventions in this day and age is just downright impossible. What if we didn’t have them in our daily lives? What if we turned back time? Designer Nikolas Bentel…

Over the course of evolution, plant life has gotten pretty complex. There are carnivorous plants, poisonous plants, heck, there are even plants which camouflage themselves to either look more attractive for pollination or hide from predators. But there has never, ever, been a known existing plant which grew legs. After seeing a dying sunflower in…

About a week ago, I talked about how YouTube user kiwami japan made an insanely sharp knife out of an Amazon cardboard box. Somewhere in the same article, I mentioned in passing about how he recently made a knife out of jelly. Well, curiosity got the better of me, so I had to see how…

It’s easy to burn 5,000 matchsticks to the ground, but you know what isn’t easy? Making a 600-piece home for your pet. Rather than going to a pet shop to buy one, YouTube creator The Q did just this to build a new home for his pet rat. Using tongue depressors for the “2x4s”, The…

We’ve all seen our fair share of chain domino videos. By stringing together a bunch of blocks in an orderly (or disorderly) fashion, you can cause a chain reaction just by pushing one single domino. You’ve seen one. I’ve seen one. Heck, it doesn’t even take much to stack up a bunch of flat blocks…

We’ve seen some pretty neat wood carvings recently. From a mind-boggling dowel puzzle to hefty river table, woodworkers all over the world have shown there’s just as much creativity within dead trees as there are in hunks of metal. This time around, woodworker Andy Phillip is taking wooden art for a fantastical spin. Taking the…

Unlike wood or plastic, cutting metal on a CNC requires a lot more precision – needing use of both a high cutting speed and a specific spindle speed ratio to get those eyewatering-clean edges. To keep up with the high rotation speeds, the area around the milling area also has to keep cool to avoid…

Lots of toys allow kids to get creative and build their own designs. If you can count the number of times LEGO blocks have furthered a young ones’ learning capabilities, you have way too many fingers on your hands. But what if your kids (or you) want to build something a bit bigger, more practical,…

One of the oldest inventions ever, there is very little need for improvement from the standard wheel. With the ability to make transportation and overall movement a heck of a lot easier than dragging things on a flat surface, it’s no wonder no one tries to mess with a good thing. Through a project called…

As if making a kitchen knife out of aluminium foil wasn’t scary enough, YouTube user kiwami japan has outdone himself by making one of the sharpest kitchen utensils out of measly cardboard (you know, the stuff you usually cut with knives). Creating a cutting tool out of a harmless material isn’t as easy as sharpening…

It happened fast, but drones these days are a dime a dozen. With the air filled with hovering robots, you need something to make your drone stand out from the standard store-bought crowd. DRAGON (short for “Dual-rotor embedded multi-link Robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformation”) might be the coolest drone concept you’ve ever…

During his previous cellphone charger project, designer Eric Strebel had the misfortune of having a piece of metal get stuck in his eye. And since injury is something anyone working on a project should be ready for, Strebel has decided to put his skills to work and create a dusk mask with integrated eye protection.…

If the smell of coffee can’t wake you up in the morning, there is one more thing you can try: engine oil. Okay, it may be a stretch, but Italian YouTube creator Rulof Maker has taken these two strong scents and mixed them together. How? By making an espresso machine out of an old piston…

You may take it for granted (what with all the cars in your neighborhood), but a large percentage of the Netherlands population (27% to be exact) heavily rely on bikes for their day-to-day commute. So it’s pretty sad when you realize most bicycles in the country are manufactured overseas— effectively increasing their cost. Due to…

… Anything computer-related, that is. If the computer’s spiel has any truth to it, this may be one of the most powerful portable supercomputers out there. Powered by AMD Ryzen Embedded V1000 SoC processors, the UDOO BOLT can handle everything from ginormous 3D CAD models to triple-A computer games. Depending on which version of the…

Anyone can impress their friends and family by playing a musical instrument, but a real musician knows when to break the mold and crank it up a notch or five. Justin Johnson has played his fair share of guitars over his career, so it only made sense for him to make one no one else…

Toy company Mattel and the portable camera savants at GoPro have really done it now: they’ve attached a camera to something you’ll never be able to ride or experience yourself. Dubbed the Zoom In, this toy car comes with a hollowed-out body and stand which allows adrenaline junkies to slap a GoPro Action Camera on…

No, I didn’t make a mistake with the product’s spelling. Created by the father-son design team at Onehundred, Brdis are foldable bird feeders designed specifically for birds. So while humans have Ikea furniture to decipher and build, birds have Brdis (except humans have to make these for them as well). Crafted from .025” (6mm) foldable…

You may take it for granted nowadays, but the simplified nature of current metro maps can be attributed to a single person: Henry Charles Beck. In a recent piece by Eugen Esanu for UX Planet, he talks about how Beck – an engineering draftsman – worked on creating the London Underground Tube Map in the…

If you ever get tired of the boring motion of flicking the same light switch on and off again, these rope LEDs might just shed some new light on your living quarters (literally). At first look, StudioKnob’s’s Click Light system appears to consist of only LED ropes—however, the multi-part system also includes two metallic stands…

The New Story charity organization may have beaten them to the first punch, but that sure won’t stop the Eindhoven University of Technology, contractor Van Wijnen, real estate company Vesteda, materials company Saint Gobain-Weber Beamix, and engineering firm Witteveen+Bos from setting up five 3D printed concrete houses in Bosrijk, a relatively new residential district in…

Sufferers of corneal blindness due to burns, diseases, and other misfortunes can see the light once again; for Newcastle University researchers have found a way to 3D print human corneas in just 10 minutes. Using ‘bio-ink’ as the additive material – a solution made from human stem cells, collagen, and alginate – Professor of Tissue…

Last year, we took a quick peek at the Bollinger Motors B1 – a humongous off-road vehicle powered exclusively by electricity. Big, blocky, and just as transformable as any Transformer, this puppy was made to adjust to almost any outdoor need you can imagine. Now thanks to Bollinger Motors, we finally get to take a…

Continuing the tradition of making miniatures of some of the world’s most remarkable automobile designs, LEGO and French car manufacturer Bugatti have teamed up to create one of the most complex block builds you’ll ever find: a 1:8 scale LEGO Bugatti Chiron. The stunning model measures 14cm high, 25cm wide, and is made up of…

Deadly objects crafted by and from molten metal are nothing new here on Solidsmack, but it isn’t every day you see an old hardware material get repurposed into a Southeast Asian curved knife. This is precisely what Australian knifemaker Steve has done with an old drill bit he found in one of his drawers. With…

Fans of inflatable bouncy castles and comfy car seats have reason to rejoice because 3D-printed inflatables are now a thing! Created by the minds at the Self-Assemble Lab of MIT and BMW, these inflatables adapt and transform by themselves to suit your comfy needs. Dubbed “Liquid Printed Pneumatics,” these silicone materials take on different shapes…

We may have never gotten the chance to build the robots of our dreams as kids (tears), but that doesn’t necessarily mean our children of this generation should also miss out. The STEMI Hexapod is a brilliant do-it-yourself robot. And before you go saying it looks like a mechanical spider, take note this robot only…