Continuing work on his cellphone charger prototype, industrial designer Eric Strebel takes this opportunity to show how he completes his designs with a bit of high gloss finish. After taking out the electronic components, he fills in the imperfections of the foam using some polyester body filler before sanding it down and coating it in…

Engraving isn’t just for little league trophies or IT departments; for Bram Ramon, it’s an evolving art medium. Ever since he started working on fine jewelry and eventually making his way to expensive watches, Bram has been on the search for what he calls “the beautiful line” – traditional engraving techniques which he makes with…

The massively popular first-person shooter Overwatch is two-years-old! To show their appreciation to fans who have played the game over the past 730 days, Blizzard Entertainment has cooked up a little stop-motion video featuring three main characters – Tracer, Reaper, and a massive Overwatch cake. But making this two-minute stop-motion celebration took a lot more…

They may look like sacks of latex over an overpaid actor, but superhero masks are the real star of any superhero movie. They hide any facial blemishes and scars, plus they’re what kids recognize on the front of all the movie merchandise. And yet, making these voice-muffling head covers isn’t as easy as it seems.…

We all know how magnets work – two metals with different poles attracting each other – but they still give an aura of wonder whenever they magically stick to one another, as if driven by something more than science. To that end, YouTube creator Magnetic Games made it his mission to deliver some of the…

If you miss the joy of throwing quarters down a cheap arcade machine or working on a gigantic LEGO creation, then this unique project might fill both of those gaping holes from your youthful glory days. LEGO creator Bre Burns’ love for arcade machines was so strong, she decided to make Benny’s Spaceship Adventure –…

Although many of industrial designer Eric Strebel’s take on prototyping projects are of his methods, he isn’t above sticking to the book every once in a while. In his newest video, he shows how he works with a design brief for a wireless charger. The brief comes with a couple of specifics: it must be…

Well, it’s finally happened. After years of fumbling on quadrupedal legs and jumping like patients with back problems, robots have finally learned to run on rough terrain. ACHIRES (short for “Actively Coordinated High-speed Image-processing Running Experiment System”) is an Ishikawa Senoo Laboratory running robot system which uses a high-speed camera to detect the legs’ position…

We all know Eric Strebel is a savant when it comes to prototype making. He’s done a hundred cast parts from a single master part, used a CNC machine to manufacture 200 vaccum-formed panels, and even showed us how to finish and paint different molds. In his latest video, Strebel dips into the world of…

Autodesk’s SketchBook program, which serves as a jumping-off point for many artists, engineers, and CAD designers, is now totally free! I know what you’re thinking, but for now, there seem3 to be no strings attached to this deal. According to a blog post by Senior Product Manager Colin Smith, the aim of making SketchBook free…

Back before having a car, having a bike meant you were the coolest kid on the block; it said you could go anywhere, do anything, and cause untold bodily harm to yourself when you fell flat on your face. As you get older though, having a car becomes way more chill than owning a bike.…

Rejoice, creators of instructables.com! For if you ever wanted to learn how to use a table saw, manual lathe, CNC mill, or a certain crafting machine, Autodesk’s Pier 9 technology centers have heard your plea and made a slew of workshops to help you get your bearings without losing any important body parts. In total,…

Tires are amazing. Until, you know, they run out of air or altogether pop in the middle of a trip. Seeking to make your daily commute less of a hassle, 3D printer manufacturer BigRep just made a bicycle tire which doesn’t go flat or runs out of air. The wheel uses the company’s PRO FLEX…

Though its cardboard applications are definitely finite, you can’t deny the Nintendo Labo is a fine piece of DIY hardware. For those unfamiliar, the cardboard bits can be assembled with the Nintendo Switch and Joy-Con controllers to create some pretty interactive constructs including a fishing rod, a piano, or even a giant mech. While these…

It happens to the best of us: one minute you’re getting outside the car or house, the next you find yourself locked out with no option other than to break back in. While there isn’t a surefire solution to your ailing memory, you can at least start the habit of keeping your keys in places…

We can always depend on industrial designer Eric Strebel to put a ton of effort into every project he makes—especially when it comes to his YouTube videos that unveil many design tips and tricks. In his latest, Strebel showcases how he makes his prototypes look so dang remarkable—from filling imperfections to achieving that perfect coat…

When you typically think of a CNC machine, you’re likely to envision a gigantic monstrosity that makes its home in a corner of a factory and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, you wouldn’t be wrong. The SwissMak Desktop CNC Machine, however, seeks to provide the same milling quality at a significantly lower…

For some strange reason, humans sure love to knock themselves on the head with countless mind puzzles. The Rubik’s Cube, Chess—heck, even Candy Crush are all examples of how we have a penchant for exercising our minds in different ways. This wooden dowel puzzle by Instructables user mtairymd is no different. It may sound easy…

You may think creating cosplay (the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game) costumes involves locking yourself up in a garage and making do with whatever spare hardware supplies are lying around—and you wouldn’t be far from correct! A lot of good cosplayers do precisely this; but with…

We cover our fair share of Kickstarter projects here at Solidsmack. Some projects, like the heavy-duty COMBAR and the problem-solving Triggers Cards, are lucky enough to receive full funding and get shipped to their backers in a timely manner. Others? Well, not so much. But, as is the nature of the popular crowdfunding platform, there’s…

Before fidget cubes and fidget spinners were even a thing, man’s best cure for anxiety was the ordinary pen. Ever present in school and work, these cheap writing materials could be spun, flicked, clicked, and in some cases even chewed on to get rid of pent-up energy. Designer Shin Feng has the same fidgeting problem;…

Don’t get me wrong; while the tried-and-true Swiss Army Knife is great for opening UPS packages or the occasional toothpick, it doesn’t scream “heavy duty” in times when you might need it for anything beyond that. When faced with an outdoor scenario, chances are the little knife might break under the stress of cutting a…

Though LEGOs can be used to build just about everything from a ship in a bottle to a Tic Tac dispenser, the one thing they aren’t so good at is cleaning up after themselves. YouTuber The Brick Wall must have stepped on one too many of his LEGO builds because his newest project is a…

While they likely aren’t to replace a roomful of clever creatives, Triggers Cards are certainly a brilliant tool when it comes to creative problem solving. The brainchild of creative director Alejandro Masferrer to be used as as an ideation tool, Triggers are designed to help ideate and run smooth brainstorming sessions with a series of…

Need a fix of retro nostalgia mash-up? We’ve got one to make your drool tubs. Colin of Why Not Make It is to blame for your sudden craving to combine a 19080’s boombox and Super Nintendo (Chalmers). Being born in a time where the video games were simpler/better and the music players a lot bigger/doper, he took it upon…

Before automobile technology even reached the point where two cup holders in a single car was an ovation inducing breakthrough, the automotive design process involved a constant back-and-forth of 2D sketches–it still does for many manufacturers. Then there is the strict adherence needed for that unfortunately inconvenient internal structure. Most of the time, these “hard…

If you’re looking for a video game to play with friends or your kids, Rocket League is a great way to remove stress, bond with them, and crush them in race to the finish intensity. It’s basically soccer only, instead of football players, you’re controlling a virtual RC car which can double jump and rocket…

When working on a project for a client, designer Eric Strebel likes to help out his fellow man by dropping some of his own modelling tips and tricks along the way. He’s already showed us how to create casting boxes, approximately a hundred cast parts from scratch, and his personal process for low volume manufacturing.…

If you thought 3D printing an entire jet engine was a ambitious task, you aren’t thinking big enough… at least as far as size is concerned. 3D printed houses have been attempted in various ways, but we’ve been keeping our eye on what non-profit organization New Story and for-profit construction firm ICON is doing. They…

It’s always nice to see well-designed creations built from relatively cheap materials. With a little ingenuity and (in some cases) a lot of hard work, you don’t need a fortune to craft something worthy of a showroom floor. Among others, master builder Mike Clifford recently proved this with his homemade white glass-fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC)…

YouTube user kiwami japan has a bit of an odd obsession with making homemade blades and other weapons from obscure and unusual materials. Case in point. This knife wasn’t made from a hard-to-find metal, but from a roll of aluminum foil you likely have stashed in your cupboard to wrap a sandwich or make tin…

You know, some think video games are a glimpse into the future of 3D product design and engineering. Just keep that in mind as you see what YouTube user Gilbert Roy Alva uses Cities: Skylines, a 3D city building sim game, to recreate some of Southeast Asia’s most well-known cities. With Minecraft being used to create castles…

You know what’s more satisfying to watch than a thousand soda cans being crushed? Seeing them get turned into solid blocks of pure aluminum bliss. After consuming an unhealthy amount of soda products, Ben from PressTube decides to crush and melt the cans into reusable aluminum ingots (which can be used as bricks for a…

Hey, remember last year when a retired limo driver said he would launch himself into space with a homemade rocket? After countless delays due to rocket repairs and his inability to get a proper permit to fly, “Mad” Mike Hughes was finally able to launch his creation sky high… …before crashing back down to earth…

Pi Day may already be behind us (March 14th), but there are plenty of other ways to celebrate the mathematical constant over the rest of the year. The Pi Bike is a fixed gear bicycle from the minds of Martijn Koomen and Tadas Maksimovas in collaboration with ideas company WE ARE Pi. Inspired by a pi…

Even as more players eschew traditional board games in favor of smartphone app alternatives, there is still a significant population of diehard board game lovers who live for the real thing. Massdrop community designer Cassidy Williams is one such person; taking her love of Scrabble’s letter-engraved tiles into the world of computer keyboards. Waking up…

From simple song requests to complicated trivia questions (not to mention painlessly ordering new bubble gum), the Amazon Echo Dot is undoubtedly a fun little gadget to have around. But for some, the minimalist Roomba-like puck design could use a little work in the TLC department. Baard Fleistad has always wanted a gramophone of his…

You ever wonder how craftsmen make those hoity-toity nature tables with tiny bodies of water flowing through them? Turns’ out, there’s no water involved. As former NFL lineman turned furniture maker, John Malecki, shows, all you need is some glass, some metal, and a good slab o’ wood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ-hiw1CqyA How to Make a River Table…

Mobile devices are, more and more, integrating 3D capabilities. There’s 3D modeling, of course, but also social integration, interactive home models, smartphones as 3D printers and 3D scanning (all the way back in 2011!), but it’s the mobile 3D scan apps that are really starting to become more prevalent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkTaCOQ_OjI Qlone: 3D Scan & Print…

Modeling a 3D object and prepping it for 3D printing on a 2D screen sounds counterintuitive… because it is. You’re stabbing your mouse at a 2D plane in 3D space to make something which can be interacted with in the real world. I thought we were in the future? So, what if you could design the…

You know Eric Strebel likes to show you how to make stuff, right? Did you also know he’s a science fiction fan. Upon watching a movie involving a magical, glowing amulet (which narrows the potential number of films down to about a thousand), he felt inspired to create his own wearable glowing rock – one…

As far as desk toys go, just about everybody has a method of keeping their hands busy while waiting for that next great idea to strike. And for designers and engineers who appreciate precision machined metal, the Vortecon definitely deserves a spot in your desktop. Concieved of by-product designer Kristoph Krisjans, the Vortecon is a…

The folks at Paperwallet sure like keeping their wallets simple. Made from Tyvek (the material you find in a lot of packaging envelopes), these money holders are as thin as an anorexic paper yak, yet are able to hold a fat stack of bills and cards. Not only that, but they give upcoming artists a…

Whether it be music, movies, documents, or photos of your cat – everyone has something precious they keep as digital data. But let’s be real – that’s a lot of data you have to keep stored. Those photos of your cat alone might not even fit the 1TB hard drive you keep. Keeping backups of…

If you’re someone who has the energy to exercise after sitting at a desk for 12 hours… well, of course you should. If you don’t wear your exercise clothes at work, you probably tote around your work bag along with an exercise bag. Shoes, clothes, soap, rubber ducky– the essentials. One person dared to imagine eliminating one…

It’s incredible how easy it is to trick the mind into thinking it isn’t doing work. Playing sports makes training your body fun, watching nature shows on TV makes learning biology possible, and playing video games makes puzzle solving compelling. But this particular 21st century device tries to mix both learning and physical activity into…

Cutting your hair is a remarkable skill to have. After all, eliminating yet one more thing you have to do each month is always a blessing—not to mention saving a few dollars is always nice. That said, getting the results you want isn’t always easy. The CreaClip doesn’t turn you into a bonafide hairdresser, but…

With their rickety structures, questionable harness systems, and lack of insurance waivers to sign, wooden roller coasters offer daredevils a glimpse at death from the (relative) safety of a fast-moving cart. While most modern roller coasters are built of metal, there are still some amusement parks that stick to the tried-and-true method of making thrilling…

Some love the therapeutic nature of it; others entirely loathe it. Either way, one thing is for sure: vacuuming is vital to keeping your space clean. But from an ergonomics standpoint, many vacuum designs leave plenty to be desired. One subtle—yet common—ache caused by vacuuming is wrist ache, which comes from twisting your hand in…

Unlike moving bikes, which give you a sense of freedom, adventure, and occasionally, dread, stationary bikes just…well, stand there. And while stationary bikes are useful for squeezing in some cardio when the weather is particularly nasty outside, their outdoor riding emulation leaves much to be desired. The Wattbike Atom is still a stationary vehicle, but…