Along with other Quirky hits such as the more recent Aros Smart Window Air Conditioner, the Pivot Power falls in line with one of Quirky’s well-positioned design strategies: make existing and dull products that people use daily ‘smarter’…whether it’s a simple reimagining of an age-old hardware design or by incorporating a connected software ‘smart home’…

If you’ve been hanging around the SolidSmack block for awhile, chances are your hands are sticky from drinking too much root beer and your stomach hurts from eating too many cheese balls. You’ve also likely come across one of our favorite YouTube channels Frank Makes. Created by retired architect and master woodworker Frank Howarth, the…

Considered by many as being one of the most innovative companies, Nike doesn’t just earn that title by chance. Sure, Adidas and New Balance are innovative in their own ways…as are many other companies not related to sports at all. But when it comes to market performance and social influence in 2014, it’s hard to…

As the market for 3D printing grows exponentially each year, so does the demand for those who are professionally-trained in developing three-dimensional objects outside of iPad apps and cookie cutter mesh-mixers. The number of job ads alone that require additive manufacturing and 3D printing skills has increased 1,834% in the last four years and over…

When MakerBot Industries was founded by Adam Mayer, Bre Pettis and Zach “Hoeken” Smith in early 2009, few (especially Adam, Bre and Zach) could have ever expected that the company would have taken off as much as it has. With a handful of ‘MakerBot boutiques’, store-within-a-store deals with Microsoft and Home Depot, a huge factory…

When it comes to silicone molds, the possibilities for fun are boundless. Whether you’re using an existing Death Star mold to create a concrete vase or are creating an entirely new mold for a space shooter prototype, silicone molds have always been one of the most fun—and educational—ways of creating a three-dimensional object. Among other…

If you were asked to present a sketch for a new product design concept in the next ten minutes, there’s a good chance you would probably reach for a pen and paper versus your tablet or computer peripheral device. Why? While there has never been a better time to sketch and work digitally , the…

In an effort to show how many forms are possible for a single, simple wooden spoon design, Norwegian designer Stian Korntved Ruud has committed to carving one spoon per day for a full year. We’ve seen designers commit to similar feats, such as Spencer Nugent’s daily design sketch goal that he documents over on Sketch-A-Day.Com,…

Add this to our growing bucket of things we wish we would have thought of before. The Zcan is a new ergonomic wireless mouse design that lets users swipe in a zigzag motion to scan and instantly digitize analog documents. Currently in the last 40 hours of its campaign over on Indiegogo, the project has…

If you’re familiar with Shapeways, chances are you’ve heard of Shapeways’ Designer Evangelist Duann Scott. The enthusiastic spokesman for the popular on-demand 3D printing service is not only a great voice for the 7-year old company, but also for the small world of 3D printing in general. On Shapeways, Duann describes himself as a Product…

When it comes to superheroes, their weapons of choice are almost just as iconic as the heroes themselves. Superman has his superpowers, Batman has his Batarangs, Iron Man has his flying indestructible suit and Captain America has his iconic shield. It’s the latter that the talented CAD designers, swordsmiths, blacksmiths and fabricators at Baltimore Knife…

We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where windowless air travel will give new meaning to the term ‘flying by air’, a world where coolers with embedded blenders have overtaken smart watches for funding records on Kickstarter, how do we find the next…

With 31 hours left to go, the Coolest Cooler has raised a whopping $11.2 million dollars and counting with 31 hours still left in the now-infamous Kickstarter campaign. The project surpassed the Pebble smartwatch as the all-time most funded Kickstarter project when it passed the $10,266,245 mark…which it had held for 862 day. In this…

With reports in the past few years indicating that bees are moving slowly towards extinction, it would make sense to look into ways of creating more bee-friendly environments. While bees do exist in sprawling urban environments, there are few ‘urban beekeepers’ that focus on raising the bees and providing a suitable hive for which they…

When it first launched, few people could have ever expected the Coolest Cooler to be as successful as it has been…it would have been impressive just to hit the $100,000 mark for a product whose sole purpose is to keep beverages cold at a picnic. Currently sitting at just above the $10 million funding level,…

As far as internet video celebrities go, genius inventor and all-around mad man Colin Furze is certainly one of our favorites. The plumber, stuntman, inventor, and filmmaker from Stamford, Lincolnshire, England is known for his wild and downright impressive inventions ranging from ‘The World’s Fastest Pram’ (complete with a flamethrower and World Record to boot)…

As the landscape of 3D printers has grown exponentially in the past few years, so have the number of options for printable materials. With options ranging from carbon fiber to flexible plastics, you would be hard-pressed to not find a suitable option for your next prototype or other 3D printing project. But what if there…

We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where disease and sickness can be identified via a sensor and a mobile device, a world where museum visits can be experienced virtually across the world via a robot, how do we find the next big…

For those who remember the pre-CG days (primarily before the release of Jurassic Park), appreciating special effects also meant appreciating a certain level of model making skill that has sadly been replaced by the latest in CG technology. While a well-executed CG job can do wonders for a film, it’s oftentimes the models that really…

While we’ve seen quite the gamut of ‘3D printed ceramics’ over the past few years, few executions ever explored the possibility of adding detail to each individual extruded layer. Aiming to create 3D printed ceramic pieces that more closely resembled historic and detailed artifacts rather than a layered Play-Doh bowl, Dutch artist Oliver van Herpt…

Founded in 1912, BERTONE has had a colorful history creating some of the most sought-after and futuristic car designs throughout the past century. The reputable Italian firm started out as a carriage manufacturing business and later turned into a styling studio that was commissioned by some of the most reputable car manufacturers in the world…

Aiming to ‘give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion’, Google’s Project Tango has been met with enthusiasm from both developers and consumers alike since being announced in early 2014. While the device is aiming to be everything from a gaming system to a new take on the retail experience, the ability to…

If you’re familiar with the wild and crazy concepts from artist/designer Sebastian Errazuriz, then the organized chaos of his latest piece, The Explosion Cabinet, shouldn’t surprise you. The talented artist and designer has been spending his career crafting obscure functional objects ranging from ‘Man Chopping Board’ and ‘Tea for Two’ to ‘Flyswatter’ and ‘Tree Table’.…

After earning a degree in architecture and specializing in industrial design, Ferrari’s Chief of Design Flavio Manzoni began his design career in 1993 working at FIAT’s Lancia Design Center. In only eight short years, Manzoni’s talents allowed him to rise through the ranks to become the chief designer of the FIAT Group Design Center. With…

Almost exactly a month ago, SolidSmack reported that popular toymaker Hasbro would be teaming up with Shapeways to offer My Little Pony fans (AKA Bronies) the option to 3D print and sell their own creations based on the Hasbro-owned content via their new(ish) SuperFanArt platform. As we predicted, the experimental move into user-created licensed content…

With Shark Week 2014 already going full-throttle, we thought we’d share an interesting tidbit that offers more science and less Sharknado that might help with some biomimicry inspiration for you down the road. Heck, researchers have already started 3D printing multi-material ‘shark skin’ to improve wetsuit, marine and aircraft design. Check out the informative piece…

Why didn’t somebody think of this sooner? Either way…we’re just glad that somebody did. Japanese illustrator and designer Akihiro Mizuuchi has combine two of the best things on Earth into one glorious building block in the form of chocolate LEGOs. Presumably created no differently than any other chocolate mold, the modular edibles just gave us…

In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably familiar with the popular Ice Bucket Challenge that originated from 29 year old Peter Frates, a former captain of the Boston College baseball team who was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 (this according to a Facebook data science team). Since its first appearance on various…

Save for a piñata, few objects encourage destruction as a part of the user experience—let alone objects that aren’t meant to be discarded after their use. While you won’t be finding any Laffy Taffy or Skittles inside the cavity of the ‘/’ Lamp, it does however encourage you to beat the living crap out of…

So far we’ve seen 3D printing being used at the consumer/prosumer level as a way to create static objects with relatively few—if any—moving parts. A large part of this is due to the rampant use of low-level CAD programs that offer little more than digital pushing and pulling combined with an output method that is…

Previously, SolidSmack reported on the Sense ‘Smart Sleeping System’ that launched on Kickstarter a few weeks ago. The well-priced $99 sleep management system aims to ‘combine the insight of your sleep patterns with the data of the environment in your bedroom, including noise, light, temperature, humidity and particles in the air’. In an age where…

Inspired by a strange desire to create and design a collection of products for ‘all the wrong reasons’, product designer Katerina Kamprani has essentially created a collection of almost usable yet absolutely-not-usable product designs that bring to mind the popular Most Useless Machine Ever. Perhaps the ongoing collection is a purpose-related inside joke related to…

We’ve all seen various images and video clips of robots on product assembly lines ranging from cars to pocket tools. While robots have helped automate the manufacturing process, few details exist about where the future is likely heading apart from whatever sci-fi theories that are floating around. While nobody wants to see somebody lose their…

We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where swimming pools can project live feeds of some of the world’s most premier diving spot for a fully-immersive virtual reality experience, a world where ‘Smart Homes’ will be able to be controlled by emotions rather…

When appreciating a furniture design, it’s easy to overlook the environmental impact of the various materials said design is made of including a frame, foam, padding, pillows, covers…and not to mention an oftentimes extremely large cardboard box loaded with foam or other packing material. Oh yeah—then there is the transport, too. Furniture is notoriously hard…

Documenting an industrial design process can be a challenging task when your primary focus is on getting the actual product design out of the door and into the hands of your client or manufacturer in time. Whether the documentation is for a student portfolio or for a world-class design firm, the combination of research data,…

Over the past 30 years, the landscape of video controller design has been nearly just as colorful as the varieties of game options that they are controlling. When comparing the simplistic directional pad and two-button layouts of some of the earliest controller designs to the more ‘smart’ (and complicated) designs seen in today’s Playstation and…

As anybody with an interest in Apple’s top-secret design offices knows, few details ever emerge behind the ‘Minimaluminiumalism’ approach to some of the most game-changing product designs of all time. Sure, Apple’s Jony Ive has expressed how much appreciation he has for Dieter Rams and even opened up on how much Dieter Rams influenced him…

Historically, farmers have been some of the most resourceful and intelligent hackers and tinkerers when it comes to solving problems…be it a broken axle or an ingenious solution for watering their crops. It comes with little surprise then that when faced with the problem of bears getting into his crops, Turkish farmer Mustafa Karasungur took…

Since announcing support for 3D printing directly withinin Photoshop earlier this year, Adobe has been focusing on enhancing the popular photo-editing software to be an even more powerful 3D content creation tool. In a blog post from Adobe released late last week, the go-to software company for legions of designers announced that they will be…

For the ZBrush fanatics out there with a penchant for ooey-gooey digital clay modeling, this past weekend was an exciting one if you happened to be in Hollywood, California for the 2014 ZBrush Summit. The three-day event at the Gnomon Workshop featured everything from guest speakers and workshops to product demos and inspirational keynotes. Perhaps…

Let’s admit it: wireframe views in CAD are awesome. While they may not be functional or necessary 100% of the time, the combination of even line weights and simple, informative curves to guide your eye really do standout as a unique form of digital and art. Inspired by the unique look of the wireframe display,…

Siggraph 2014 is coming up this weekend in Vancouver and as expected, lots of exciting new computer graphics tech developments will be announced. Among them is this incredible new photo editing tool from researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of California Berkeley. Operating under the project title “3D Object Manipulation in a Single Photograph…

With music festivals such as Coachella, Bumbershoot and Bonnaroo gaining record-attendance numbers each year, the sleeping conditions are still, well…terrible for the majority of festival-goers. While some attendees like to use the music festival as a ‘roughing it’ experience on par with camping, the conditions are still less than ideal for the majority of people…

As if handling tiny watch screws wasn’t hard enough, has anybody taken a second to think about how much precision goes into making the dang things? Touted as having ‘the highest precision on the market’, the SwissNano is one of many machines offered by the reputable Tornos brand and is designed for fabricating nearly 2/3…

Being touted as “a revolution in consumer 3D printing”, the newly-announced Solidoodle Press is Solidoodle’s answer for those seeking a true plug-and-play machine in a sleek and space-saving enclosed package. With the goal of creating a seamless user experience for the consumer 3D printer market, the Press includes a re-engineered internal setup that makes the…

Learning how to use chopsticks for the first time is no easy task—especially if your appetite isn’t willing to take a backseat while learning a new food-to-mouth delivery method. For those with motor impairments such as Parkinson’s Disease, the experience can be exponentially frustrating. Aiming to solve a problem that affects millions worldwide, Japanese chopstick…

Lately we’ve been seeing quite the interest from the general public when it comes to ‘what’s inside’ the many artifacts that make up our day-to-day lives. Perhaps the best examples of this trend are the recent videos of objects being ‘shaved away’ one millimeter at time. While there are a few of them floating around…

3D printed food is nothing new…however the desire to eat something extruded out of cables and wires is still something that most people haven’t quite wrapped their heads around yet. Despite this food innovation hump, the move to create on-demand food is still pushing forward on a seemingly weekly basis with applications ranging from providing…

‘Minimaluminiumalism’ isn’t an actual word (yet?)…but if we were to hear a word like it there’s a strong possibility that it would come from none other than everybody’s favorite ‘minimal/aluminum-loving’ industrial designer Jony Ive. The iconic Apple designer has seen his fair share of criticisms and parodies over the years but let’s be honest here…there…