Does anyone not like LEGOs? After watching the trailer for the upcoming documentary on the iconic toy, it would appear that you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who doesn’t. The documentary, which is simply titled A LEGO Brickumentary, is the first of its kind in that it tracks literally everything LEGO – ranging from the…

It appears that inventing self-driving electric cars and launching rockets into space hasn’t been enough to keep serial inventor and entrepreneur Elon Musk grounded as of late. The founder of Tesla and Space X has been teasing the tech community over the past few weeks with hints towards a new product that’s “not a car”.…

Not too long ago, graduating from an Ivy League School was among one of the best ways to ensure a high-paying and dignified career. Now, a new study has shown that despite what history may have taught us, the new high-paying jobs are demanding skills that aren’t offered at Ivy League schools at all -…

It’s no secret that the HoloLens was among one of the most exciting tech announcements within the past year – if not years – when it was unveiled by Microsoft in January at their Windows 10 event. Yesterday, the device was presented again at the company’s annual Build Developer Conference in San Francisco and was…

Like many others who love to create, one of my heroes is Adam Savage — Mythbuster, science communicator, movie prop collector, and maker. In one of the many hours I had spent absorbing his philosophies and skills watching Youtube videos, he said something that put into words a concept that had taken me many years…

Considered to be one of the most iconic designs from architect and designer Buckminster Fuller, the Dymaxion #1 is one of three cars that were designed by the late designer in the 1930s. Although the zeppelin-esque design of the car is well-loved and has been etched-in to nearly every industrial design history book or class…

I get asked the question, “How do I become an inventor?” – a lot. I think people ask me that because I’ve been turning ideas into physical objects for the better part of two decades (that sounds more impressive than it is — I’m counting the formative LEGO-building time of my youth) and I’ve become…

Among others who have had a profound influence on the history of industrial design, Dieter Rams is among the most prolific designers whose opinion is still sought after today. The German designer, who cut his teeth at Braun and established the company as one of the most historically-significant contributors to the history of “understandable products”,…

As interest in consumer-based 3D printing continues to grow, many new users are still finding themselves on the fence about actually purchasing a desktop 3D printer or using any number of 3D printing services including Shapeways, 3D Hubs or one of the many local Makerspaces that are continuing to pop up in communities worldwide -…

Without surprise, this year’s annual NYC 3D printing extravaganza has been the biggest, ever. After starting from humble roots with just a few tables and a sparse speaker offering less than five years ago, the Inside 3D Printing show has since expanded into a multiple-event showcase that features over a week of curated activities, presentations…

The 3D printer; an expression, a symbol, a icon. I got on board the additive manufacturing awesomeness express 12 years ago and the ride just keeps getting better. Wonder why you can’t think of the last time you saw a lava lamp? Because seeing that extruded molten plastic methodically placed layer by micro layer as…

In an industry dominated by the young, 91yr old Barbara Beskind is breaking the glass age-ceiling, and now works as a designer for IDEO, where according to the Wall Street Journal, Beskind walks with her custom modified ski poles from the train station to the Palo Alto-based IDEO offices. There, she shares her wealth of…

Remember when you use to make things? Potholders, paintings, LEGO creatures, messes? You need to get back to that, and  The 100 Day Project may just be the kick in the ass you need. It’s the brain child of Elle Luna & The Great Discontent, a quarterly print pub and online magazine. The project kicks off on April…

We live in a world full of amazing design software and hi-tech automated machines. These “tools” are designed to reduce design cycle times and leverage productivity. Companies spend a lot of money on these tools and expect a productivity pay off from their designers. Some of the new expectations are realistic and some are not.…

While it’s common knowledge that crowdfunding has changed how products are brought to market, the process of going from grassroots Kickstarter campaign to viral success has also introduced entirely new challenges for ensuring that supply chains and vendors are capable of meeting necessary manufacturing requirements that thousands of eager backers – and not to mention…

Usually when it comes to recreating logos with pixel-by-pixel perfection, a high-resolution reference image of said logo(s) is needed to trace – with careful precision – using a bezier curve tool such as Adobe Illustrator’s Pen Tool. The process – depending on the level of one’s OCD tendencies – can take up to an hour…

Known widely for his ceramic speaker and Sorapot teapot designs, industrial designer Joey Roth has made a name for himself over the past five years by delivering unique products that preserve and highlight their natural material qualities. His ingenious ceramic speakers alone set the internet on fire when they were first released and continue to…

For some, working between the worlds of art, design, craft and technology seems like a part of your everyday workflow. For inventor Dominic Wilcox, these means literally taking objects and ideas from across the widest points of any given scale and merging them into singular concepts that mix the four disciplines to create innovative and…

Although Kickstarter has been responsible for churning out successful product after successful product, what happens to a Kickstarter campaign page after a product launches has been…pretty much nothing. Thanks to the popularity of some projects, the SEO for any search of said product is likely to bring up the Kickstarter page first (go ahead, try…

While 3D printers are certainly one of the more fun digital fabrication tools, laser cutters aren’t too far behind. Not to mention, the ability to quickly and easily create a physical product from a digital file is made all the more fun when visible lasers are involved. For Martin Raynsford – a co-owner of the…

It’s hard to not talk about the history of design without “Bucky Fuller” being mentioned at least once. The designer, architect, systems theorist and neo-futurist is famous for dipping his talent in multiple projects ranging from transportation design to urban planning and beyond. Along the way, he somehow managed to publish over 30 books on…

In this brand-spankin-new series, we’re going to feature a wide variety of designer-turned-entrepreneurs who have elevated their design and engineering skills into functioning businesses. Among other details we’ll cover include how these entrepreneurs leveraged their industrial design and/or mechanical engineering knowledge to create a business, how they work, how they market their products and ultimately,…

How would you connect the budding thinkers of the future with the best of the innovative tools to realize their dreams? It’s simple: take it to their door step. Well, that’s what North Carolina-based Betaversity’s BetaBox is designed for anyways. The shipping container-turned fablab packs more than enough practical and clever tools that bring some…

When he was on pace to become the youngest head designer ever at General Motors, John Delorean boldly decided to ditch the car giant and set out on his own path to establish his own car company that would later become Delorean. After setting up shop in Ireland, Delorean developed what would later become one…

Ever since they hit the block in April of 2009, Kickstarter has raised over $1.5 billion in pledges from 7.8 million backers to fund 200,000 creative projects – 200,000! Projects such as the recent Pebble Time and Coolest Cooler have had no problem raising 8-figure pledges – the Pebble Time alone is currently sitting at…

Back in the late 20’s and 30’s, Japan was establishing their Folk Art movement (Mingei) due in no small part to philosopher Yanagi Soetsu. Yanagi became enamored with Korean crafts and soon after began ‘rescuing’ lowly pots used by commoners in the Edo and Meiji eras and found them to be beautiful in their own…

Chances are, if you are alive in any way, you have more than likely seen at least one episode of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. When the first show aired in 2003, it featured SpecialFX experts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage taking two or more popular myths per episode and performing a series of experiments…

When it comes to manufacturing equipment ranging from various CNC mills to common woodworking tools and 3D printers, few would expect these space-hogging machines to live on prime waterfront property – let alone prime waterfront property in San Francisco. Yet, Autodesk’s Pier 9 workshop was built with exactly that in mind and is only a…

Leading up to SolidWorks World next week in Phoenix, we thought we’d take a moment to take a brief look at just how far the company has come from its original heyday when it was founded by Jon Hirschtick with his Blackjack winnings after a successful stint with the infamous MIT Blackjack team that was…

With every great idea, Seed investment can go a long way towards turning it into an actual and great product. While crowdfunding has only been around for close to a decade, it has been the primary proving ground for testing ideas and turning out products that can end up becoming sustaining businesses. Some may argue…

For some (college students?) it’s a necessity, for others (psychopaths?) it’s a hobby. Assembling flat-packed IKEA furniture really isn’t as bad as many make it out to be, but it’s still a chore worthy of purchasing a six-pack of root beer for and putting on a Pixies record in advance. In their new game Höme…

For those who enjoy the brain activity of assembling thousand-plus part models in SolidWorks, this new ‘desk toy’ just might be right up your alley. Set to be unveiled at next month’s Toy Fair in NYC, the LEGO SHIELD Helicarrier is among one of the largest and most sci-fi builds to date with 2,996 elements…

For those that grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s, it’s likely that some of the best weekends-ever consisted of epic Nerf soft-dart Blaster fights and fort-building. Unlike LEGOs, the soft darts didn’t hurt if you stepped on one and the combination of building strategic forts for protection certainly led to at least some…

For our readers who might have little ones running around playing engineer or designer, we noticed something on Adafruit.com that quite frankly…we couldn’t help but share. Departing from the standard fare of coloring books, which usually includes ‘Dinosaurs’, ‘Dora the Explorer’ and ‘Farm Animals’, R is for Robot invites children to color-in illustrations of Jacquard…

Although the upcoming Apple Watch will certainly have a few bells and whistles that will turn legions of fanboys into an army of Dick Tracys, it is not the first watch that Apple has ever made…and we’re not counting your iPhone, either. Released in 1995, the first Apple Watch was actually produced as a promotional…

While it’s common for blade marketers to use some form of shark imagery or “SharkSaw” terminology in their otherwise metal-based products, we’ve been yet to see an actual saw blade that really is, in biological makeup, real shark teeth. A team of biologists recently built the Jawzall modified power saw to investigate the cutting power…

Commonly seen in Hinduism, Buddhism and Phish concerts, mandalas are usually made of colorful threads or even sand in overwhelmingly complex patterns to express a religious reverence for the infinite beauty of the Cosmos. More recently, Italian artist Leonardo Ulian has been putting a very different spin on the age-old tradition by soldering capacitors, ICs and…

Since his famous presentation in front of the Cupertino City Council on June 7th, 2011 (just one day after presenting at the 2011 WWDC), Steve Jobs’ vision of bringing a spaceship-inspired Apple headquarters down to earth has been slowly coming to life. The headquarters, which Jobs wanted to build to house 12,000-13,000 Apple employees under…

The Internet of Things. We all know that having an iPhone-controlled thermostat or a Wifi-capable pacemaker is the future, but is it safe? Like all things connected to the World Wide Web, it can be hacked quicker than you can say “Sony Pictures”…and if you don’t want Kim Jong-Un access to your Refrigerator, take some…

According to their website, the makers of The Problem Solver India Pale Ale have established that “scientific studies suggest that at an alcohol level of 0.075% the average person produces the most creative thinking.” While anybody who has had a successful brainstorm session after a couple of beers can confirm that, it also opens up…

Before the ‘How it Works’ Discovery Channel and YouTube explosion, Neil Ardley and David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work book was oftentimes the go-to source for satisfying the natural itch of wondering how things do what they do. The book, which was first released in 1988, provided (and still does) hours of brain-fertilizing goodness for…

On a Thursday in December, the truth finally comes out and we learn more about the the target demographic and messaging for large, 3D software development companies. According to Aurèlien Blaha, Senior Manager, Social Communications at Dassault Systèmes, “we mainly sell the software to Ewoks” to which we say, Yub nub. The news came earlier…

Unless you have your holiday shopping down to a ‘T’, chances are there are still some purchases needing your attention as we head into Christmas next week. Thankfully, Amazon has gifted you until this Friday, December 19th to make your last-minute purchases with free shipping included before Christmas (when you spend $35 or more, so…

When it comes to the hundreds of possible uses for a toolbox, playing one as an instrument doesn’t necessarily rank very high on the list…unless the sound of a hammer being tossed into a metal box is music to your ears. While the banging, clanging and all-around headache-inducing sounds of metal against metal would send…

Leading up to their 50th anniversary year in 2015, the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) has been busy revamping their organization to make it more useful for its community of 3,200+ industrial designers. The nonprofit, which is funded by its members, was founded in 1965 and is one of the oldest and largest membership…

Of all of the great skills that product designers and engineers are blessed with, graphic design isn’t necessarily known for being high up on that list. While talent and skill will obviously vary from person to person, there’s more than one reason why design studios have different departments for different disciplines for general day-to-day work.…

When we were kids, go-carts ranked right up there with game consoles and pizza as popular things we wanted to get our hands on. As adults, we like to think we’ve outgrown those childish things, however deep down we really secretly haven’t and Razor is capitalizing on our inner-child with the recent release of their…

It’s no secret that as we move deeper into digital experiences with our phones, tablets, watches and the like, the human need to connect with more mechanical and manual activities or objects becomes suddenly more apparent. While we don’t expect anybody to be churning butter at their desk or making candles during lunch hour, these…

Known as the Habitability Design Center, NASA’s “conceptual, human-centered design studio” is nothing short of a playground for playing with some of humanity’s most futuristic design concepts. While it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that the design team gets to ‘draw spaceships all day’…the amount of human factors research that goes into…

Since opening in the fall of 2013, Autodesk’s Pier 9 has been nothing short of a dream factory where designers and engineers have access to literally every tool possible for cranking out the next great product design or innovation. Located on Pier 9 overlooking the San Francisco Bay, the facility is available to lucky Autodesk…