Those of you who inhabit itty-bitty living quarters know that space is a premium. For most, the name of the game for everyday living becomes home organization and efficient use of space. Taming the little stuff is simple enough by just following the old saying “there’s a place for everything and everything is in place.”…

We all know the basics of how a wind turbine works. Using passing winds as an energy source, a typical wind turbine converts kinetic energy into useable electricity. While many wind turbines are large and found in mountainous regions or open fields, the Enlil has a more urban source of wind energy. By plopping this…

LEGO’s are known the world over! Their blocks excite our imagination. Give a kid a mess of Lego blocks and in no time they’ll have a structure reaching to the sky! Yet for all the fun of making buildings or secret caves, let’s face it, there wouldn’t be much life to LEGOs without those tiny,…

It isn’t difficult to grow plants when you have your own garden, but what if you live in a cramped apartment? Not everyone has the space to get their green thumb on, so Chilean industrial designer Lorenzo Vega thought it would be useful to make a modular planter which makes use of otherwise unused vertical…

Months ago, when the thought of a pandemic was just a whisper and inkling in our minds, a press release or blog post announcing a 3D printed glove remover might not have ever caught our attention. In fact, some might think among all the novel inventions a glove remover ranks pretty low on the invention…

It has been a very long time since Vikings roamed the land. Back in the late 8th to late 11th centuries these Norsemen were masters of hunting, raiding, and trading. But they could do almost none of these things without the proper tools, so it only made sense that their smithing techniques were just as…

You can’t go wrong making your own DIY dowel table. With it, you can stack countless things, have a place to eat, or simply kick your legs up on it after a long day, or, yeah… MAKE OTHER THINGS. Using 1” dowels, a stack of 2x4s, some 4x4s, and barrels of glue, Rob from Make…

Now I’m not a smoking man, but even I can see the use of a pocket lighter for various situations. Apart from lightin’ up, a portable flame lets you illuminate dark areas, start a survival fire, or provide quick cauterization of a small wound if you happen to get jabbed in the middle of nowhere.…

Truth be told, I never quite understood e-bikes. I mean, why have an electric-powered bike when a traditional bike provides exercise and less manufacturing and electronic waste? Then again, used as a daily commuter, any extra power would be welcome. Plus – and this is a big bonus – an e-bike helps you avoid public…

Kids these days will never appreciate how good they have it. Smartphones with built-in computers? Bah, back in the day we had to be content with clunky boxes, big screens, and a wad of wires. Even then our computers wouldn’t connect to ‘World Wide Web’ without a dial-up connection. Ah, the good ol’ days, right?…

I can’t quite call myself old enough to have experienced the golden age of the phonograph, ya know since they date back as early as the mid-1800s.  But with the (continual) resurgence of vinyl records, now with the age of hipsters and vintage music enthusiasts, I figure this would be a nice opportunity to see…

Weeks-long isolation brings out the creative juices in us all, but for Japanese Twitter user and cardboard enthusiast koshiyoda, she’s using her powers for one of the most important people in her life: her son. Yes, A Cardboard Laptop After seeing his older brother (who is in junior high school) take part in an online…

It’s hard to take a break between long computer sessions, whether it’s because you’re “in the zone”, finishing a personal project or slammin’ pixels for project deadline. But with MagnetCubes, I think we’ll find ways to jump off the computer an hour or five for some good ol’ fashion play. MagnetCubes Modular Magnetic Blocks To…

Bangor is a hop, skip, and a jump east from Liverpool and just north of the Snowdownia National Park in Wales. It’s home to the Bangor Design Conference, at the Pontio Centre, which is typically, at this time of year, in the final stages of planning. However, COVID-19 had to rush in, cause a planetary…

As any child or household cat would tell you, the joy of getting something new breaks down as follows: 10% the actual product, 90% the box it comes in. In an effort to reduce its environmental footprint, Samsung Electronics is introducing new “eco-packaging” boxes for its large TVs, starting with their Serif, Frame, and Sero…

If you like sneakers and you’re interested in sustainable product development, outsourcing smarter, and making sure your products are not made under forced labor conditions, you need to check out VEJA. They’ve been around a while (some 15 years) but you may not have heard of them. Why? Unlike most fashion brands that put the…

Miss our last edition? See it here: Tools I Freaking Love: Hand Tools [Sheet Metal Edition]. You know that sinking feeling. You’re at the doorstep of a major milestone with a smoldering heap of lessons learned. Things didn’t go according to plan and the next options aren’t any good. You need to breathe enough life…

Here’s something you don’t see everyday: using a hundred iPhone cases, guitar maker ArtMayer has effectively created a guitar body worth thousands of dollars. But does it shred just as well as any guitar? Let’s find out! 1. Strip and Glue the iPhones Just to be clear, these aren’t brand new iPhones he’s using. Most…

3D printed structures have already made their way into the world of architecture with 3D printed houses to change our word and inspiring future 3D printed houses for other worlds. Now, the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), the Barcelonan experimental and experiential center is making strides (pun intended) into the public construction sector…

If you ever thought your tent was a little too small and uncomfortable to enjoy the outdoors, then this RV/Tiny Home option from Haaks Camper may spark your interest. Designed to fit on the back of a specialized Fiat Ducato, this two-story, pop-up camper doubles as a tiny home that can detach to provide a…

By now you’ve heard it’s important to stay in shape during these trying times, but I bet you haven’t taken it as far as former military police officer, Zachary Skidmore. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced his local gym to shut down, Skidmore needed a way to get some exercise. But rather than risk breaking social…

We love toys. And when you add wood and puzzles into the mix, you’ve got a winning combination. MōFU is a line of poseable animal puzzle toys designed by Yoshiaki Ito, an award-winning, Brooklyn-based designer and craftsman. The toys are inventive, dang cute, and now available in a new Kickstarter campaign. Yoshiaki developed the toy…

Though the world has yet to see what this year’s PlayStation 5 will look like (it’s still set to arrive sometime during the holidays), the folks at Sony were kind enough to unveil the thing you’ll be gripping for hours on end: the brand-new DualSense controller. How can the oringinal design of a controller be…

He’s been at the designing gig for quite some time now, so you know when designer and product maker Eric Strebel recommends tools, it carries a little weight. Eager to help both new and experienced designers alike, he recently listed seven tools which he personally finds indispensable when working on a project: 1. Digital Calipers…

When you spend all day making complex design projects, it’s can be nice to just sit back, relax, and go with something a little simpler. Tired of the over-sophistication of house products, Chilean product designer Lorenzo Vega saw fit to create a house fixture which is just as simple as its function. Enter the Lámina…

When I was younger, I believed in the all-healing capacity of the Band-Aid. Small cut on the hand? Band-Aid. Large gash on the knee? Band-Aid. Swarmed by eels in the South Pacific. Band-Aid. Took a while, but I finally realized that not every injury can be fixed by a simple piece of adhesive plastic. Thankfully,…

For those who don’t have the knowledge or ability, changing a flat tire can be a real hassle. It may not be so bad in a parking lot, but when you’re in the middle of a highway with cars zipping past, it can get a little stressful. Instead of popping out all excited and changing…

We’ve featured Michael Grab’s work in the Friday Smackdown before, but we wanted to take a closer look at his process and share more of his work. At the very least, his work is inspirational. At most, it could provide ideas about how you approach your own design problem. Michael is a balance artist –…

If you’re a skateboarder like myself, you know how awesome it feels to fly down a hill. But you know what stinks? Going up that hill. With no momentum or pedal of any sort, skateboarders have little choice but to awkwardly push themselves up or (ugh) walk. In an attempt to remedy the propulsion problem…

Your carpal tunnel is about to have a sad face and you’re about to toss your mouse… set it aside at least. “NO! TOSS IT!” Ok, ok, throw that punk out the nearest window. Why? Wacom just dropped a discount bomb, launching its Spring Sale event, on Intuos and Cintiq tablets along with other deals…

We’ve not seen enough Tesla Model S mods. But that’s about to change. Determined to make the smallest Tesla car ever, Austin Blake of YouTube channel austiwawa took a child’s Tesla Model S Radio Flyer and fitted it with a go-kart engine to make what he calls the “Teskart”: After taking the mini Model S…

Even though humankind has gone pale and pasty from excessive indoor living, they somehow still find joy in eating outdoors. Trees rustling, birds chirping, congealed hame and cheese on whole grain wheat, Ahhhhhh. It’s one of life’s great mysteries; there’s something about nature that makes eating more satisfying. Of course, you’d be remiss to go…

SolidSmack readers are a rowdy, capable bunch, professionals in their field and able to take on just about any project. If any of these projects have called for a square hole, you’ve done your fair share of measuring twice and cutting once… then trimming a bit. But what if you could make that square cut…

You may know them for their cars, but Rolls-Royce is currently looking to the sky instead of just the roads. ACCEL – their new electric plane project which stands for “accelerating the electrification of flight” is a single seat, electricity-powered airplane that aims to reach a top speed of 300 mph. Made in collaboration with…

Here’s something you’ve never seen before: a barcode scanner being used as a musical instrument: Part of the Electronicos Fantasticos project which aims to reuse old consumer electronics by turning them into instruments, this “Barcoderess” may look like normal prison attire but is in fact a piece of clothing covered in a number of different…

Do you remember being told off for burning ants and leaves with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? If so, congrats; your parents made sure you wouldn’t go blind from staring at focused sunlight for too long. Taking a page out of this timeless childhood pastime, artist and filmmaker Michael Papadakis of Sunscribes…

What do you do after creating the most popular construction system on the planet? You create another system just in case anyone already has all 16414 sets released over the last 70 years. LEGO announced their new much-anticipated, thought-to-be canceled product, LEGO DOTS, this week. If you thought they exhausted the plastic-snapping possibilities, you’ll be…

Now those are two words I thought I’d never see together – Sleek + Chicken Tractor. But that’s just one attribute of the Chicken Caravan, a chicken tractor design created by Designers on Holiday’s Tom Gottelier and Bobby Petersen. It’s a simple mobile coop design created for The Ecology Center – a non-profit organization dedicated…

Though they can be quite useful with their cordless design, Airpods can sometimes look as appealing as a cotton bud sticking out of your ear on a public train. Eager to give them a bit more class, jeweller and designer Pablo Cimadevila took a normal pair of Airpods and gave them an 18-karat gold treatment:…

When you think of a blender, what usually comes to mind is a cylindrical machine capable of grinding, juicing, or mulching down food into elderly-friendly portions. The second thought which comes to mind is the noise; as almost all blenders operate with as much subtlety as an inconsiderate construction worker. Eager to distance kitchen appliances…

If you’ve ever looked at a bike and thought “Man, I wish this thing had a bunch of freakin’ legs instead of wheels”, then you’re probably just as awesome as the people behind YouTube channel The Q. Taking inspiration from Dutch designer Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests (kinetic sculptures which move with the wind), this bicycle’s rear…

Our favorite celebrity maker, design shaker is at it again. Since ‘The Big Life Fix’, Jude Pullen has been up to all sorts of shenanigans on his site and Instructables, including the prep of his super-human, inventive, problem-solving capabilities for a new show on UK’s Channel 4 – David Jason’s Great British Inventions. Here’s a…

How many soap bottles do you throw out each year? Yeah, enough for the eco-terrorist elite and Leonardo DiCaprio to make you feel guilty for a few seconds while you mock their hypocrisy. All the while, despite our best efforts to rid ourselves of evil plastics, we still produce tons of waste which takes ages…

While most of us reuse old newspaper to wrap breakables, hold fish and chips, or create paper-mache sculptures of our pets, Atsushi Adachi has a much more creative use for them. A Japanese visual artist, Adachi takes old newspapers and uses them to create replicas of machines FROM THE PAST. If you’ve ever been to…

While there’s nothing quite as bad as stepping on a stray LEGO block, a close second is having to sort out the mess of bricks once you (or your kids) are done using them. It’s bad enough finding all of the little buggers, but when you’re a LEGO aficionado who plans on using specific parts…

Most craftsmen think of CNC machining as a means to an end, but for the filmmaker and digital artist Dom Riccobene, it’s the best way to make miniature landscapes of both real-world and fictional locales. We’ve already seen his AR map of Game of Thrones’ Westeros, but this time around, he’s gone back to the…

While the best (and easiest) ways to keep memories are through writings, photos, and videos, they aren’t quite as creative as what woodworker and filmmaker Frank Howarth has come up with. Taking an ordinary wooden sphere, he engraves a terrain map of Newberry Crater —located in Central Oregon’s Deschutes Forest — onto the wood before encasing…

Need a design taken from A to B or maybe A to Q? Going from A to B might take one skill set and from B to C, another. Do you know what Q through B looks like? Stuff that brain matter back in your ears and take a breath. Let’s review the ABCs of…

As the old adage goes, “You either go big or go home.”; and in the case of the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, they DEFINITELY went big. Using their ginormous in-house 3D printer which has a printing space of 22 by 100 feet and 10 feet high, they were able to print…

While a large house can definitely benefit from having a ton of furniture in it, too much furniture can make a small apartment or condo unit look cramped and unsightly. Seoul-based designer HyukJoon Choi has found a nice middle ground by creating a collection of furniture which both is and isn’t there. Dubbed the “invisible”…