No matter how you watch it – from your iPhone while on the subway or from the cozy confines of a plush leather couch with a bowl of cheddar popcorn – there’s no denying that HBO’s Game of Thrones is one of the best television shows ever made. It’s so good in fact, that HBO…

Okay, perhaps we’re all glad that winter is over (at least in the Northeast US) – but that doesn’t mean we can’t start preparing next winter’s adventures…particularly if it means having a full-year to consider riding a pair of handmade skis on the slopes next season. In the case that you find yourself in Norway…

Having featured his designs at over 16 international design exhibitions since he started studying product design nearly five years ago, young South Korean industrial designer Seungji Mun has shown no signs of slowing down his hustle. The designer, who attended the Kaywon School of Art and Design in South Korea and graduated in 2012, has…

It use to be that when you wanted to get rid of a well-made oak dining chair, you would cut it down for kindling, toss it to the curb or set it on your front porch as a friendly gesture to that raccoon who was maimed by your dog last winter. Rick Koren does none…

Since finding crowdfunding success on Indiegogo in April of last year, the design team behind Amsterdam-based Dick Moby Sunglasses have showed no signs of slowing down. The team, which consists of designers Tim Holland and Robbert Bettink, met while studying together in Amsterdam and came up with the original idea of sustainable eyewear while on…

When it comes to smartphone photography, few tools offer as much flexibility and class as a selfie stick. The telescoping sticks – which are designed to extend the distance of a phone from a user’s body in order to capture a wider field of view – have been taking over tourist destinations and the purses…

With all of the excitement centered around space exploration as of late – thanks in no small part to Elon Musk’s one-man PR machine – it comes with little surprise that model rocketry has exploded in popularity within the past few years. While hobbyist companies such as Estes Rockets have been developing model rockets for…

As if LEGOs haven’t already taken up our shelves and desk space, they may soon be traveling with us to coffee shops, meetings and anywhere else we take our laptops thanks to a new Kickstarter campaign from Jolt Team. The team – who describe themselves as “two guys building awesome products in San Francisco with…

Last time we checked in with YouTube’s King of Random (AKA Grant Thompson), he was teaching his 3-million YouTube subscribers how to create a backyard foundry for melting down recycled aluminum cans for use in other projects. Well, the self-described “Mad Scientist” is at it again and this time, he’s teaching those who have followed…

Some of the best conceptual manufacturing equipment designs that we’ve seen over the past few years have involved altering traditional processes into more simplified approaches that strip away the complexities in favor of the bare minimum. Among others that come to mind instantly is Dave Hakkens’ Precious Plastic project – where he has simplified traditional…

It was a sad day when My Robot Nation was gobbled by 3D Systems and subsequently buried on the Cubify website. (You can find it here now: http://cubify.com/en/store/app/JOW97UI59Y.) They were onto something. It’s the first site where I sat down with my kiddos, talked bots, made bots and bought bots. A year later, a man…

The Zeni Kinetic Origin series of 3D printers are Designed for the future. A future where the 3D printer becomes a common appliance in homes and offices. With the Origin series, the Zeni Kinetic is bringing out well-designed and good looking 3D printers at a price range that is much more affordable to most of…

Last time we checked in with self-described “Stuffmaker” Mac Premo, the Brooklyn-based multimedia artist, videographer and designer was waxing philosophical about why he creates and why “(being) the arbiter of good stories is to live forever”. Since then, the 7-time New York Emmy® Award-winning Promo has been focusing on a different kind of project that…

Molding (the manufacturing process, not the food spoilage one) has been around for a good six millennia, with a cast copper frog from 3200 B.C.E. being among the oldest surviving examples. The technique has adapted along with emergent technology throughout history, up to and including quick-set resins, CAD, and (as you saw here on SolidSmack…

When it comes to watching videos of wood products come to life, leave it up to artisanal wood craftsman Frank Howarth and his creative camera work to be among the most entertaining. The YouTube artisanal craft star picked up an obsession with both woodworking and filmmaking soon after retiring from architecture in the heavily-forested portion…

Although the concept of urban farming isn’t necessarily new, the trifecta of crowdfunding platforms, widespread access to digital fabrication tools and the general public’s interest in eating healthier has helped propel the practice into both single-family homes and apartment rooftops at a rapid rate. In cities such as London, Chicago and New York City, urban…

You would think that for as long as wood has been around, its various possibilities and forms within its natural state would have been exhausted by now – not unlike various pop music melodies. However every now and again, we’re reminded of just how many more possibilities are out there that takes the old and…

It’s no secret that although 3D printing has emerged to become a mainstream technology, the speed of being able to convert a digital file into a physical object leaves much to be desired regardless of the additive manufacturing technology being used. In what sounds like something that’s too good to be true, Redwood City, California…

“When my good friend Steve asked if I could help him design a kickass growler I just couldn’t say no.” I was stoked to hear that Rob Englert and his business partner Steve Tarolli have spent the past few months creating these beautiful growlers. It’s always great to see people following their passions. As I dug into their story, there…

If you happened to be at the London Design Festival in early 2010, chances are you stopped by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram’s OUTRACE installation – which invited the general public to take control of eight industrial robots on loan from Audi’s production line and use them to write personal light messages that were recorded…

After moving from Japan to LA in 1999, a young Shin Okuda held a variety of different jobs over the following couple of years before finding work with a sculptor who also happened to do furniture pieces. After spending countless hours in the studio absorbing the various woodworking techniques and studying designers, Okuda set out…

It’s been a wild and crazy week for the Apple Watch, but the best parts of Apple’s Spring Forward event this past Monday had little to do with the final details of the Watch at all, but rather the material and process videos behind how the watch even got there. While many have been moaning…

Over the past few years (partially thanks to the 3D printing revolution) we’ve been seeing an explosion of customization apps and augmented reality viewers that allow consumers to customize their retail experience. The apps consistently ride the fine line between allowing a consumer to customize their retail experience while also keeping them constrained to the…

Although “remixing” existing products has become popular over the past few years thanks to desktop fabrication, fail-proof basic 3D modeling programs and a seemingly endless library of shareable 3d models, NYC-based pop artist Morgan Phillips (AKA The Sucklord) has been actively remixing his own toy designs using mass production methods for nearly two decades. Operating…

The popularization of computers and modern printers since the 1980s has clearly resulted in a slow death for typeset printing from the mainstream realm – yet the appeal of letterpress printing over the years has ensured that it lives on. In the case that you love the charm of letterpress prints (admit it – you…

Similar to other board sports that have taken the recreation and lifestyle industries by storm, some of skateboarding’s most influential developments didn’t occur in a research lab, but rather the garage of an engineer. After studying engineering at Stanford University, engineer George Powell started making his own skateboards in 1957. Almost twenty years later in…

Although living in a big city may have a seemingly endless list of perks for many, living in a cultural epicenter with millions of other people is not without its drawbacks, too. Aside from high real estate costs and a lack of greenery, many who work on creative projects are oftentimes left with having to…

Between using a standard pair of earbuds that come with a smartphone to spending thousands of dollars on a world-class audiophile flagship kit, everybody has their preferred way of listening. While free earbuds might make for a great on-the-go option, it’s hard to deny that the sound that comes from well-engineered headphones is actually worth…

Although there might have been some questions left unanswered at last week’s SolidWorks World, there were still some announcements that are sure to please a lot of users – even if they might take a little while to develop. Perhaps most notably is the announcement of the new SolidWorks Manufacturing Network. The new platform -…

There’s something about intricate woodworking that makes the salivary glands kick into overdrive and dormant facial hair follicles sprout anew. Scott Lewis doesn’t need facial hair to prove he’s a wood-shaping creator of uber-cool cutting boards; All he needs is some fancy camerawork, bearing-guided router bits and multiple bandsaw cuts that are smoother than lacquered…

It seems that now more than ever, those who focused their careers on digital products have been coming out of the woodwork in favor of creating real-world objects with their hands. Whether or not these designers pick up the skills as hobbies or as full-fledged new careers, the return to that old-world tradition and desire…

Whether working with a shop, a local supplier or a company you think operates out of the Southern Guangdong province, there’s always a need to find a reputable manufacturing team that can take on your high capacity runs or one-off chunks of production-ready prints. Usually, a search for such a shop takes you online, and…

Amongst the sad Keanu Reeves figurines and modified vacuum cleaner parts, additive manufacturing is also stepping in to solve some major medical problems in ways no one predicted it would. Similar to how Makerbot and RepRap managed to cut the cost of desktop rapid prototyping, Philadelphia-based startup BioBots has been focusing their efforts on radically…

Dutch Supermarket chain Albert Hejin (AH XL) have taken it upon themselves to create a user-facing kiosk and a customized chocolate 3D printer to allow customers to make cake designs on the fly. The Dutch always strike me as one of the few countries that like living on the bleeding edge of the Future. Don’t worry…

For those Fablabs, Design Studios and active hobbyists, filament buying becomes a part of the rite of being there. Instead of having to rely on timing orders right or hitting up the hobby shop to make sure you have enough filament and tools, there’s Protocrate. Described as a “part-Filament of the Month club, part-DIY project…

We’ve seen quite the gamut of 3D printers come out of the crowdfunding space, and although many have been able to take off successfully, few have really been able to hit the jackpot and sustain long after their campaign ended. CEL Robox has been one of the exceptions, releasing new software, finding new partners and so far have…

When it comes to some of the most simple and effective works of two-dimensional art today, it’s hard to not throw LA-based artist Geoff McFetridge’s name into the circle. The artist, who approaches two-dimensional pieces as “inventions” similar to a designer or engineer, has worked with everybody from the band OK GO to Nike and…

It’s one of the most unusual things that Autodesk has ever done – a software company making hardware products – and now you can get your hands on it. Precise, Sleek and Open-Source, the Ember was created to be a 3D Printer for everyone so anyone can easily physicalize models via Autodesk’s very own Spark Platform and…

Hold onto your hats! The Hasso-Plattner-Institut, near Berlin, Germany, has just released ‘a simple self-contained appliance that allows teleporting inanimate physical objects across distance’ by the name of Scotty (as in, “Beam me up”). Starting with a few Makerbot Replicators, they added a 3-axis milling machine, a camera, an encryption/tranmission system to enable teleportation of objects. Unlike…

One of the principal problems on living far away from home is doing the most with less. No, I am not equating living on Mars to your first year at college, eating Ketchup Sandwiches to stay alive. Getting to Mars is not easy, and if you can build ‘the most’ with the least amount of tools and…

In the annals of getting-things-made, there have been two distinct approaches that have become apparent in the past two years. One is the classic Shapeways/Ponoko approach (or B2C), which depends on a company owning digital fabrication machines and putting all of the models on one build plate and shipping it to you and/or having a…

As 3D printers become cheaper and more accessible, it was only a matter of time before a 3D printer trickled down into actually being a ‘toy’. After all, this has happened before with other methods of manufacturing including vacuum forming and casting molds, among others. As anybody who has used an FDM 3D printer knows…

Why is it that the kids get cooler toys than the adults nowadays? Because they’re EDUCATIONAL. MySTEMkits.com just launched on Kickstarter today, offering you and your offspring the chance to learn a few more things about nearly everything that’s cool. Boasting dozens of kits covering topics from biology to design to applied math, mySTEMkits is another…

Today on Indiegogo 3DRacers launched their new RC racecar package. Using an online editor, you can create your own design and add features to make your racecar to crush all competition. Edit, download, print and assemble. Using a smartphone app, you can take your racecar round the track like the Stig that you are. Silent and unknown to the…

Like most other things these days, digital fabrication is disconnecting from your computer and leaving it for the Cloud. The concept of it is fairly simple: connect a dongle to your 3D Printer and enable the user to control it using an online platform for printing, content creation and sharing, among others. This is exactly…

As MakerBot announced that they were unrolling new features and products into their expanding ecosystem during CES 2015, one of the biggest gaping holes in their platform was making the entire 3D printing experience more social. Between the legions of new 3D printing enthusiasts to existing user groups and Makerspaces, the social activity has been…

With an 80 cent piezo buzzer, tungsten wire and some spare MDF, Dan Berard has managed to build an working Scanning Tunneling Microscope that can image whole atomic structures. Arthur C. Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic… …my variation would be “any sufficiently advanced technology made in your house…

Although there’s an overwhelming amount of column inches expended on consumer 3D Printing, there are some substantial movements in the Industrial 3D Printing World. Fabrisonic has been one of the most interesting and perhaps most stealthy after having developed a unique additive manufacturing method on a large-scale with large implications for design and engineering. Leveraging better…

WinSun, the Chinese firm that managed to one-up the competition in mega-scale 3D Printing have recently released a new set of pictures that highlight their latest large-scale structures. These humungous one-story to six-story buildings were printed using specially-formulated extruded cement, which were each made in separate pieces and lifted into place. None of the pieces, from what…

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about Simplify3D, a complete software package for slicing 3D models for printing. With features like simulated slicing (to see where printing might be a problem), Mesh-repair, oodles of pre-configured settings for different machines, tutorials and a very active community, hobbyists and prosumers can count on Simplify3D for an easier…