There has been much fanfare around 3D printers in recent years. Meanwhile, you rarely hear about the laser cutter in mainstream media. Honestly, I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because the laser cutter doesn’t have a charismatic evangelist like Bre Pettis. Hey laser cutter manufacturers, I’m pretty charismatic and available, wink wink. It…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new playlist of face-melting great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. So whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw or flying through a CAD model, consider these tracks as…
Although some of us may refer to 3D printing as “a tool in our toolbox” for when the need to rapid prototype arises, one Florida design engineer recently took the saying quite literally. Chad Bridgewater, an employee at Florida’s Boca Bearings, recently modded an old vintage Huot toolbox to create an expandable 3D printer that…
Although existing cutaway and section view tools that exist in today’s CAD tools are incredibly reliable, they pale in comparison to the hand drawn detailed cutaway drawings that were – at one time- the most advanced form of communication for designers, engineers and manufacturers. Although cutaway illustrations have been used for centuries for everything from…
Between the Evolution Door from Klemens Torggler to the Fletcher Capstan Table from Fletcher Burwell-Taylor, kinetic furniture designs have been slowly finding their way into the mainstream thanks to their mesmerizing shape-shifting characteristics that are the result of some tedious engineering. More recently, New York-based kinetic artist Ian Stell has created what is likely to…