This week we have the great pleasure of speaking to failure analysis expert, design history aficionado, prolific author, and paper clip extraordinaire, Mr. Henry Petroski! Henry has written over 17 books on design and engineering ranging from the history and importance of the toothpick, to why failure is paramount in the design process.
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’ll be kickin’ up the funk a notch with a mixture of blues, jazz, and funk-inspired vibrations. We’ll start with a little Bibi Tanga and work our way through some Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Ozomatli before wrapping up the funkadelic journey with Galactic. Prepare to enter Funk Speed.
Say you’re driving past your favorite office supply store, suddenly realize you’re out of extra large paper clips, slam on the brakes and hightail it across five lanes of traffic to enter the door, where you see… a mound of boxed 3D printers reaching the heights of the ceiling with gangly-looking, red-shirted staff singing a resonating chorus of angelic song. That will be happening by the end of June with a number of Staples office supply stores across the U.S. stocking The Cube® 3D printer from 3D Systems. It’s already available online, making Staples the first big box U.S. retailer to stock and ship 3D printers.
Say you’ve always wanted to build a Wi-Fi-controlled robot that spits carrot chunks at your pet rabbit. Impossible you say. How about a solar-powered, plant-watering device that remotely triggers a siren when a new episode of “Vikings” is on? Even though that’s completely practical for a number of reasons, the ability to do it may seem a far reach. Using various open hardware components, extended with Wi-Fi modules and shields makes it all easier, but nothing to this point has combined the luxury of Wi-Fi, programmable hardware, world-wide accessibility and the fun of making your own things. Spark Devices has launched a Kickstarter campaign doing just that. Launching May 2, they blew past their $10,000 funding goal in 75 minutes, pushing closer toward the $200,000 mark each day. WOW. We asked Zach Supalla, Founder and CEO of Spark Devices, more about the wee board and how it’s different from the rest.
I’ve built my share of laser cut catapults and trebuchets in my life, but an entire laser cut castle attack scene? If I could be so lucky. GrabCAD user Andrea Garuti made it happen with his ‘Castle under attack’ entry that won the SolidSmack Laser Cut Toy Design Challenge. Ponoko sponsored a free laser cut of the winning entry and we’re excited (and a bit jealous) to see the results.