Designers, artists, and developers are often so focused on working on their next project that they forget the little marvels which help them get to where they are. Take the simple pencil, for example: Sure, we all know it’s made of wood and lead, but a lot of time and effort goes into making these essential drawing materials. In one of their older YouTube videos, pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell goes into detail on their pencil-making process. Four key chapters make up their pencil production, with the first chapter revolving around the lead making process. From the mixing of graphite and clay all the way to the cooling, pressing, heating, and eventually…

It was bound to happen sooner or later, so it comes as no surprise when someone made a working drone using the world’s most buildable children’s toy. The Brick Experiment Channel takes LEGO blocks to the sky and shows us how to make our own toy drones: The motors, propellers, and drone body are entirely made from LEGOs. Four LEGO L-motors turn eight LEGO Propeller 1 Blade 14Ls. These are connected via a series of gears and are held up using some sturdy LEGO liftarms and a variety of LEGO pieces. While smaller than the LEGO parts, there are a number of essential non-LEGO pieces that make the drone flyable.…

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 to creative environmental solutions – based in the heart of California chicken country, San Juan Capistrano. That is a pretty sleek-lookin’ chicken coop, in’t it? Especially without the chickens and chicken poo all over it. Though the photos lack the requisite chickens, the gable-style design is fairly clever sporting an aluminum-clad exterior and three hydraulic…

A couple of weeks ago we shared that Fusion 360 users would get access to EAGLE electronic design automation software. At the time, the Fusion 360 January update hadn’t come out, but with the ECAD tease at Autodesk University and the EAGLE announcement, we pretty much knew Fusion 360 was about to get PCB’ed. Well, their January update was published and, whadda ya know, electronical, baby. And it’s got it all – schematics, PCB layout, component library, simulation, manufacturing, validation… the works. How do you access Fusion 360 Electronics Design? Select File, New Electronics Design. If you don’t see the option, click Job Status (on the right menu) and you’ll…

If you’ve watched Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, you can never forget the iconic scene where the rebels use their ships’ harpoons to trip up a couple of giant AT-AT walkers by flying through and around the machines’ legs. While it would take years to recreate such a large scale battle with real death machines, the guys at FliteTest have instead decided to work something a little smaller. Using a couple of redesigned drones, they plan to fly through a foam board AT-AT’s legs and trip the darn thing: To start off, the team cuts up pieces of foam board and glues them together to form the shell of…

We’ve said it time and time again, but the Raspberry Pi is just so dang cool and we believe all designers and engineers should have one in their toolkit—if not on their desktop. While there is a bit of a slight learning curve, it’s nothing that today’s designers and engineers can’t handle on a leisurely Saturday. So why not start now? The Raspberry Pi Mastery Bundle includes 8 courses to get started creating your very own Amazon Echo or even a KUKA-like robotic arm for your desktop (how’s that for office bragging rights). Throw in any of your own 3D printed housing designs, and the opportunities are limitless! For a…