Shockingly, around a quarter of the total electricity consumed in a typical household is wasted on any number of electrical devices that are not actively being used. Not only are we wasting energy here people, but also dollars down the drain—particularly if you have some heavy-hitting shop equipment or a hefty PC workstation with peripherals. If you’ve been wondering how you can unlock the mystery of power consumption without sacrificing your sanity, then the Currant Bluetooth Smart Outlet is just about the coolest dang thing ever. Heck, it’ll pay for itself just in cutting wasted energy bill dollars alone. Using an accompanying app, the Currant hardware plugs into an existing…

I’m looking at some material from Robotfactory and noticed that print quality challenges are quite different. Robotfactory is an Italian 3D printing startup that produces the Sliding-3D desktop device, which we wrote about earlier this year. This is a highly unusual 3D printer that can print continuously. And by “continuously”, I mean literally continuously: the printer can unload prints on its own and proceed to the next print. It does this by printing objects on a kind of conveyor belt system. When the print is complete, the belt moves forward and prints separate from the belt as it curls around the end roller. Hopefully, you have a bucket ready to…

Believe it or not, quite a number of people still use analog cameras. Whether it be for the nostalgia or the thrill of knowing the number of shots you have are finite, analog cameras still have a place in this digital, selfie-taking world. What is a Pinhole Camera? A pinhole camera is a type of analog camera which has a tiny pinhole instead of a traditional lens. Light passes through the pinhole, projecting an inverted image as a lens would on the opposite end of the box. The image is then captured onto a roll of film, where it needs to be developed old school-style and turned into a photograph.…

In this era of near-all-day-long screen time for many, issues like eye strain, headaches, and poor vision are becoming the norm. If you aren’t wearing glasses or contacts already, you may need them soon enough if you’re not glancing away every now and again. In the meantime, you can also make the jump over to blue light-filtering computer glasses. Barner is one such company that creates these computer glasses and claims that they will not only protect your eyes, but also provide you with better sleep and “a healthier life”. The company’s Barner 2.0 collection is an updated lineup of the signature frame designs with lenses that protect your eyes…

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…

With over two decades of experience teaching how to design, draw, and render at the highest college level, concept designer Scott Robertson knows a thing or two about what it takes to make concepts ‘stick’ for his students. And as one of the most widely-recognized design sketching masters, he’s proven these concepts in his own practice through and through. In How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination, the Art Center educator consolidates years of design sketching knowledge—from thumbnail sketches and perspective grids to shaded renderings—into a digestible self-study program that can take anybody’s sketching ability to the next level. Frankly, if you’re even remotely serious…