It happened fast, but drones these days are a dime a dozen. With the air filled with hovering robots, you need something to make your drone stand out from the standard store-bought crowd. DRAGON (short for “Dual-rotor embedded multi-link Robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformation”) might be the coolest drone concept you’ve ever seen. Created by a team at the JSK Lab at the University of Tokyo, this necessarily-abbreviated robot is actually meant to be an indoor drone. You see, since most indoor drones are either small or enclosed in protective cages to keep them from bumping into objects, they can’t interact with the environment to the same…

Like a warm embrace first thing in the morning, few things are better to wake up to than a hot cup of joe. And when you’re stepping into a cold warehouse or shop before the sun rises, that hot cup of joe isn’t just a small luxury; it’s an absolute necessity. Which is all the more reasons why we love this lithium-ion cordless coffee maker from Makita. Yes—that Makita. Using the same batteries that power Makita’s expanding 18V Lithium-Ion Series of power tools, the DCM500Z 18V LXT Lithium-Ion Cordless/Corded Coffee Maker is capable of delivering fresh hot coffee no matter where the job takes you—be it at your desk or…

The 4th Dimension is a new series where we go behind the scenes with leaders in 3D printing to add a new dimension. Our Dan Slaski interviews Ryan Turk, Business Development Lead at Formlabs, and nerds-out on 3D printing.  And nerd-out they did. Dan Slaski: Can you provide a brief intro to Formlabs and your products? Ryan Turk: Formlabs is a company that makes the most advanced 3D desktop printer ever. It has grown from a Kickstarter-funded startup to what is now the world’s biggest private 3D printing company. Despite that fact, we haven’t wavered from our customer-focused approach to designing amazing tools for creators. Our product range focuses on…

During his previous cellphone charger project, designer Eric Strebel had the misfortune of having a piece of metal get stuck in his eye. And since injury is something anyone working on a project should be ready for, Strebel has decided to put his skills to work and create a dusk mask with integrated eye protection. As always, he starts out with a concept sketch detailing the features he wants on his dust mask. In addition to the aforementioned eye protection, this particular dusk mask should allow Strebel to talk to people in his vicinity easily, let him wear his glasses, but most importantly, it should still let him wear a…

While designers and engineers may associate developing products with blood sweat and tears, Oki Sato, founder of acclaimed Japanese design firm Nendo, found a way to celebrate the design process in the form of a simple and sweet children’s book—with a cup as its main character. Not Just a Cup tells the story of a lonely coffee mug who notices that the spoon used to stir its coffee contents is missing. In order to solve the problem, the story evolves into the cup morphing into a variety of different forms as it seeks out a solution—not unlike the process of developing multiple prototype iterations in a design studio. “The plot…

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…