Get that stretch out of your system with this week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist. It’s fashioned up, ready to make you pull your shoulder blades back and knock out another week of meaningful work while you bob your head to the beat. Whether you’re in the shop milling aluminum, sketching the latest product prototypes or modeling up a 3D storm, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll get the groove going with “Sa Mo Jung” from TOKiMONSTA before diving into sweet melodies from Blue States, LCD Soundsystem, Aphex Twin, and others before wrapping up with “You Can Get It If You Really Want It (Instrumental)”…
Pi Day may already be behind us (March 14th), but there are plenty of other ways to celebrate the mathematical constant over the rest of the year. The Pi Bike is a fixed gear bicycle from the minds of Martijn Koomen and Tadas Maksimovas in collaboration with ideas company WE ARE Pi. Inspired by a pi bike illustration by Malaysian artist Yau Hoong, the two set out to make the fictional bike a (rideable) reality. Creating a bicycle shaped like a Pi symbol isn’t necessarily groundbreaking, but doing so in such a way that can support a human being and provide a smooth, efficient ride is. The designers spent a considerable…
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 Dot 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…
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…
Even as more players eschew traditional board games in favor of smartphone app alternatives, there is still a significant population of diehard board game lovers who live for the real thing. Massdrop community designer Cassidy Williams is one such person; taking her love of Scrabble’s letter-engraved tiles into the world of computer keyboards. Waking up at 2 A.M. after a particular dream where she had a Scrabble keyboard, Williams got to making a mock-up design before sending it to Hasbro, Scrabble’s manufacturer. The result is a dye-sublimated PBT keyboard with a timeless Scrabble theme. The keyboard features the same double-letter scores and values associated with the individual letters of the…
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…