You would have to be a tad bit nutty to attempt to memorize all the various measurements that go into standard human factors design considerations –– otherwise known as anthropometry. While keeping a reference guide handy –– such as the indispensable The Measure of Man and Woman –– for nailing those dimensions right the first time is a no-brainer, what if you memorized parts of your own body and knew exactly the distance between your thumb and pinky finger…among other units of reference available to you 24/7? Such is the premise behind a clever new Kickstarter project from Brooklyn-based design duo Che-Wei Wang and Taylor Levy of CW&T. Consisting of…

This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist knocks you in the pop sockets with head-boppin’ groove tuneage to help propel you through the work week in style. Whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw or working that 3D geometry all day, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll start things off with “Grind” from Les Sins and work our way through tracks from Helvetia, ESG, Young Fathers, Richard Swift and others before wrapping up with “Coming Through” from Willis Earl Beal. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what you want to hear and what…

The one instrument I would have my bodyguards play as we sauntered down the street is a violin. They’re sound is just wonderfully ominous and mysterious, while equally enchanting and… mysterious. After building a traditional wooden Guarneri-style violin, Brian Chan, an Engineer at Formlabs, took it upon himself to design a functional (and quite good sounding) 3D printed violin. Now, you may think, big F-hole deal– print the body in one go and DONE. But no, with the printer’s build area and size of the violin, even the body had to be designed and printed as separate parts. And Brian, with his suave violin making ways, approaches the build of…

Store those spare cables in your cheek bags no longer *all SolidSmack readers simultaneously spit cords out of their mouths*, there are other means of keeping those cords, cables and wires organized and out of the way. Sure, you could buy cable wraps, cable ties, or hire a butler to keep all that in order for you, but that’s just too costly, especially when that butler starts giving you lip about having too may charging cables. Instead, Thingiverse user Juanfly has a handy storage solution to keep all your wires in one place. The Cable Management Hive is ten tiny honeycomb compartments to hold cables, thumb-drives or other sundries and…

Mondays might not be your favorite day of the week, but the good news is that we’re all in this together ladies and gentlemen. As purveyors of prime Grade A web content, the SolidSmack crew has done some of the heavy-lifting to make sure you get your Mondays started on the right track. Welcome to The Monday List. Each Monday, we’ll link you up with some of the most insightful, informative, and socially-relevant stories to keep tabbed, bookmarked, reading listed, pocketed, or what have you. Be sure to check in each Monday morning for a new crop of freshly sprouted words curated straight from the source of your favorite homegrown…

The boatswain sounding his whistle called the ship to arms, and found us a tailwind with the call. It was gaining on us, visible one moment, gone the next. It wasn’t the fire, the rapacious devouring holler or the balls of moss it threw that bothered, but the constant popping of its boiling skin that put the fear of the sea in us, a popping that confronted us with these links. Nivanh Chanthara – Lots of great new bot and mecha sketches, floating, masked and as mechanical as they come, yet enchantingly human. Thriller Map – Not that Thriller. The map of James Bond’s exploits and assignments as illustrated by…