You remember that dream of your fists being replaced by portals to one world with unlimited meat cannon buffets and the other to a world of candy dinosaur rides? Yeah, this Venus Box is exactly what those portals looked like. What’s even weirder is how you ALL had that same dream and wrote me about it. The Venus Box is a creation of a gnome army named Tom West in an original challenge (from a back-alley muffin trader) to develop a unique, opening box. Tom says it “resembled one of Bender’s eyes” when he was done and a co-worker said it looked like a Venus Fly Trap, so he named…
As the complexities of hardware design continue to be broken down and simplified into build-it-yourself projects for inspiring the next generation of inventors, the quality of these build kits only continue to get better. More recently, Bose has tapped into this new category of build-it-yourself consumer electronics with their BOSEbuild lineup, which includes appealing end products that they hope will give kids the motivation to explore the science of sound. To kick off the new STEM-centered brand the company released the BOSEbuild Speaker Cube, a complete Bluetooth speaker building kit that allows for kids (or curious adults) to not only build the speaker from scratch but also personalize their design…
Having just graduated with a degree in Industrial Design earlier this year, 27-year-old Ludwig Rensch is already proving that he can lay down the iron fist and squash existing design annoyances with his innovative problem-solving skills. For his final project, which focused on our relationship with today’s machines and how they can be used more intuitively, Rensch presented a concept for replacing existing behemoth all-in-one desktop printers with a minimal lightweight solution in the form of Paper. The all-in-one device, which includes printing, scanning and copying capabilities, is a connected IoT device that trades pre-cut paper for an upright paper roll that enables the design to be more compact, space-saving…
Time for another round of apps that cover the spectrum of your beloved mobile device, be it iPhone, Android or Windows! The Weekly App Smack is the best of new or updated design and productivity apps (and maybe a couple of fun ones, too) for the busy design or engineering professional and this week we have a list sure to make you more efficient. Do you have an app suggestion that has made your life easier or changed up your workflow? Let us know in the comments below or send it into tips@www.solidsmack.com. Hit it! Meep “Meep’s professional narrators read stories aloud about your favorite topics… from science to celebrities,…
Despite the plethora of apps and games that are slowly breaking down the barriers for learning how to code, one of the biggest remaining hurdles is as simple as they come: humans like to build stuff with their hands. As an open hardware platform to help developers, designers, and researchers build the next generation of tangible programming experiences, Google’s new Project Bloks has effectively made coding a physical experience that lets kids (and adults) build sequences with physical modules. Centered around a “Brain Board” main computer – which is built on a Raspberry Pi Zero and sends data via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – the various “Base Boards” can carry out a…
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 the all-new “Augustine” from Blood Orange before working our way through an eclectic mix of Caribou, Nicolas Jaar, Bonobo, Little People and others before wrapping up with “Animals” from Baths. Have suggestions? As always, let us know what you listen to, what you want to hear and…