Between Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks’ recent announcements of their SolidWorks for Entrepreneurs program (which has created some confusion for existing small businesses and freelancers) and an update to their subscription policy (which seeks to close out or penalize those who don’t upgrade each year), many of the the CAD software’s most loyal users feel as though they have been thrown onto a hazy merry-go-round ride and it’s been difficult to know when – or where – to get off. But as more SolidWorks alternatives become serious contenders in existing user workflows, many users have promised to “jump ship” in favor of a more streamlined product and customer service experience that reflects…

After being first introduced as a form of boat design in 1898 by Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini, the hydrofoil has since become a mainstay in a variety of water-based board sports thanks to its unique ability to lift a rider out of the water and decrease their drag, which ultimately increases their speed. Also – it just looks unfathomably cool and futuristic. Unsurprisingly though, these hydrofoil board assemblies don’t come cheap – oftentimes costing 3 to 4 times the amount of a standard board. For one motivated kiteboarder who wanted his own hydrofoil kiteboard setup, keeping the estimated $3K+ in his pocket in favor of building his own seemed like…

When it comes to some of the more unusual advancements in additive manufacturing techniques – including a shelter crafted from silk worms – MIT’s Mediated Matter Group takes the cake. The group – which is led by 3D printing visionary Neri Oxman at MIT’s Media Lab – focuses on “Nature-inspired Design and Design-inspired Nature” through a number of projects that explore the intersection of computational design, digital fabrication, materials science and synthetic biology with the goal of applying that knowledge to design across scales from the micro scale to the building scale. For their latest project, the group collaborated with MIT’s Glass Lab to develop G3DP – an additive manufacturing…

Since it debuted at the TED2015 conference in Vancouver back in March of this year, Redwood City, California-based Carbon3D’s Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) 3D printing technology has continued to send ripples through the additive manufacturing industry due to its promise to speed up existing 3D printing times by up to 100x faster. The process, which was first demonstrated on stage during a TED presentation from Carbon3D co-founder and CEO Joseph DeSimone at the event, works by balancing UV light and oxygen to grow objects from a pool of resin through a photo polymerization process in just minutes. Because objects are able to grow out of liquid so quickly, many…

It’s been a long time coming – and many, many third-party stylus designs have come and gone – but Apple is finally expected to release a 12.9″ iPad model designed for professional creatives under the presumed model name ‘iPad Pro’ in the very near future, according to reputable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. While Apple has long supported the various sketching apps that have been built and optimized for their iPad displays, they have never fully reflected this in their hardware design – opting instead to let everybody from Wacom to budding entrepreneurs with a Kickstarter campaign develop stylus designs for the tablet computer. Now, thanks to the company’s new…

With so many cool things coming out each week, it can be hard to wade through all the rock-awesomeness. With ‘Cool Tools’, we’ve done the hard work for you. This week we saw everything from an update to the popular Leveraxe, a Star Wars-inspired nut cracker for all of your nut cracking needs, a handy PDF signing app, the latest trailer for The Martian and more… Ready? Let’s go! This week we look at: DESIGN Star Wars Tie Fighter Nut Cracker “Place the nut in the centre and twist the wings to crack it open…” New Leveraxe – The Smart Axe “The oldest tool known to mankind – reimagined, reinvented,…