Back in August of 2013, Elon Musk released a white paper on the Hyperloop, a concept for a high-speed ground transport that could – in theory – transport individuals from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just thirty minutes. The sci-fi concept, which has unsurprisingly sent ripples through the design and technology communities, has had to take a back seat to Musk’s other projects including those at both SpaceX and Tesla. Determined to keep moving the concept along though, Musk’s white paper encouraged anybody and everybody from urban planners and structural engineers to design interns and inspired high school students to contribute to the development of the project. Nearly two…

This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new playlist of face-melting great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. So whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw or flying through a CAD model, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week we’ll start things off with “Your Love is Calling My Name” from The War on Drugs and work our way through everything from Luna and the Stone Roses to Television and Darkside before wrapping up with “Lonely Push Play” from Damon Albarn. As always – do you have…

While a broken shovel and a broken piece of concrete aren’t likely to generate a lot of of inspiration for most people, trained carpenter-turned paleolithic weapon craftsman John Heisz isn’t your average Joe. The Ontario, Canada-based Heisz operates a website and a YouTube channel that feature hundreds of made-from-scratch projects ranging from push brooms to various woodworking jigs and wood computer housings to guitar pre-amps. Needless to say, Heisz covers a lot of ground and some have even declared him as capable of “building anything with his hands”. For his latest project, Heisz took the “building anything” title to new heights by fabricating a knife out of a broken shovel…

Regardless of which stage of your career you’re in, having recent and relevant documentation of your work can oftentimes be just as important as the work itself – whether you’re using the proof of your abilities to level-up in a new job search or simply just want to keep a clean record of where you’ve been and what you’ve done. If nothing else, tracking the process of a project can also be a learning tool for identifying possible opportunities to try new research, design, prototyping and presentation methods for future projects – regardless of what your design or engineering background is. But for all of the good reasons for having…

Don your favorite bath robe, cream that coffee and get comfortable with this weekend’s SolidSmack Weekend Reader. This week we saw everything from an impressive 40W laser shotgun and a new kind of coffee cup that’s made from coffee grounds themselves to an update on the latest in Rhino 5 for Mac and more… So lay back, relax and take a load off while reading the top ten stories on SolidSmack this past week. Oh and uh…don’t forget to shed some much-needed sunlight on your face, too.

Wet towels and pencil shavings were not the usual waste left by the weekend party crowd. Somehow the sand imps and moss trolls had fastened their battleground to our deck, all of it, and the yard, shredding the begonias with their shrill cries and pummeling each other with these links. Kong youyang – With such a range of stylized work, I’m not sure which I like most. Some colorful, some muted, some simple, some complex, all great. Full Stop – Tom Burckhardt’s full-size cardboard art installation with all the trimmings, including canvases, brushes, bookcases and a skyline view. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – Think this is gameplay? Nope. Live action. Directed…