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…

Well, it’s finally happened. After years of fumbling on quadrupedal legs and jumping like patients with back problems, robots have finally learned to run on rough terrain. ACHIRES (short for “Actively Coordinated High-speed Image-processing Running Experiment System”) is an Ishikawa Senoo Laboratory running robot system which uses a high-speed camera to detect the legs’ position…

While nearly any tech or mechanical junkie can appreciate a hulking giant robot, one should always leave room to admire its smaller brethren. Sure, bigger may be better, but giant robots don’t always have the level of precision that many smaller robots come equipped with. Delta robots consist of three individually controlled arms connected to…

You remember Vention, right? The web-based machine builder and social marketplace? They just popped the champagne announcing a seed round of $3.5 million CAD ($2.8M USD). The financing was spearheaded by White Star Capital and a band of previous investors, Bolt and Real Ventures. That’s no small bag of coin. And it comes on the heels of…

Although short films that document manufacturing processes are as popular as ever, some of the most shining examples have existed for decades. In 1958, Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra paid a visit to the Royal Leerdam glass factory where an army of chain-smoking glassblowers delicately crafted crystal wares by hand. He also visited another factory that…

Since launching nearly four years ago, the IFTTT (If This Then That) web service platform has enabled its users to connect a variety of online tools and services through unique “recipes” that are based on an “if this happens, then do this” formula. To date, these recipes have included everything from automatically receiving an email…

With Siggraph 2015 coming up in just over a month, researchers and software engineers are gearing up to show off their latest 3D software developments that have been in works in progress over the past twelve months. Just earlier this week we saw a new piece of software from a team of researchers at Nanyang…

Although it’s become a part of everyday life, the use of connecting assemblies through the use of fasteners including glue, nails and screws – particularly furniture designs – isn’t necessarily ‘clean’. While more timeless pieces of furniture might be used for generations and passed down over the years, the surge of cheap flat-pack furniture designs…

For those who frequently use The Foundry’s MODO 3D modeling and rendering package, any opportunity to speed up the workflow can be a huge timesaver that can leave more room for actually designing rather than bouncing between tools. If you’ve ever recorded ‘Actions’ in Adobe Photoshop, then the concept will be familiar to you. In…

So far we’ve seen 3D printing being used at the consumer/prosumer level as a way to create static objects with relatively few—if any—moving parts. A large part of this is due to the rampant use of low-level CAD programs that offer little more than digital pushing and pulling combined with an output method that is…

We’ve all seen various images and video clips of robots on product assembly lines ranging from cars to pocket tools. While robots have helped automate the manufacturing process, few details exist about where the future is likely heading apart from whatever sci-fi theories that are floating around. While nobody wants to see somebody lose their…

Bruce Buck was nice enough to send a link about Salem Design and Manufacturing – a company using SolidWorks to create custom machinery that uses automation components from Misumi, the people responsible for the photo above. The image is for their Empowering Young Engineers (EYE) program to support Robot competitions with their automation components. So,…