When you’re barreling down that singletrack and decide to wrap yourself around a half-rotted pine, the first thing that runs through your head may be a branch with a frightened chipmunk stuck to it. The second thing will undoubtedly be finding your multi-tool to fix the bent wheel/pedal/derailleur. The company that wants to put the…

When it comes to 3D printing, there are several methods you can use to help anchor the print to the print bed–painters tape (blue tape), hairspray, glass with a little adhesive… While all of those are useful for keeping the print stuck to the print bed, getting them off is a different story altogether.

While some people stuff anything and everything into their wallet, others prefer the minimalist money-clip approach with that ever-so-modern feel of ‘less is more’. Those who fall into the latter camp will want to feast their eyes on the KKMC MICRO, a truly minimalist wallet manufactured from solid, aircraft-grade aluminum.

Have you been there? A sharp *crack* sending you and your carry-on suitcase into that unforgiving airport terminal traffic? I’ve cracked a suitcase wheel on an uneven surface, giving my baggage a mind of it’s own. With no better option, I picked up the heavy bag and carried it, sometimes from the side, sometimes from…

Imagine having your own garage machine shop and successfully funding 11 Kickstarter campaigns. If you’re Brad Martin who runs Tactical Keychains (TK), that’s a reality. His latest project is the Ti-MQR (Titanium Magnetic Quick Release), hitting funding of $1000 within hours and pushing toward the $100k mark with time to spare. Brad does 100% of the work…

When it comes to tent camping, there’s a fine line between what can be a memorable weekend away or what can quickly turn into a disastrous nightmare that exposes you to the elements. Of course, ease of setup, resistance to the elements, and portability are the prime factors when it comes to tents, so it’s…

When they first hit the scene with their Confidant sketchbook back in January of 2014, NYC-based Baron Fig became one of the few Kickstarter success stories that involved the creation of a sustainable brand rather than a one-hit wonder product. Today, the company has a mini-factory where they continue to crank out the user-friendly sketchbooks…

Ever see cool motion control projects made with the current technology and thought “wow, I wish I could do that.” Now you can learn the skills you needor even teach your kids graduate-level engineering concepts with TheMotionKit. This new kit aims to make learning both fun and easy.

Since the 1930s, the infamous “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” sound of two effervescent Alka-Seltzers into a cup of hot water has been associated with the relief of everything from indigestion to hangovers. Now, dunking a piece of meltable bioplastic may also be the source of a cure for many common everyday headaches, too. Designed and…

Back in the 80’s, the survival knife scene was dominated by cheap foreign-made Rambo blades. You know, the ones with the hollow handle that was filled with everything from matches to wire handsaws capped off with a compass that couldn’t point North to save your life. Fast-forward a few decades and the scene has shifted…

As Moore’s Law continues to grant us ridiculously powerful computers that we can fit inside of our pockets, the experience of using some of the earliest personal desktop computers continues to become an even further distant memory. Unsurprisingly, some people aren’t ready for that memory to fade yet. Among others is Philippe Lang, an IT…

When it comes to morning routines, few things can surpass digging into a golden and fluffy waffle soaked in maple syrup to get the day started right. For Brooklyn designer Chris Dimino, this love for the holy grail of breakfast cuisine led to the creation of one of the most ingenious kitchen tools we’ve ever…

Since Kickstarter first hit the scene in the Spring of 2009, the popular crowdfunding platform has still proven to be a tricky playground for both businesses and backers over a half-decade later – particularly with campaigns that are actively promising fulfilment in the form of a mass manufactured product. Although the company has since come…

Despite being the best building set around, LEGO brick creations are limited to one’s own imagination and rarely ever manifest into full-scale products – assuming one’s job doesn’t involve designing for Legoland. Although it’s certainly a few decades late for the majority of us who dreamt up spaceships of all shapes and sizes, a new…

When you’re marketing your product as “the first pressure-sensitive, multi-touch input device that enables users to interact with the digital world like never before” in today’s age of portable Cintiq Wacom tablets and Force Touch screens on smart devices, it would be foolish to release anything other than an entirely new knockout product. Yet -…

When you already have Tim Cook as an investor before heading into a Kickstarter campaign, chances are you’ve already got a winner on your hands. At least, this has been the case for a group of enthusiastic shower aficionados who are already making a splash on Kickstarter with their Nebia Shower. Led by CEO Philip…

Despite the seemingly endless amount of project management and instant messaging apps, spitwads and Nerf darts are oftentimes still used as a form of communication between some engineering and design teams. Whether you have an ongoing game of office warfare or not, it also never hurts to be prepared. For those who simply just want…

Whether you’re a fan of coolers with integrated Bluetooth speakers and a blender or not, the story of the Coolest Cooler isn’t about an insulated beverage container – it’s about what happens when a product sells tens of thousands of units literally overnight in the age of crowdfunding. After famously raising over $13.25M from over…

For the seemingly endless flow of crowdfunding stories that come pouring through turnstile on monthly basis, it’s always nice to hear about a successful Kickstarter campaign that not only managed to get a product off the ground, but also resulted in the establishment of a sustainable business with multiple employees. Among others, Palette is one…

I want to introduce you to someone. Let’s call this person Gary. Gary works nights and weekends in a garage on a project based on the same technology you work on. Gary is a Maker. Picture this, you stand around the water cooler complaining about how last year’s holiday party was better because they had…

As more small and medium-sized businesses continue to find success – both financially and in terms of testing a market – using crowdfunding methods, it would only seem natural that larger companies would also want to take advantage of ‘expanded focus groups’ in order to test the viability of a product concept before dumping thousands…

Although product designers have been using various additive manufacturing technologies to create rapid prototypes for decades now, few objects have ever been bigger than a traditional consumer electronic product. Thanks to recent developments in the past few years though, the scale of 3D printing – through FDM 3D printing methods, to be exact – has…

Considering how much time we spend at our keyboards (well, many of us anyways), even the slightest of design changes can make a world of difference in how we interact with our digital toolkits – good or bad. Apple understands this and has even brought their latest keyboard technologies front and center for their latest…

After moving to a small San Francisco apartment, architect Anton Willis was sadly forced to put his fiberglass kayak into storage. Aiming to solve the problem of kayak ownership in an urban environment for himself and many others like him, Willis set off on creating a city-friendly kayak design that was sensitive to the needs…

With over 86% of the world’s existing engineers being male, it might appear that inspiring a new generation of female engineers is an uphill battle. Thanks to recent efforts to make STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) a more appealing career field for girls however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Already, we’ve seen…

Roy Barazani is the rare type of person that I want to personally meet and congratulate on his ingenious product idea. His product, The OFFBITS, is a line of open-source robots that encourages users to add their own stray upcycled hardware components. Originally designed with “unused and unloved” bits and pieces, the ‘build-it-yourself’ kits can…

Since it was unveiled almost exactly one year ago, Google’s NYC-based 30 Weeks: A Founders Program for Designers incubator has been nothing short of a success story that even established design firms should probably take notes on. In collaboration with existing NYC design schools and institutions including Hyper Island, SVA, Parsons, Pratt, The Cooper Union…

Although we may not have functional hover boards yet (that don’t rely on a leaf blower at least), the past few years have presented skaters with a bevy of new technologies that have helped switch-up the four-wheeled board experience for the better. Of course, technology will never replace the raw skill of shredding the gnar…

For London-based kirigami paper artist and designer director Marc Hagan-Guirey (AKA Paper Dandy), a turning point came in March of 2012 when – after picking up the kirigami craft – he decided to leave his job as Head of Design at a Soho-based advertising agency to concentrate on paper engineering full-time, starting with his first…

Since 70,000 BC, humans have been playing around with different shapes and sizes of lamps – but the LUNALUXX just might be the first lamp that literally floats in the air – it’s a sleek, minimalistic lamp with a light emitting disc that is literally suspended in mid-air. Created by design engineers Ian van Eenennaam…

Last time we heard from Mininch, the new hand tool company had raised over a quarter-million dollars from their first Kickstarter campaign – where they were hawking a unique multi-tool design that featured multiple bits in a pen-sized package. Their product, which was simply called “Tool Pen”, was aimed at the “Fix It Yourself” generation…

Like most teenagers, Simon Morris dreamt of owning his own hoverboard. Naturally, this led to an obsession with magnetic levitation and he soon began building his own hoverboard prototypes with magnets – much to the amusement of his friends and family. With a working magnetic hoverboard prototype under his arm (which actually worked but wasn’t…

I get asked the question, “How do I become an inventor?” – a lot. I think people ask me that because I’ve been turning ideas into physical objects for the better part of two decades (that sounds more impressive than it is — I’m counting the formative LEGO-building time of my youth) and I’ve become…

Considering that recent statistics have proven that 62% of Americans believe that we will eventually be living in a “Keyless Era”, it should come with little surprise that there is an increasing demand for smart locks of all shapes and sizes that speak to different markets. According to those statistics, 4 out of 5 Americans…

While it’s common knowledge that crowdfunding has changed how products are brought to market, the process of going from grassroots Kickstarter campaign to viral success has also introduced entirely new challenges for ensuring that supply chains and vendors are capable of meeting necessary manufacturing requirements that thousands of eager backers – and not to mention…

Known widely for his ceramic speaker and Sorapot teapot designs, industrial designer Joey Roth has made a name for himself over the past five years by delivering unique products that preserve and highlight their natural material qualities. His ingenious ceramic speakers alone set the internet on fire when they were first released and continue to…

As if LEGOs haven’t already taken up our shelves and desk space, they may soon be traveling with us to coffee shops, meetings and anywhere else we take our laptops thanks to a new Kickstarter campaign from Jolt Team. The team – who describe themselves as “two guys building awesome products in San Francisco with…

It goes without saying – science should be (and most often is) fun and entertaining. When we’re curious our minds are the most open to new ideas and sometimes people forget that ‘playing’ is the most natural form of discovery and exploration – especially where innovation for product design is concerned. Nanotechnology is the study…

While you were out getting IPAs with friends (or binge-watching on Netflix) last friday night at 10PM ET, the most-funded campaign in the history of Kickstarter was wrapping up after raising a staggering $20 million over its month-long campaign. Although the previously-successful Pebble Technology company is a far cry than your standard one-man grassroots product…

Although Kickstarter has been responsible for churning out successful product after successful product, what happens to a Kickstarter campaign page after a product launches has been…pretty much nothing. Thanks to the popularity of some projects, the SEO for any search of said product is likely to bring up the Kickstarter page first (go ahead, try…

Often referred to by experts as the M2 Generation, there’s no limit to the amount of time kids aged 6 to 10 will spend playing with apps on various multimedia devices including smartphones and tablets. With this in mind, the designers behind the Hackaball have developed an ingenious learning tool that helps teach kids the…

It was only a week ago when we got a sneak-peek at Carbon3D’s CLIP Technology which spread like wildfire across the design, engineering and general ‘maker’ community. The company claimed that they are able to print 3D objects between 25 and 100-times faster than more common additive manufacturing techniques including FDM and SLA-based 3D printing.…

Over the past few years (partially thanks to the 3D printing revolution) we’ve been seeing an explosion of customization apps and augmented reality viewers that allow consumers to customize their retail experience. The apps consistently ride the fine line between allowing a consumer to customize their retail experience while also keeping them constrained to the…

Dave Petrillo and Dave Jackson made waves with the Coffee Joulies; and now their new sensation – Booze Joulies – keeps alcohol cold without watering it down is creating quite a literal stir. According to the team, a few Booze Joulies in a glass of room temperature scotch gives “medium chill without the flavors becoming…

Ever since they hit the block in April of 2009, Kickstarter has raised over $1.5 billion in pledges from 7.8 million backers to fund 200,000 creative projects – 200,000! Projects such as the recent Pebble Time and Coolest Cooler have had no problem raising 8-figure pledges – the Pebble Time alone is currently sitting at…

Why is it that the kids get cooler toys than the adults nowadays? Because they’re EDUCATIONAL. MySTEMkits.com just launched on Kickstarter today, offering you and your offspring the chance to learn a few more things about nearly everything that’s cool. Boasting dozens of kits covering topics from biology to design to applied math, mySTEMkits is another…

If you thought combining Keyboards and guitars was a neat way to spend your Saturdays, then you best prepare yourself. The KeyMouse is the brainchild of two brothers from Utah who have brought together a mouse and keyboard into a complete and final product. The concept was crafted to solve a common problem seen amongst…

If there’s one thing that the world seemingly doesn’t need any more of, it’s another reusable water bottle design. Between the combination of modular concepts that unscrew for easier cleaning to those that include an embedded lemon juicer, the human race has never had as many options for getting water into a mouth as they…

Despite the horror stories of unfulfilled orders and not to mention the thousands of half-inspired ideas, Kickstarter is still an extremely powerful crowdfunding platform for getting product design ideas off the ground…as long as project creators do their homework in advance. According to the company, a majority of their users that back projects are oftentimes…

As the tech industry patiently the awaits the release of the Apple Watch – and more importantly, how the public responds to it – a rise of quieter smartwatch concepts have been coming out of the woodwork that may give the Cupertino company a sharp jab in the smartwatch gut. With interest surrounding some yet-to-be-released…