3D Printing Makes the Lightest Materials on Earth
Boeing Corporation released a video recently announcing the development of a new metallic material, considered to be the lightest ever created. And depending on who you ask, it probably is. But over the last several years there’s been a lot of talk about which is the lightest – we keep pushing the boundaries of material […]
3D Printing On The Smallest Scale Possible
In which we explore the marriage between classical art, tragedy, love, science, 3D printing, inspiration and ultimately the fleeting nature of reality. Or something like that. Above is a statue in the Louvre of the Greek god Cupid reviving his sleeping lover Psyche with a kiss. In the ancient tale of Metamorphoses, Psyche is separated […]
AddSub: The Ideal 3D Metal Printing Solution
There’s been a lot of talk zooming around lately about the wonders of additive manufacturing and 3D metal printing, but along with that a lot of misunderstandings about the benefits of this technology for product designers, tooling engineers and prototype makers. We want to take a moment here to clarify some of the confusion and […]
Five Early Prototypes In History
Simple machines in the hands of creative thinkers show what can be done with a little imagination and hard work. Actually, a lot of imagination and hard work. Long before the advent of the industrial revolution and modern machine tools, inventors and tinkerers have been using simple mechanical devices to demonstrate and explore the fundamental […]
5 Reasons To Rethink Autonomous Cars
We talked last time about five reasons why the advent of so-called “driverless” cars would be a great idea. But for those of you out there with a skeptical bent, we would like to present the other side of the story. Here then are the top five reasons why self-driving cars will be the ruin […]
5 Reasons Why Self-Driving Cars Will Create Heaven On Earth
In this first of a two-part essay, we’ll discuss some of the technologies of and advantages to self-driving, autonomous vehicles. This subject has been bandied about quite a bit over the last few years, and now of course Google is investing some very real money into trying to make so-called driverless cars a reality, so […]
5 Great Ways To Get Started In Design
Think about the products you use on a daily basis. Whether they’re physical products like laptops or digital ones like apps, we’re surrounded by innovative product design examples everywhere we look. These products represent the work of product designers. From a consumer perspective, we only see the end result and don’t know what took place […]
Designs That Need A Redesign
Last time we talked about what goes into a perfect design. This time we look at some common everyday objects that could use a bit of redesign. All of the following have served their purposes admirably over the years, answering a felt need and in the process becoming ubiquitous in the modern world. But with […]
Can You Build a Better Mousetrap?
Deng Xiaoping famously said that it doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice. And when it comes to catching mice, nothing except the cat has done the job better than the humble mousetrap. We present it here not because we’re enemies of Mus musculus but simply to […]
Will The Internet Of Things Affect Your Future Prototype Designs?
It’s a pretty cool name, the Internet of Things. Attributed to Kevin Ashton in 1999 while he worked at Proctor and Gamble, it’s used to describe the connected world we’re rapidly heading towards, a world in which everyday, ordinary devices carry RFID chips and other low-cost, embedded communication devices. These devices will share information in […]
