Here’s what we looked at this week: The Worksport Solis and Cor Hub are a solar-power-harvesting tonneau cover, and a portable generator, for pickup trucks. The KikFin Shark: A wearable underwater jet pack. Maximum, which …
A Torpedo Level That Changes Color When It’s Level or Plumb
It may seem gimmicky but this iLevel, designed by ID firm Cardboard Helicopter for client Franklin Sensors, is brilliant. It’s a 12″ level that turns green when it’s perfectly level or plumb. This is not …
A Game-Changing Tool Design: Powered Fence Post Drivers
For decades, the common way to set fence posts was to dig a hole below the frostline, tamp some gravel in the bottom for drainage, place your post, then set it in concrete. This is …
Heller Figures Out How to Make Plastic Furniture That Doesn’t Shed Microplastics
A disturbing new study from France’s Université de Toulouse has found we’re constantly breathing in microplastics—in our homes, workplaces and cars. Postdoctoral researcher Nadiia Yakovenko and her team learned we’re inhaling 68,000 microplastic particles every …
New Book: “How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity”
In “Playground Equipment for Teenagers to Senior Citizens,” we looked at how playgrounds can benefit the bodies of folks of all ages. Now play expert, industrial designer and design educator Cas Holman has got a …
ARES’ Brilliant, Low-Tech Energy Storage System Uses Recycled Materials, Gravity and Rocks
Staring in the 19th century, West Virginia and Kentucky became powerhouses of coal production. When electricity came around in the 20th century, those two states provided much of the nation’s energy. Coal production peaked in …
Why Industrial Facility Designed the Humble-Looking Hiroi Chair
This Hiroi Chair was designed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, a/k/a Industrial Facility. Featuring exposed fasteners and clearly being made out of stock materials, its humble aesthetic may surprise those who know the duo’s …
The Amazon Delivery Missile: 30 Second Deliveries
This 30 Second Delivery sculpture is by Seattle-based artist Sunday Nobody. Whether he’s commenting on shoppers’ demands for ever-faster package delivery, Jeff Bezos’ preoccupation with rockets, or a link between a consumerist economy and wars …
Knoll Brings Back an ’80s Design Classic
Designed on the cusp of the 1980s, Joseph D’Urso’s Occasional Table perfectly expressed the designer’s penchant for melding the industrial with the minimal. The welded steel table appeared visually light thanks to its proportions, and …
The Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System
They say it takes 10,000 hours to develop mastery, but Michael Kuzma may have pulled it off in 9,400 hours. That’s how long it took the guitarist and electrical engineer to develop his Kuzma Self-Playing …