For dedicated surfers, surfboards are wonderful things—when you’re riding them. At every other point in time, they’re a hassle. You have to have the room in your home to store them. The need to transport …
China Hosts World’s First Humanoid Robot Fighting Competition
Over Memorial Day weekend, when Americans were filling their bellies with barbecue, China hosted the world’s first humanoid robot fighting competition. Humanoid ‘bot manufacturer Unitree sponsored the World Robot Competition Mecha Fighting Series in Hangzhou, …
Marc 3DP’s Love Letter to 3D-Printed Fidget Toys
This Fidgets 2.0 project is by YouTuber and 3D printing enthusiast Marc 3DP. He downloaded 21 different designs for unusual fidget spinners and 3D-printed all of them. Here he demonstrates each of them in turn, …
An Unusual-Looking Object for Keeping Wine Bottles Cool
This Ona Wine Chiller is by Crucial Detail, a Chicago-based fancy kitchen goods brand. Meant to be used in place of an ice-filled vessel, it consists of a series of “thermal pods” held within a …
An Industrial Design Classic: The Brionvega Algol TV
This Algol TV was designed by Italian architect/designer Marco Zanuso and German industrial designer Richard Sapper. Released by Italian electronics brand Brionvega in 1964, the ABS-clad TV was described by Zanuso as “a little dog …
A Cooler with a Built-In Air Conditioner
To what extent should we attempt to tame nature, in the name of personal comfort? Already our homes are purpose-built to keep out weather and provide interior climate control. We commute in vehicles that keep …
Form Follows Function: Dyson’s New Approach Yields Super Slim Vacuum
The key feature of a Dyson vacuum cleaner has always been its grouping of cyclones. Those take up a fair bit of space, and their cordless vacs have by necessity been top-heavy, as they support …
Growl: An AR Punching Bag for Training and Gaming
This Growl object is a wall-mounted punching bag featuring a built-in projection system. You’d think it’s for projecting images of your enemies. But in fact it was designed as a virtual boxing trainer. You can …
The Loki Cleaning Robot, Here to End Janitors
To the list of jobs that will not exist in the future, we must add Janitor. Loki Robotics, a San-Francisco-based startup, is developing an autonomous cleaning robot (also called Loki). At first blush, it doesn’t …
Algorithmic Artificial Reef: from Industrial Design School Project to Legacy at Sea
Every couple of days in early 2024, Leonardo Hummel would free-dive into the shallow waters surrounding Koh Tao, Thailand. Amidst the growing communities of reef fish, Hummel liked to document the progress of the first …