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What Would You Do with the World's Thinnest Circuits?

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With aging populations all over the world, its no surprise that healthcare and health monitoring devices have become big business. Japan in particular boasts one of the lowest birth rates in the world and thusly one of the largest elderly populations. It is against this backdrop that the University of Tokyo's Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) research group led by Professor Takao Someya and Associate Professor Tsuyoshi Sekitani, in collaboration with Johannes Keplar University in Linz, Austria, have developed the world's lightest and thinnest circuit. In contrast to similar circuitry designed to come into direct contact with skin (the lick and stick circuits from UIUC come to mind), the ultra-thin electronics from U of Tokyo are incredibly robust for their discreet profile.

Professor Takao Someya commented on the design of the circuitry as having great potential in a number of different arenas.

The new flexible touch sensor is the world's thinnest, lightest and people cannot feel the existence of this device. I believe this development will open up a wide range of new applications, from health monitoring systems, wearable medical instruments, and even robotic skins in the future.

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The prototypes of the feather-light circuits exist as a 12×12 array created by two thin layers, one a integrated circuit and the other a tactile sensor. Additionally, they boast a fairly incredible bend radius of 5 microns, ability to endure 233% tensile strain—impressive for electronics that are just one-fifth the thickness of your average saran wrap. While all of this may sound fine and dandy, its pretty incredible when compared to traditional IT device manufacturing that typically employs rigid silicon.

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Core77 Design Awards 2013 Honorees: Equipment, Part Two

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Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.


Student Runner-up

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  • Project Name: Airborn
  • Designer: Malin Grummas

AirBorn, child seat for infants in commercial airplanes: Based on research on international regulations and user observations, AirBorn offers a solution to the identified fact that none of the present ways for flying with infants are safe. By placing the infant in safer seating positions that protects the infant from impact with low-tech airbags and secures the infant at impact and during evacuations, the concept offers 3 seating modes that are safe and comfortable for infant and parent. In case of an evacuation on water, the seat works as a life cot.


- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

The delightful news came to me in the form of a congratulatory email from my former classmate and co-honoree Omer Haciomeroglu.

- What's the latest news or development with your project?

The project has been resting since I started my career at frog design. It would be very exciting to continue the development and extensive testing that a product of this field requires. I would be happy to continue the work if the opportunity presented itself.

- What is one quick anecdote about your project?

During my testing phase I used weighted mannequins to resemble different sized children. I had used round bar steel as weight in my foam core dummies. The airport security sure looked at me funny when they scanned my hand luggage.

- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

I started the project with some knowledge of the problems surrounding the activity of flying with small children. I never would have guessed just how bad the situation around safety for infants actually is. Luckily airplanes are a very safe means of transport in comparison, but even hard landings and turbulence could seriously harm an unbelted passenger like infants and small children often are. Not to mention the unlikely but sometimes necessary evacuation of an aircraft.

View the full project here.

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DARPA's 8-Task Obstacle Course for Robots is No Joke

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We've got a few months yet until December, when DARPA will hold their 2013 Robotics Challenge, but that hasn't stopped the MIT team from releasing an "unboxing" video of their Atlas robot, delivered from Boston Dynamics. And while we had a chuckle at the Atlas robot's previously aired automotive difficulties, and previously mentioned some elements of this year's challenge, the unboxing vid prompted us to take a closer look at what DARPA's got in mind for 2013—and it's pretty nutty. Inspired by the unfortunate events at Fukushima, robot entrants in this year's competition have got a ridiculously difficult road ahead of them.

Task 1 requires the robot to drive a utility vehicle through a primitive obstacle course. Doesn't seem too bad, right?

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An Introduction to Wood Species, Part 7: Mahogany

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This Wood Species series of entries comes to us from guest writer Rob Wilkey, an Atlanta-based woodworker and industrial designer whose expertise is in small home goods, furniture, and large installations.


Over the next few articles, we'll be analyzing a number of common imported wood species. This week's featured species:

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Mahogany is harvested from trees of the genus Swietenia, whose natural range is in Central and South America. The lumber of these trees is extremely popular, and has been exported throughout the world for centuries. Like cherry, mahogany is prized for its favorable working properties, as well as its durability and beautiful color. Mahogany is initially a lighter pinkish brown hue, and can darken to a rich, deep reddish-brown over time.

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The wood is straight-grained, diffuse-porous, and suffers from very little shrinkage and seasonal movement. At 900lbf Janka, mahogany is soft enough to be cut and sanded quickly and easily, but is hard enough to resist dents and scratches. These properties make it an ideal lumber for every kind of woodworking. The wood also glues and stains well, and becomes even more beautiful under a good coat of finish. In fact, with a glossy finish, the wood will refract light so vibrantly that it changes shades depending on your viewing angle. This effect enhances areas of figured grain, as can be seen on the side table below, built by the talented Todd Clippinger.

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Afterschool Podcast with Don Lehman - Episode 3: Robert Brunner of Ammunition

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Hosted by Don Lehman, Core77's podcast series is designed for all those times you're sketching, working in the shop, or just looking for inspiration from inspiring people. We'll have conversations with interesting creatives and regular guests. The viewpoint of Afterschool will come from industrial design, but the focus will be on all types of creativity: Graphic design, storytelling, architecture, cooking, illustration, branding, materials, business, research... anything that could enrich your thought process, we'll talk about.

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This week's guest on Afterschool is Robert Brunner, the founder of Ammunition in San Francisco. We go deep on the creation of the Beats by Dre line of which Ammunition has helped develop along with Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. We also talk about setting up Ammunition.

A show related note: If you'd like to have Afterschool automatically downloaded to iTunes on your computer or mobile device, we're now available for subscription on the iTunes Store!

Show notes:
Jimmy Iovine
Dr. Dre
LeBron James
Maverick Carter
Lunar Design
Pentagram

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Mugi Yamamoto's Materials-Exploring Concept Work

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That's industrial designer Mugi Yamamoto's compact inkjet printer concept, Stack. Placed atop a pile of paper, the printer works its way down, sheet by sheet. In addition to providing a wonderful visual cue of whether or not the printer needs to be restocked—or is that re-stacked—there is a practical inspiration behind the design: To get rid of the paper tray, "the bulkiest element in common printers."

Yamamoto, a freshly-minted ID grad from the Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne, has generated a good bit of blogosphere buzz for Stack. But the rest of his book is worth a gander as well, demonstrating some brilliant materials experimentation. Check out his Inversilight, which takes advantage of silicone's flexibility to create a lampshade that the user can "pop" into one of two positions, focusing or scattering the light as needed:

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A World-Class Opportunity to Work for a World Class Beer Company

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Work for Boston Beer Company!



wants an Art Director
in Boston, Massachusetts

The Boston Beer Company is all about using quality ingredients when they make their beer, and when they build their teams. They are constantly looking to add "new ingredients" to increase the quality of their organization. That "new ingredient" could be you!

If you get hired as their new Art Director, you'll be responsible for mentorship of the Creative Services design team. Working with the Senior Director of Creative Services, the you'll ensure the brand positioning is properly translated throughout all packaging, point-of-sale, collateral, web/social media, and print advertising items created by the design team.

Don't miss this chance to work on Sam Adams beers. Apply Now.

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Making Playful Objects: An Interview with Noel Wiggins, Areaware Founder

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Founder Noel Wiggins describes Areaware as "a gallery for artists, sort of like a group show." A fourth generation painter, Noel brought a different perspective to the product design industry when he formed of Areaware in 2005. Since then, the company's line of "everyday objects" has struck the perfect balance between function and sculpture, as they continue to seek out young, local designers for objects to include in their line.

Core77's Carly Ayres had the opportunity to talk with Noel Wiggins at NY Now (formerly NYIGF), where he walked her through some of Areaware's latest products.

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Core77: Areaware seems to strike the perfect balance between function and sculpture. Having a background in painting and the fine arts, what led you to form such a product-driven company?

Noel Wiggins: I'm an object guy. I like things. And I also have a lot of the engineer's mentality of wanting to do things better than they're already being done.

I come to it from a kind of problem-solving idea. Painting, honestly, wasn't collaborative enough for me. You have to be a really kind of solitary person to be an effective painter.

I love mixing it up with our staff and the artists, and then we're banging ideas around, so it's like movie-making with objects—you know, with crews—and thinking about things, and they have narratives, and stories behind things. So it keeps me very mentally engaged.

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Core77 Design Awards 2013 Honorees: Writing & Commentary

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Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.


Professional Winner

  • Project Name: The Restlessness of Objects
  • Writer: Jesse LeCavalier
  • Publication: Cabinet Magazine

"The Restless of Objects" is about logistics and everyday life. It aims to better understand what logistics is, the ways it is imagined, the spaces it creates, the technologies it deploys, and the ways it connects to our own habits and desires. It is written in an accessible scholarly manner that tries to make space for the fascinating and humorous aspects of the subject matter.

- How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

By watching it live, of course!

- What's the latest news or development with your project?

I am working on related book project that expands on some aspects of the essay with a more specific focus on the architecture and logistics of Walmart.

- What is one quick anecdote about your project?

The folks at Cabinet are an amazing bunch with astonishing energy and dedication. Not satisfied with approximating the UPS logistics "heart," the design team went above and beyond to get the little heart-shaped arrow just right. That same care goes into all the things they do! 

- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

I was happy to learn that the first-ever bar coded product was a 10-pack of JuicyFruit. Chewing gum's finite and questionable utility makes it the perfect product to inaugurate the age of automated consumerism.

View the full project here.

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Forget the Weatherman. Armed with Smartphones, We Will Become the Weathercrowd

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A different sort of cloud computing

Recently we heard about traffic lights that can sense weather and adjust their signaling to prioritize cyclists, allowing them to get home faster when it's nasty out. We also honored a set of smartphone-based environmental sensors in this year's Core77 Design Awards. It seems pretty clear that weather sensing is going to be a "thing," and here's an idea right out in front of that trend: A project that plans consolidate meteorological data from smartphones to crowdsource weather information.

The London-based project is called WeatherSignal and their idea is to build up a network of people willing to talk about the weather (which may be all of us.) Cell phones collect a lot of data through an array of new sensors that have been added to the modern phones so WeatherSignal wants to creatively take advantage of that. It's quite compelling when you see it in action. Go to their homepage and you'll see the result, weather icons dotted over a global map, powered by Google maps, that provides local temps, humidity, pressure, sun/cloud/rain, even magnetic field ranges. There are filters for indoor weather as well—I suppose wherever the cell phone rests. And there are time ranges, from current, to three hours ago, to last week.

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Shrinking Cars for an Expanding Populations: KAIST's Armadillo-T

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Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) recently unveiled a new concept car to add to the plethora of electric and space efficient vehicles. The research group headed by In-Soo Suh, Associate Professor in the Graduate School for Green Transportation, revealed a vehicle inspired by how an armadillo in the wild responds when faced with a predator. KAIST has been making major contributions to the electrical vehicle movement recently with their road charged buses and now with their car aptly named the Armadillo-T. Employing textbook biomimicry, the vehicle achieves its armadillo-like transformation when the rear body of the car tucks over the front covering the windshield. The resulting decrease takes the body of the car from a fully extended 110 inches to 65 inches in its folded position.

Professor In-Soo Suh comments on the car,

I expect that people living in cities will eventually shift their preferences from bulky, petro-engine cars to smaller and lighter electric cars. Armadillo-T can be one of the alternatives city drivers can opt for. Particularly, this car is ideal for urban travels, including car-sharing and transit transfer, to offer major transportation links in a city. In addition to the urban application, local near-distance travels such as tourist zones or large buildings can be another example of application.

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Interview with Ron Paulk on the Design of His Innovative Paulk Workbench

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Homebuilder and self-taught designer Ron Paulk had a problem: He needed a large-surface workbench--which is generally no problem for those of you with geographically-fixed workspaces--but he needed it to be portable, so that he could tote it to jobsites in his Mobile Woodshop. He also needed it to be incredibly sturdy. Dissatisfied with the design shortcomings of commercially-available workbenches, Ron analyzed exactly what his specific needs were, then set about designing his own.

Currently in its second generation, plans for the Paulk Workbench are available for sale online for a reasonable ten bucks; I myself purchased a set as soon as I saw the demonstration video, which we'll embed down below.

The demo video will show you the various features of the bench design, but before we get to that, we scored an interview with Ron on how and why he designed the bench the way he did:

Below is the aforementioned demo video:

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Bike Cult Show Builder Profile: Jamie Swan of Centerport Cycles

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We've devoted a fair number of pages and pixels to that singular design object known as the bicycle, and whether you're a leisure rider or all-weather commuter, weekend warrior or retrogrouch, there's no denying the functional elegance of the human-powered conveyance. Thus, when Harry Schwartzman reached out to us about lending our support to the inaugural Bike Cult Show, a celebration of the beautiful machine and a local-ish community of individuals dedicated to building them, we were happy to support the cause.

Bike Cult Show: Save the Date· Ezra Caldwell· Johnny Coast· Thomas Callahan· Rick Jones· Jamie Swan


With the first annual Bike Cult Show just around the corner, we're pleased to present our fifth and final builder profile, a short film on the inimitable Jamie Swan by filmmaker Isaac Schell.

Swan may not command the broad recognition of, say, Richard Sachs or Peter Weigle, but he is certainly a legend in the cycling community, in which he is a self-proclaimed "Keeper of the Flame." At least some of Swan's renown is simply due to the fact that he's only built a handful of frames since he put together his first one back in 1981—they'd be grail bikes if he actually had a wait list—yet he's anything but a recluse. On the contrary, Swan is glad to take the role of mentor and spirit guide (for lack of a better term) for savvy up-and-comers: He admires the current generation of craftsmen who are making a living building bikes precisely because he's never had to do so.

New York-based cycling enthusiasts are invited to check out Jamie's work, alongside that of over a dozen custom bicycle builders, at the Bike Cult Show this weekend, Friday, August 30 and Saturday, August 31, 2013. Check out BikeCultShow.com for more details, and familiarize yourself with some of the exhibitors in our builder profiles:

» Ezra Caldwell of Fast Boy Cycles
» Johnny Coast of Coast Cycles
» Thomas Callahan of Horse Cycles
» Rick Jones of Road Runners Bicycles
» Jamie Swan of Centerport Cycles

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Move Fast. Speak Up. Decide and Own. Drive Change at Logitech in Lausanne, Switzerland

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Work for Logitech!








wants a Color Material Finish Designer
in Lausanne, Switzerland

Are you a creative experienced CMF Designer looking for the opportunity to positively impact the lives millions of people and collaborate with a high-calibre multidisciplinary international team redefining the future of Logitech products?

Bring your deep understanding of trends, materials and experience drivers to the Experience Design Team at Logitech and help them connect people in a natural, intuitive way to the digital experiences they care about.

Apply Now

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MakerBot's Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner

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This little 85-cent white plastic thing you see below is called an Upper Sash Slide Latch, and it has caused me no end of trouble. It holds the top part of a tilt-for-cleaning window in place, and when this chintzy little part breaks, the window can swing down like a drawbridge—as an acquaintance of mine found out the hard way (he required stitches). After two of these latches failed in my studio and I looked to replace the part, I found it nearly impossible to search for online, as there were no manufacturer's marks anywhere on the part or the window.

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If I had a MakerBot, I would've broken out the calipers, created a CAD file of an unbroken example of the latch taken from another window, 3D-printed the thing and been done with it. But if the part was exceedingly complicated or organically shaped, I'd have been SOL. So MakerBot's newly-announced Digitizer, a desktop 3D scanner, is sounding pretty cool.

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The sleek-looking device has a small turntable on which you place your object, which then gets hit by a laser. Provided your object isn't shiny, reflective or fuzzy, the software then spits out a "clean, watertight 3D model" ready for printing or tweaking. Here's company founder Bre Pettis pitching the thing:

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Core77 Design Awards 2013 Honorees: Soft Goods, Part One

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Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards 2013. We will be featuring these projects by category, so stay tuned for your favorite categories of design! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com.


Student Notable

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  • Project Name: Bella Maternity Posture Support
  • Designer: Yunqi Yuan
  • Ohio State University

A belt and strap device worn on or under clothing, Bella helps pregnant women maintain healthy posture and support the growing belly. Bella fastens quickly and adjusts to fit comfortably, transferring weight from abdomen to shoulder and spine. Designed to grow along with the mother-to-be, the soft and gentle elastic straps shift the weight to relieve or prevent lower back and hip joint pain. Inspired by prenatal yoga practice, Bella is a healthy non-medical choice for pain relief.

- What's the latest news or development with your project?

Since this is a school project, The Technology Commercialization and knowledge Transfer of the Ohio State University invited me to work with them to do some further research for this concept. They want to see if whether this product has enough potential and worth to be patterned.

Though this is a product designed for pregnant women. When I show the final appearance model to people, several men run to me and said they really want something like this. Since their bellies grow bigger with their age, they start to feel bad for holding so much extra weight. They said if they can have something like this to wear under their suit to help them keep a better body posture could be awesome. I think this is interesting. I may design one for male later.

- What was an "a-ha" moment from this project?

As you can learn from my process book, I had several options that I can explore at the very beginning. After I narrowed them down to two final choices I still could not have my final solution settle down. But after I made a simple paper prototype of my maternity belt and tried it on, I knew at one this is exactly what I want. Since I have some lower back pain myself causing by siting in front of desk for most of the time, I suddenly feel some release when I put it on, even it was only a rough paper prototype. From this moment, I start to feel confident if I can improve both the shape and the material just a little bit, this can be a successful solution.

View the full project here.

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The True Story Behind Jeffrey Stephenson's Art Deco 'Flightline' PC Tower, by Alfred Poor

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My grandfather, Alfred Easton Poor, was a New York City architect with many major projects to his credit, including the Jacob Javits Federal Building in Manhattan and the restoration and extension of the US Capitol Building's East Front in Washington, DC. The Wright Brothers Memorial was his earliest major design win, and perhaps his most visible. One of my treasured possessions is a letter from Orville Wright to my grandfather, thanking him for a print of a photograph he had taken of the memorial.

It was a fitting project, as he was an early aviator himself. He learned to fly when in high school, but was too young to enter combat when the World War broke out. Instead, he went down to the Florida Keys where he taught pilots to fly floatplanes. For World War II, he was too old to fight, and spent at least part of the war overseeing aircraft production in Ohio.

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Software Programmer Schools Industrial Designers. This, Folks, is How You Design a Keyboard

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For many of us, keyboards are the most important input device we own. Bloggers, journalist and coders can't get by with touchscreens. But one programmer, California-based Jeff Atwood, found himself continually dissatisfied with the physical design of every keyboard he used. So he teamed up with WASD Keyboards, a California-based producer of specialty keyboards, to design his own. And it appears to be pretty damned awesome.

Atwood might be a software developer, but he's got the attention to fine detail of a great industrial designer. His CODE Keyboard addresses every one of his woes with materials, intelligent design and careful thought.

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Haptics. Atwood doesn't like the spongy feel of pressing a plastic key attached to a rubber bubble. Heck, I don't think any of us do, but he and Kwong actually did something about it. The CODE features mechanical keyswitches with a "solid actuation force."

Materials. The keyswitches are mounted to a steel backplate "for a rock solid feel." The keyboard weighs nearly 2.5 pounds.

User Experience. The steel backplate is painted white and the markings on each key are precisely placed to provide completely even LED backlighting. You can choose from seven different backlighting levels or turn it off completely, and the keyboard will remember your preference.

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In the Details: The Bio-Wool in Daniel McLaughlin's Terracase Suitcase

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In the Details is our weekly look at one especially smart, innovative or unusual detail of a new design.

Daniel McLaughlin's final project for London's Royal College of Art, where he graduated with a master's in innovation design engineering last spring, is a tribute both to his home country of New Zealand and to the good old-fashioned process of trial and error. McLaughlin embarked on the project without any real idea of what kind of product he was trying to make; his one starting point was that he wanted to find a way to utilize waste produced by New Zealand's wool industry, one of the cornerstones of the country's economy.

But what kind of product could he make out of wool waste? McLaughlin tried dunking the material in oil (to observe its natural hydroscopy); lighting it on fire (to watch it self-extinguish); and mixing it with wood glue and polyurethane resins to create rigid felt panels. The latter experiments were promising—what if, McLaughlin wondered, he could make the wool not just rigid but structural?—but they were obviously not environmentally friendly.

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Jurassic Prank

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I have been struggling with some way to tie this video into industrial design, modelmaking/propmaking, or creative pursuits in general, just so I'd have an excuse to post it. But you know what, it's a Friday and we Americans are on the verge of a holiday, so I'm going to see if I can sneak this one in while my bosses are hopefully loading their cars up with fishing gear. This is from a TV variety show in Japan, where a non-litigious society combined with focused creativity has turned pranking into an art form.

Probably staged, but does it matter? And how awesome is that costume, human legs aside?

Via io9

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