Get tickets to see Jessie Kawata at the 2015 Core77 Conference this Friday in Los Angeles.

Is design thinking rocket science? At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory it is.

The intersection of art and space science is nothing new. From ancient cave paintings of the moon to the Mayan calendar, art has brought the mystery of the stars back down to Earth for thousands of years. However at the dawn of a new space age, the discipline of design has the power to boost humanity back up and contribute to the invention of space missions themselves.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA's lead robotic center of solar system exploration, is a metropolis of astrophysicists, astronomers, climate scientists and planetary geologists—to name a few—not to mention the most brilliant aerospace engineers on Earth. One of the newest areas of interest in this city is The Studio, the first in-house art and design consultancy that NASA has ever had.

As a Creative Strategist and Product Designer in The Studio at JPL, my role is to stare into the mechanisms of space exploration and determine creative ways for design to help the advancement of the understanding of our universe.

THE STUDIO OF SPACE EXPLORATION

In 2011 I was lucky enough to be recruited as one of the few design earthlings at JPL. We used to work out of an old gyroscope laboratory on top of "Cardiac Hill," aka the hill no one wants to climb unless you want an extreme cardio workout. This little lab was filled with foggy storm simulations of Jupiter and visions of growing an art and design team.

My team has grown to about six designers and artists since our days on Cardiac Hill. We collaborate with scientists and engineers to translate complex scientific concepts into compelling and easy-to-understand ideas. So far, we've used multiple artistic mediums such as illustration, environmental design, sculpture, exhibits, film and interactive installations like our dynamic sculpture of a comet for the 2015 World Science Festival.

Scuplture of a comet for the 2015 World Science Festival

Many of the projects I've worked on brought meaning to missions after launch and helped the public understand space science in awe-inspiring ways. However, I still had a huge curiosity for the design and development process of our spacecraft before launch. At JPL, the spacecraft are our products and the engineers are the designers. Since our core products are not designed for humans, I went on a hunt to find the area of the JPL lifecycle where design thinking and human-centered design had the potential for highest value: where mission ideas are born.

A DESIGNER'S TRAJECTORY

At JPL, the word "extraordinary" is ordinary. People talk casually about new exoplanets in cafeteria lines as if it were new burgers on the menu. Coffee chit-chat about flying to Jupiter or the discovery of a new supernova is routine. It is a city of futurists with a culture rich with heritage from the dawn of the space age in the late 1950s.

At JPL, the spacecraft are our products and the engineers are the designers.

One area in this city that still has yet to be understood is design as a strategic application to help the advancement of innovation in exploring our cosmos. The difference between the value of art and the value of design are blurred. Since the art field is not yet integral to NASA, neither is design. Product design is not even in the picture yet.

Designers can always make things that are more visually-appealing than engineers, though the depth of value to the strategic processes of design in the space exploration industry still remain at the surface. A few years ago I started asking myself, "What if product design can become integral to JPL's infrastructure and be valued for its functional strength and less for its aesthetic form?" I knew I had to figure out how to infuse a new layer of culture from the ground up. My process-oriented approach to design led me to the very beginning of a mission design concept, an area at JPL called The Innovation Foundry.

Hallway of the Innovation Foundry

WHERE SPACE MISSIONS ARE BORN

The Innovation Foundry is the hub for mission formulation. Within the Foundry family is the A-Team—a group of engineers responsible for creating the tools to facilitate and brainstorm new mission concept systems. The A-Team works out a colorful room called Left Field with wall-to-wall whiteboards and sticky notes, where they facilitate rapid brainstorming workshops with an interdisciplinary group of scientists and engineers. Within the space mission lifecycle, NASA JPL calls this area of mission maturity as the "napkin sketch" level.

Left Field, a room that the A-Team of the Innovation Foundry works from.

The potential for the integration of design thinking came when I realized that the methods of early mission formulation already incorporated elements of the product design process such as market research and iterative prototyping, but from an engineering and scientific point-of-view. After a summer of proving the value of design thinking, I was invited to become the very first creative designer to be on any NASA core mission formulation team.

All the engineers and scientists clearly see the need to incorporate better visuals to communicate their ideas. Receiving support on the articulation of their mission concept through the method of rapid visualization techniques boosts their productivity. On the other hand, low-fidelity mock-ups also help the process of mission design by allowing faster iteration on the configuration of a spacecraft.

After helping dozens of mission teams iterate their concepts, I realized the core of this communication gap: the lack of storytelling. If engineers and scientists became great storytellers at an early stage, these great stories would progress through the mission lifecycle and be even more compelling when it reaches the public. Given this discovery, I started a storytelling initiative in the Innovation Foundry where people learned the skills and eventually understood the value of considering the needs of their audiences, whether it be the public, a politician, or a peer. What was once just a robot-centered mission design process is now also human-centered.

The Future and Beyond

The engineering and design thinking process are actually quite similar. You identify a need and solve a problem through a series of researching, prototyping, and testing. Designers can bring a new perspective or lens to the NASA process. Not just contributing to form and aesthetics, but to the infrastructure and function of space exploration as well. Design thinking has the ability to not only help NASA think through their thinking, but contribute to the understanding of what it means to be human in this universe.

I suck at cooking, make a mess while doing it, and frequently screw recipes up. Whenever something calls for adding a teaspoon or tablespoon of liquid into something, I always spill while attempting to measure it out. Trying to pour a precise amount of liquid into a spoon requires the dexterity of a neurosurgeon, not a coffee-drinking spaz like me.

Well, the liquid dosing problem has been solved by the design team at France-based Stiplastics, a manufacturer of medical devices for the healthcare industry. Check out their clever Spoonbox:

They can be had in polystyrene or polypropylene and can be custom-colored and printed on. The company has been making 8- and 9-milliliter Spoonboxes for years, and has recently added a 13mL unit in response to market demand.

And speaking of market demand, it's been growing. While those of us who don't work in healthcare have likely never seen one of these before, the company sells several million Spoonboxes annually, and has just added a new 2,000-square-meter production facility to meet orders.

We've all heard that "Time is money." Less often said, but no less true, is that these days space is money too. Now a business in the UK, School Trunk, is aiming to help boarding schools complete that latter equation and turn their extra space into profits, aided in part by a space-saving product design.

You may not see the stackable Stakrak Folding Box feted at the MoMA anytime soon, but the product is an example of the nuts-and-bolts industrial design that quietly helps to improve businesses. It's a sturdy, well-conceived polypropylene storage container that works like so:

When compressed, the Folding Box sheds some 80% of its volume. This is an obvious boon for industrial applications where incoming and outgoing inventory is constantly altering the site's storage needs. But the way School Trunk is using it is to help turn schools into getaways.

Since boarding schools are unoccupied during the summer holidays, School Trunk offers to come in and clean out all of the school's and students' materials, trucking them off in the Stakrak Folding Boxes purchased by the school. Thus emptied, said boarding schools—which are often set in idyllic locations—can now rent their rooms out to vacationers, turning the otherwise wasted space into summertime income generators. Once summer's over, School Trunk sweeps back in, restores all of the gear, and it's back to business as usual.

The folded-up Stakraks are easy to store away when not needed; folded down, they can be stacked ten high. They can be stacked four high when full, and placed atop purpose-designed rolling bases to make transportation easier. The polypropylene and judiciously-placed ribs make them sturdy enough to survive what cardboard boxes would not.

Sexy? No. 

A good use of industrial design fulfilling its promise of utility, absent any glory? Yes.

If your work shares similar ideas to this article, we are building a community of like minded designers and would love to hear from you. Find us at mattermindstudio.com.

Industrial designers are equipped with skills like ergonomics, technology, sustainability, rendering, systems-thinking and aesthetics. All are useful skills to begin solving for some of today's problems. These skills have been instrumental since the beginning of the industrial era. We tend to keep this kind of functionality at the center of what it means to be a designer of objects. We're perpetually asking: How does this product compare to other products on the market? How will my users interact with it? How do I make use of a new technology? How can this be manufactured most efficiently? What's the lifespan of this product?

If we look beyond the lens which products are most commonly understood, we see that designed objects are emotionally charged. Objects can illicit emotions of love or hate, they provoke pleasure or displeasure—but objects can play a more critical role. 

Objects like Venus of Willendorf and transitional objects fall within a particular spectrum of artifacts. Venus of Willendorf is one of the first sculptures of the human figure dating back 25,000 years ago and it happens to symbolize fertility and health. Transitional objects, like your everyday teddy bear, function as a way for a child to begin distinguishing 'the self' from 'the mother.' This category includes on one hand, thehistoric relationship between humans and objects, and on the other, the psychological effect objects have on us. They represent examples of the innermost conditions that all humans share—fear, grief, acceptance, denial, growth, anxiety, love, aspirations, healing, death. Objects play a critical roles in the human condition. To designers like me, this basic understanding is precisely what is kept in the periphery or is altogether absent from the principles with which we currently design.

When the idea that objects play not only inherent but also critical roles in the human condition is left out of the design process, it leads to an excess of fancy paper-clip holders, thousands of flat-packed cardboard chairs and fixations on the radius of a table corner. These types of designs aren't wrong, they've simply lost the higher order meaning of what it essentially is to be designing an object. Designers also make things like chairs or watches more sentimental or plug behavior-change into smart objects. While these types of designs may be beautiful, they often fail to properly question where the project will live and what implications they have on our history and cognition.We should be wary when we design simply for the sake of generating more sentimental experiences or for the sake of creating different kinds of emotional experiences. We should be cautious of the implications of blind faith for creating products.

I'm arguing that product design should carve out a new practice-based discipline that's about changing the way we think about, make and use objects. We can begin asking, 'How do we translate intelligence from the social sciences in to creating this object? How will users make significant meaning of this object in their lives? What future role will this object sustain in this person's family history?'

Philosophy, cognitive science, anthropology, sociology and the arts have repeatedly shown us objects have the power to bring about complex thoughts and emotions and affect our well-being in compelling ways. We need to contain this understanding for how objects affect us into how we design, not merely in the aesthetics and purpose of the final product. How might decades and centuries of theory translate to a new design discipline? In what ways can this be situated more centrally in the sphere of industrial design than speculative design or object d'art? How might we redefine functionality?

Below are snapshots of a few notable case studies that begin to illustrate these conditions and domains.

Poetic Negotiations by Helena Kjellgren

A Certified Nurse Assistant sits down with a design researcher. One by one, the designer reveals a card and asks, "How would you read this image" and "How would you relate that to your work?"

Domain: Health Care; Dementia 

In a healthcare setting, Certified Nurse Assistants are the caretakers who spend the most time with patients, yet their experience is not valued as highly as nurses or doctors. Design is used to articulate values that lie in the interactions between patient, caregiver and objects. Abstracted visual representations of objects act as mnemonic devices to prompt Certified Nurse Assistants to reflect on and reveal their experiences with dementia patients to researchers.

Material Communications by Doremy Diatta

After several child-focused therapy sessions, parents meet with design researcher and clinician to be introduced to a therapy object. The parent takes this object home to remind them of the skills they've learned in therapy. This object belongs to a larger set. [Photo by Daisy Chen]

Domain: Child Development; Family Therapy 

Therapy often focuses on the thoughts one has and the actions one takes; leaving out the thousands of environmental factors one interacts with on a daily basis. A new spatial intervention works to aid clinicians in teaching behavioral therapy skills to parents. Symbolic objects elicit parents' memories of skills learned in behavioral therapy and are materializations of social, emotional lessons that result in parents practicing their skills more frequently at home. 

Emotional Waste Management by Colleen Doyle

The user takes The Travel Spool to the corner store, the doctor's office or on vacation. When the user feels inclined, he ties a piece of string on an object. Over time, the user sees evidence of their experiences in the absence of the string on the spool. This object belongs to a larger set.

Domain: Waste Management, Mental Health; Object Attachment 

When we rely too heavily on material objects to carry our emotional waste, we may find ourselves burdened with a physical weight in the form of clutter. Design is used here as an agent to better understand why we acquire and keep objects in order to change how we consume and dispose of them. Objects act as materializations of sentiment and as essential items of psychological utility. 

Vivere et Mori by June West

The grieving user looks into the 3-faced mirror for a confrontation with her own face and mortal body. The user poses questions to the 3 faces presented in the mirrors. This object belongs to a larger set.

Domain: Mental Health; Bereavement 

Individuals struggle to find ways of coping with death. Traditional religions less frequently provide the structures to ease the psychological ramifications of grieving and the space for reflecting on what is truly important in life. Design is used for individuals to consciously compose their own frameworks, rituals, and objects for healing and contemplation. Objects act as mediators between oneself and the metaphysical. 

Atmosphere Design by Lillian Tong 

In a moment of stress or disarray, an employee opens the "Calm" ritual curtain and follows the form of the waves to be in a better state for starting her next task. This object belongs to a larger set.

Domain: Workplace Design 

Because of globalization and economic competition, the workplace has become increasingly oppressive for employees. Design is used to rethink productivity in the workplace and result in the creation of emotional rituals. Objects act as prompts to perform with and aid in transitions between emotional states throughout the work day.

If your work, whether it's related to design or not, takes on a similar perspective we would love to hear about you and your work through this form. We are currently growing this discipline via community-building and research while building a formal practice. Visit Lillian, Colleen, and Doremy at mattermindstudio.com to learn more.

In trying times, laypeople may seek answers in the thick tome associated with their religion. In trying times for us industrial designers, we also used to consult a thick tome: The yellow McMaster-Carr catalog, which undoubtedly held the answers to our manufacturing/prototyping problems. Within its dog-eared pages was seemingly every single mechanical part, fastener, tool and material known to man, all just a phone call away from being in your mailbox tomorrow.

Today the McMaster-Carr catalog is of course online, featuring hundreds of thousands of items. In attempting to explain to a layperson what McMaster is, I alternately described it as "Canal Street in the '90s," "The world's largest hardware store that always has what you need" and "Amazon for the things you don't typically find on Amazon." Initially aimed at folks working in MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operations) fields, the company, which has been around since 1901, has also become the go-to for makers of all stripes. Centrally located in Illinois, McMaster-Carr also has distribution centers in New Jersey, Georgia, Ohio and California, resulting in next-day arrival practically no matter where you are in the U.S.

McMaster is about utility, not fashion. It's where you find neoprene washers, leveling mounts or nylon-insert hex locknuts in the precise size you need, the sizes the big-box stores don't bother stocking. When I'm making new dog leashes and collars everything from the webbing to the plastic buckles to the snaphooks and the D-rings come from McMaster. If you know what your part is called, what the dimensions are, what it's made out of and are occasionally willing to buy 10 to 100 of them, you're all set.

So I was tickled to see an apparently unaffiliated website called Masterlist is sort of repackaging the McMaster catalog with an emphasis on fashion over utility. What these folks have done is gone over the catalog, pulled some of the most photogenic items and photographed them in a studio setting, presenting them to you in object-fetish style. Items from four categories of Masterlist's choosing—Tools, Accessories, Furnishings (not ready at press time) and Apparel—are "thoughtfully curated from the McMaster-Carr catalog," the site writes.

Image by Masterlist

Image by Masterlist

Image by Masterlist

Image by Masterlist

Are you supposed to go here if you're actually fixing or making something? Of course not; Masterlist is something between an homage and object porn, absent the crucial details actual McMaster shoppers would use to hone in on a particular purchase. For instance, the pic of picks doesn't mention if they're magnetic-tipped or not, the photo of the penlight doesn't say if it's LED or incandescent nor make any mention of the lumens, the shot of the carabiner says nothing about load limits. And of course, none of these mention the all-important dimensions of the items in question. But clicking on a link below the photos does bring you to the specific McMaster listing for that item—not the entire catalog page with the variety of options, just that one item.

Image by Masterlist

Image by Masterlist

Image by Masterlist

The idea that we would look at a sexy photo of, say, a carabiner, then click on a link to buy it without seeing the full page of options of what comes before and after it in terms of size and performance, seems crazy to me. I guess I have to remember that we're a long way now from that dog-eared yellow catalog.

Perhaps what's most paradoxical about the Masterlist mission is that "Thoughtfully curated…" tagline. The dictionary definition of "curate" is to "select, organize, and present [items], typically using professional or expert knowledge." The whole point of McMaster-Carr is that you—the guy or gal that's actually making or fixing something—are the one that does the curating.

H/T to IDEO designer Ian Schon

As more and more people travel, more and more people realize their luggage sucks. Draconian airline regulations and delays mean more of us are attempting to eschew checked luggage and go with rolling carry-ons, but design hasn't kept pace with these modern-day needs. As one example, we want carry-ons to have small wheels that don't intrude into the luggage compartment so that we can have more room to carry stuff, as this is our only bag. Small wheels, meanwhile, absolutely suck on cobblestones.

Enter industrial designer Netta Shalgi, who teamed up with business strategist Ken Hertz to design something more in-line with modern-day needs. Pooling their ideas, the fellow veteran travelers have designed a rolling carry-on with a host of innovative features, not only solving the wheel problem and providing features that speed the security line navigation process, but even devising a better charging solution for our personal electronics:

Here's a better look at how much luggage it can swallow, and how it's meant to be packed:

I love the thoughtful design details, like the built-in tablet stand you can use while you're sitting at the gate:

The location of the passport pocket makes it nearly impossible for a pickpocket to get at:

The G-RO might not be in production yet, but it's already found a ready market. The Kickstarter campaign has netted $712,695 on a $125,000 goal, and there's still 54 days to go!

Part of the huge funding success is probably due to their pledge offerings; while the G-RO is expected to retail for $499, they're currently offering two for that price, or four for $899. Those of you looking to get a single G-RO have already missed out on the $199 early bird specials, though there are some single units left for $279 a pop.

In any case, the point of this entry is not just to encourage you to buy one, though we wish Shalgi and Hertz all the success they can handle. It's to remind our ID readership that if you can design clever luggage and get the production together, there are thousands of dollars just waiting to back the right design.

There's just over ten days left until Halloween, which should give you plenty of time to practice this trick: The always-entertaining Crazy Russian Hacker has devised a way to make a seemingly normal pumpkin spontaneously pop into a jack-o'-lantern—with some help from you, a carving knife and some dried ice.

As usual he's getting trolled with YouTube comments, and those who found it underwhelming are missing the point. With CRH his project concepts are hit or miss, but his relentless positivity and enthusiastic wielding of American-English euphemisms always hit the mark.

While the terms 'internet of things,' 'smart objects' and 'connected devices' seem to be regularly splashed across the pages of newspapers, design briefs, crowdfunding campaigns and conference topics—relatively little is discussed about what tools designers need in order to design smart devices.

Some startups and corporate departments are beginning to understand how the inclusion of technology in our everyday lives is changing us. With this realization comes changing demands for product teams looking to innovate. This usually includes designers working alongside engineers and software developers, oftentimes with a new set of tools to match. Among the tools already available to designers, many of the emerging industry standards have come from Dassault Systèmes. Dassault Systèmes has long recognized the cross disciplinary needs of designers and responded with several solutions, allowing for the creation of holistic design experiences, not just products.

As product teams become more interdisciplinary, the process for creating products has expanded to include engineers, scientists, developers and many more key players. As the requirements of designing change—so does the process of design thinking, adapting to what Dassault Systèmes has named 'Social Ideation.' Social Ideation is the method by which the iterative process is expanded beyond just including designers. Each phase of ideation can be visualized for not just the design-savvy, but for all members of an interdisciplinary team.

To make tools for social ideation not only work, but work fast, precise and for team members with different competencies is a big task. To understand what is needed, we asked someone who has been linking design methodologies and fostering collaboration in multidisciplinary teams for years, Anne Asensio. Asensio, came from General Motors and Renault to join Dassault Systèmes in 2007 as Vice President of Design Experience. She sat down to share her view on the need for social ideation across disciplines and the new responsibilities of designers in the next generations.

Anne Asensio, VP Design Experience at Dassault Systèmes

Core77: Is the consumer expectation for experience over product a recent occurrence?

Anne Asensio: This is something we have seen coming from quite some time. People have always been interested in this notion of experience because it's part of our lives, but now when we are talking about the experience it's because I think that we have passed the time for just producing products for functional aspects of life in the new economy. We must begin looking at a much higher level of expectation.

The digital effect is that everything is now contextualized. Digital devices with the capacity to be customized and configured can now become a little personal space that you can immerse yourself into anytime you want. It delivers this notion of being part of that moment and that's a different expectation in terms of experience. What we are seeing is an accelerated view of the natural evolution of human experience due to the digital devices that are transforming our lives.

What kinds of tools are necessary to design these experiences?

What I am personally interested in is design experience. You might ask what the difference is between design experience and experience design. In experience design we have seen an incredible expansion of design methodologies and practices in the area of digital design. The act of just designing through screen-based software is necessary for designers to do the work they needed to do—that is, to humanize the relationship between man and technology.

But I believe that the world of design is not just to help humanize the evolution of technology—I believe we have a particular aim, which is to question where we are going on a broader level, to create designed experiences. To do this we have to bring meaning and question the type of experience we are providing. Especially now that technology gives us the total liberty and expertise to do anything, bringing with it a high level of responsibility.

"We have seen an incredible expansion of design methodologies and practices in the area of digital design" says Asensio.

So has the designer's role in multidisciplinary teams changed?

Designers have always been serving this function: acting as a contributor among a multidisciplinary team while bringing their own perspective. But today, designers help everyone visualize what they are doing collaboratively in order to make decisions—that is quite new. What the new tools are doing is enabling two aspects: the capability to not only design, but also to represent and the ability to see what others are doing in order to help them reduce risk and uncertainty.

This is absolutely critical when it comes to making decisions about new products because it helps people embrace disruptive innovation—not because they are coming up with better ideas—but by allowing for synthesis. Now you can combine the capabilities of teams into a physical or virtual medium and share progress throughout the whole process. This model can be continuously transformed—it can keep being changed. You have the perfect subject to apply the typical design methodology of iterations—test, fail, change, and do it again.

What are the big challenges facing multidisciplinary teams?

I don't know if I would say challenges or opportunities. The fact is, what you see is a convergence of digital technology and a convergence of very interesting capacities that are coming from different industries. For Dassault Systèmes, we come from the formalization of the product and we extend it with physics, simulation all the way to imaginaries and meanings. to reach the point where we can embrace more team members in the process and get something very complex to be seen, interacted with and visualized.

What is really key is that wherever you come from, whatever meaning you are looking for, we want to allow anyone the ability to deliver their vision of the future. That is very important because right now, team members can be accused of not being transparent, and I can see a way in which everyone will have a stake in the way we are designing the world.

"We are not at a moment where desginers need to return to their capacity to project ideas, both imaginary and visionary" says Asensio. 

You mean they will have a stake in it because anyone can have the tools?

All of those capacities that were designed and developed in a particular area of application—be it manufacturing, design, science, entertainment etc.—are now merging. That convergence, we see today in the Internet of Things. All those aspects are just something we are visualizing today—it's a way to see what's happening, and react.

I believe that today we are looking at something more forward thinking, more visionary. Basically asking: we have these capabilities, but where do we start? How should we be innovating and why? What would be the best way of innovating, embracing some questions that are more on the social and not just the technical side. Answers are not going to only be found on the technical side.

What abilities does the next generation of young designers need to help find those answers?

We were designers before the industrial era. Everyone was a craftsman or artisan with the ability to make a beautiful, signature object. The industrial era then put the designers into a different situation—they must humanize. Some designers were able to push to the level of questioning, in a critical manner, how the objects produced by the industry were affecting our society, our lives, our ethical approach of living our condition as humans. Now that era is done. We are now at a moment where designers need to return to their capacity to project ideas both imaginary and visionary.

That leads me to believe that young designers need to not only establish themselves in their role of humanizing technology but critically question what is happening. It's no longer what you're going to be doing—but what you're going to be. Period.

Thanks to Anne Asensio for speaking with us. To read more about Dassault Systèmes Solutions and Social Ideation & Creative Design, check out their website. 

One of the most sensational aspects of 1989's Back to the Future II was its depiction of the year 2015. Well, today is finally October 21st, 2015, the day that Marty McFly traveled to in the future, and no one can resist comparing the film's version of the future to our current reality.

This despite the fact that director Robert Zemeckis was no futurist, but was just trying to create a fun film. "Rather than trying to make a scientifically sound prediction that we were probably going to get wrong anyway," he said on a Q&A featured on the 2010 Blu-Ray, "we figured, let's just make it funny." Hence the prediction that the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series.

Sports gags aside, what did Zemeckis and the writers get right and wrong about life in 2015? Hoverboards are here, though they look a bit different than what McFly was rocking. And while the film missed some of the larger developments of modern society—er, the internet—they surprisingly got a lot right, from wearables to flatscreens to videochats:

I always thought the dog-walking drone featured in the movie was neat…

…but after seeing this guy actually develop one, I've changed my mind and decided it's kind of disturbing:

Dogs are supposed to be Man's Best Friend, not some chore that you hand off to a piece of technology!

One prediction that would have been easy to make back in '89 is that corporations would shamelessly try to capitalize on the movie's success in 2015. Pepsi is actually rolling out the "Pepsi Perfect" featured in the movie:

The collectible bottles will sell for $20.15. (Groan.)

Lyft and Verizon have shipped Deloreans from around the country to New York City, as today they're offering free rides in the (non-Flux-Capacitor-equipped) cars:

While Delorean has long been defunct, Ford has upgraded their Focus and Fiesta models with Flux Capacitors as of today:

Sadly, the one product tie-in we'd actually like to see happen…

…hasn't materialized yet, though Nike once suggested they would. And last night they stirred up massive speculation by Tweeting this at Michael J. Fox:

With any luck we'll have a "Breaking News!" entry later today…but we suspect they're just teasing.

Whether you call it a spigot, a hose bib or a garden faucet, you know what it is: That tap sticking out of the exterior of your houes, which allows you to attach a hose and spray down those kids you told to get off of your lawn. But as convenient as the hose bib is, it's got two problems: It can freeze, or worse, leak, and you're not liable to notice the steady drip outside the way you'd notice one in your kitchen.

A company called Aquor Water Systems has thus designed a better connection. Their House Hydrant, as it's called, is a flush-mounted stainless steel faucet. First off, it's a damn sight better looking than your standard hose bib:

But aesthetics aren't the point. With nothing protruding beyond the wall's surface, the water stays inside of your house, where it can't freeze as long as you're up to date on your bills. The corresponding hose adapter simply plugs in, socket-style, and stays firmly in place with a bayonet-style lock; water begins to flow once it's plugged in, and stops when you unplug.

(Is it me, or was she spraying the Viper at the end with the top off?)

The House Hydrant runs $50, the hose adapter is $25, and the company claims installation is as easy as installing a regular spigot.

What I'd like to see these guys tackle next is a better hose management system; I'm lazy enough that I'd probably unplug the hose and just leave it in a bundle under the faucet.

Finally, here is a concept car unlike any other! Toyota is getting ready to pull the sheets off of their KIKAI at the upcoming Tokyo Motor Show, and it's a real socks-knocker; unlike the swoopy, enclosed concepts we're used to seeing, this one wears its mechanicals on its sleeve.

As the products of human creativity, dedication, and knowledge, machines should be objects of admiration. The concept was designed to explore and emphasize the fundamental appeal of machines: their fine craftsmanship, their beauty, simplicity, and their fascinating motion. As a true concept car, the Toyota KIKAI's appeal is simultaneously free from and reliant on the core concepts of automobiles.

This concept takes the machinery, normally hidden beneath the vehicle body, and makes an open display of its beauty. Directly expressed in this way, the vehicle's inner workings become part of the exterior.

While the car has four wheels, the seating arrangement is 1+2, allowing you to bring a date and a third wheel whom you can make feel awkward.

While this probably isn't great for road safety, lower windows in the cabin allow you to observe the upper control arms of the front suspension. "This provides a novel driving sensation," the company writes, "in which the machinery that supports the operations of cruising, turning, and stopping in ordinary everyday driving can be directly perceived with the senses."

I am totally in love with this fuel gauge:

I'm also loving the navigation dial, which shows you which way to go with a boardgame-style spinning arrow, illustrates your route with a simple Etch-a-Sketch-style line, and inexplicably gives you the distance in meters to the nearest sow.

I'm not sure what "Kikai" means in Japanese, but I'm guessing it means "Difficult to clean."

But I still want one.

We thought it wouldn't happen, but yesterday Nike reps did indeed visit Michael J. Fox and present him with a working pair of Nike Mags! Modeled after the sneakers with "power laces" that Nike devised for Back to the Future II, the Mags appear identical to what we saw in the movie, although the unseen mechanism operates more realistically; while the kicks in the flick tightened with the speedy whoosh that we associate with air-powered tools, the real-life Mags are battery-powered, tightening (and loosening) the laces at a more measured pace.

Here's Fox trying them on for the first time:

When we first saw the sneakers in the movie as kids, we thought the "power laces" were a cool gimmick. But with Fox suffering from Parkinson's Disease, it seems self-tightening shoes might actually be a boon to the differently-abled, if Nike can work out the UI (i.e. buttons requiring the user to have fine motor control might not be the best choice). And we've seen Nike produce sneakers for the differently-abled before with the Flyeases.

It appears Nike will pursue "power laces" or some variant of technologically-adjustable shoes, as the company writes that "this is just the first iteration."

Whether or not they design future iterations specifically tuned for those with disabilities, the design will directly play a helpful role. The company is putting the Mags in production (albeit in a limited run) and in spring of 2016 they'll be sold at auction only. They'll likely fetch high prices—the auction for the 2011 Mags, which did not feature "power laces," netted $4.7 million—which is great, as all proceeds will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

With a host of other corporations trying to cash in on Back to the Future tie-ins this week, it's nice to see Nike throwing their weight around to help others rather than trying to boost their quarterly earnings.

We've previously mentioned coffee tables with storage, but some dining tables have built-in storage, too. Extra space for stashing the tableware will often be welcome, but I'm also interested in such tables because many people use their dining tables as a workspace as well as a dining space and would appreciate having storage for the supplies they use. 

Some tables have storage compartments built into the tabletop. The Hansen Family makes a table with two covered cubbies—the covers have wood on one side and slate on the other, so they can serve as trivets. That's a smart idea! There are also five choices of interior colors for the cubbies; providing color options is always nice.

The Planks dining table from Benchmark, designed by Max Lamb, has one large storage compartment with three lid pieces. This might allow for larger (or at least longer) items to be stored. 

One possible drawback: With those finger holes, I can see crumbs (and maybe other small items) accumulating in the storage area.

The Hide dining table from Bolia, designed by Outofstock, uses a different approach to create a fairly large storage space. As Outofstock explains, "The table top surface is able to rotate 100º in both directions, revealing 75% of the storage surface when fully opened." It's nice to see storage built into this smaller table, since the homes most in need of extra storage will often be those without room for large dining tables.

Crate and Barrel's expandable Flip dining table also has a hidden compartment under the tabletop. This might be awkward to reach if the tabletop is usually flipped out to full size, though.

Another approach to providing storage is to include drawers in the table's design. The drawers on the Osaka table from Bentley Designs have felt inlays, and there are no handles that a person sitting at the end might bump into.

The Loft table from Team 7 has drawer dividers, which will be useful if the end user chooses to store things that fit into those dividers. It would be nice if those dividers were adjustable, though, to fit a wider range of storage needs.

The Noyar dining table from OBJ Studio has removable compartments in its drawers, which will make it easier to clean them if need be. The end user could also use them to carry the cutlery back to the table after it's been washed, making it easier to put things away.

Table drawers can also be placed along the long side of the dining table, as Urban Forest Furniture does with its dining table. These drawers can be opened from either side of the table, so it won't matter if one side is close to a wall. Since the drawers are not flush with the edge of the table, the handles shouldn't cause any problem for the people seated at it.

Silver Coast Company has a trestle table which provides storage via a shelf under the table. None of these storage tables I've seen provides a locking mechanism, so the end user will always need to be cautious about what's stored in them if small children are around. But the storage here will be very accessible to pets as well as children, increasing the need for caution. 

It's also not a solution for those concerned about dust getting onto the things being stored, if they are stored in the open as shown above. But in the right circumstances, I can see this shelf holding boxes, caddies or other containers and serving the end user very well.

Another way to provide storage is to include it in the table base, as Vig Furniture does with its Modrest Aegean dining table. 

This particular design is somewhat limited, since it is intended just for wine storage. It has that easy access which could be an issue with small children, but at least a cat or dog is unlikely to harm a wine bottle. One caution: Since light and temperature are important in wine storage, end users would need to ensure the table could be appropriately located.

Yesterday Domino’s Pizza pulled the sheets off of their DXP, a vehicle whose sole purpose is to deliver pizzas. Built from modified Chevy Sparks, the DXP (from “delivery expert,” which is what Domino’s calls their mobile army of pizza deliverypeople) has had its interior modified to carry 80 pizzas on no-slip, easy-to-clean surfaces. The passenger seat has been replaced with a console that stores condiments, napkins and soda, while the back seat has been ripped out and replaced with a four-pizza-capacity oven that tops out at 140 degrees. The driver accesses the oven from outside of the car, pressing a button on the key fob to pop the lid.

The design was the result of a Local Motors competition that saw some 385 entries. Domino’s was excited enough about the prospect to hire Kenneth R. Baker, a former GM R&D executive, to get things moving; with the involvement of Chevrolet and industry supplier Roush Enterprises, the renderings became a reality.

The DXPs get 39 miles to the gallon, despite being built on the non-electric Spark platform; the average Domino’s pizza delivery vehicle is on the road too frequently to park for charging, as the company’s drivers collectively cover 10 million miles per week.

While the DXP might seem like a frivolous vehicle, the implications of this project point towards a future where car design is a little more interesting. If different industries could commission, relatively affordably, vehicles custom-suited to their trades, it’s not unreasonable to think manufacturers might build stripped-down or even modular vehicles intended to be easily customized; crowdsourced design competitions could then pitch it to suggest innovative kit, and suppliers like Roush could find themselves in an interesting and challenging new design world.

Think of, for instance, a quicker, lightweight and easy-to-maneuver ambulance or patient transportation vehicle; or the pet-transporting vehicles you see on the road, which in NYC are just standard minivans with vinyl wraps; or vehicles used to transport bicycles. The resultant vehicles might not be as sexy as a Lamborghini Gallardo kitted out with organ transplant coolers, but there would surely be more variety on the roads, with a greater number of minds contributing to their creation.

Lastly, I hope that for the sake of American jobs, the DXP is a success. I’d prefer to keep deliverypeople, parts suppliers and Chevy workers all employed, rather than have Domino’s revisit this 2013 experiment:

Aesthetically and stylistically, this piece of furniture is all over the place—the builder refers to it as "Art Deco style" and I humbly disagree—but there's no denying the exacting craftsmanship that went into it. Craig Thibodeau, a San-Diego-based custom furniture builder, presumably built this David-Roentgen-inspired Automaton Table as a showpiece, to illustrate to his customers what's possible in the way of hidden compartments:

I thought it would be cool if the spinning puzzle was actually a combination lock, but Thibodeau's probably got to get some sleep sooner or later.

You can see more of his work here.

See also:

- Awesome 18th Century Transforming Gaming Table by David Roentgen

- Another Insane Piece of Transforming Furniture from the 18th Century

- Must-See French Mechanical Desks From Centuries Past

- Furniture with Secret Compartments, Part 1

- Furniture with Secret Compartments, Part 2: Ready to Make Your Own?

Myriad criteria are used to define a classic or vintage car: from its year and make, to which years it served as a racecar and who drove it. The single greatest factor seems to be the price a classic trades for and what degree of preservation and restoration it enjoys. Here are the five vintage cars that have traded for the highest prices ever at auction.

1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider - $18.5 Million

Image courtesy of supercars.net

Six months ago, this 1961 Spider quickly sold and claimed all-time 5th place status. The black Spider was at various times owned by a number of actors, including Frenchmen Gerard Blain and Alain Delon of Airport '77 fame — Blain sold the car to Delon. Jane Fonda also owned this Spider, and there's a famous mid-1960s photo taken of her with it. This particular Spider was also rediscovered after languishing in nigh-obscurity as it had previously been thought lost or destroyed.

1964 Ferrari 275 GTB/C Speciale - $26.4 Million

Image courtesy of classicarnews.com

A year ago this last August in Pebble Beach, a fortunate bidder claimed this duotone grey, six-Weber-carburetor, 320-horsepower-enabled Speciale. The car was built by hand and has a transaxle gearbox. The best part: this Speciale is one of three, and the other two are as likely to leave their owners' climate-controlled garages as pigs who adapt to breathing water. 

1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S NART Spider - $27.7 Million

Image courtesy of autoblog.com

NART stands for North American Racing Team. Enzo Ferrari built the NART Spiders, either way. Only ten were made, and they all had a wishbone independent suspension atop their five-speed. This particular Spider was notable because it was initially a charitable gift. This Spider was exhaustively restored and has a quad-cam engine.

1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 Silver Arrow - $29.6 Million

Image courtesy of George Sander via flickr.com

In second place for dollar command is this 1954 Silver Arrow. This exact model was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio, a mechanic by trade and an iconic Grand Prix champion who was regarded with utmost respect within the field. Furthermore, only thirteen other Silver Arrows exist beyond this one. Mercedes-Benz still has possession of six and several more are in museums and with their respective owners.

The Silver Arrow's mechanics included technology that was quite ahead of its time. The car has a desmodromic valve actuation. This means that in lieu of a four-stroke engine that cycles air and fuel at the beginning of a cycle, and expels exhaust gases at the end, there are two dedicated actuators for closing and opening, sans reliance on a spring. The Silver Arrow's motor was calibrated by fuel injection.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta - $38 Million

Image courtesy of autoblog.com

The single most expensive car that sold at auction is a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for just over 38 million dollars. When it happened, it was the first 250 GTO to be auctioned after years of exclusive ownership—its previous sale was a private one. Interestingly, the sale also occurred on the anniversary date of the death of Enzo Ferrari, the car's designer and constructor.

Yet why is a GTO model the most expensive car ever? The answer is a simple one. A GTO almost never comes up for auction, because if one becomes available for sale, it's never for lack of a buyer. The GTO, which stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, is also rated one of the greatest Ferraris of all time. The Berlinetta was also one of, if not the first, cars to have disc brakes.

Vintage cars are much the focus of vanity—what one can afford, and what one can flaunt, much like a trophy wife on a multimillionaire's arm. Most of these expensively traded vehicles are gawked at from a comfortable distance under guarded watch at auto museums—only wealthy prospects are afforded the time to test drive, let alone own them. Famous owners of expensive vintage autos include Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, fashion icon Ralph Lauren, and some former Microsoft higher-ups like former chief software designer Gregory Whitten and former president Jon Shirley.

Thus we end the list at a grand total of a little over 140 million dollars for only 5 cars. It's worth mentioning that some of these prices will be even higher due to post-sale deals. What is your favorite pick from the list? Did we miss anything?

What's the first thing you do when you wake up? I suspect you reach over to the nightstand, grab your phone and see what you've missed during the seven hours you inconsiderately turned your back on the world to be unconscious.

My vision is always blurry for the first ten minutes after I get up. Rather than stick my phone two inches in front of my face, I'd prefer to get out of bed and see my missed texts, news, weather or whatever information I need on a larger surface; at least three hackers want the same thing, and have cobbled together their own solutions.

Brooklyn-based Hannah Mittelstaedt is an Android Engineer at Etsy. That being the case, she's swimming in Android devices—"We had too many," she writes—so she took a trip to Canal Plastic Center, bought a cheap two-way mirror and stuffed a hacked 2012 Nexus 7 behind it. "Sad old devices are ideal" for her Home Mirror project, says Mittelstaedt. Here's the result:

Netherlands-based tinkerer Michael Teeuw was on a trip to New York City when he spotted a mirror featuring an illuminated sign inside Macy's. "[I thought] this is something I could build myself, only better," he writes. "I wanted my own Magic Mirror!"

Back home he went on numerous shopping/observation trips where he studied a variety of computer monitors, and the store clerks must've thought he was crazy, as he spent most of his time examining the backs of the monitors rather than the screens. "Most (cheap) 24" monitors have a native 1080P resolution," so he was more concerned with how the thing would mount to the wall. Monitors with rear-mounted connections were a no-go.

Teeuw then tore off the back, built a DIY wooden frame, added a Raspberry Pi and coded up the interface.

As cool as Mittelstaedt and Teeuw's mirrors are, they lack interactivity. "When I started the project, I figured the interface would not allow any direct interaction with using the mirror," Teeuw writes. "This would result in grease and smudges on my shiny mirror, but more important: there are better devices for user interaction. I wanted the Magic Mirror to be a passive source of information."

"What was even more important is the fact that the mirror should be usable as a mirror, and thus it should not be completely filled with (useless) information. Only the outer corners should be used for content. Leaving enough room to see my shiny self."

Inspired by both Mittelstaedt and Teeuw, Washington-based web developer Evan Cohen decided he'd develop his own Smart Mirror, and see if he could push it a bit further. Cohen took Teeuw's Raspberry Pi/monitor approach, decided to crack the interactivity problem with voice commands and connected the system to his Philips Hue lightbulbs to boot. Luckily for us, he's made a video to demonstrate how it all turned out:

For those of you hack-tastic enough to try your hand, details for the individual projects are available at the links above. In addition, there are several more you can check out here.

This is one of my most prized possessions, a first-print edition of Burton Stevenson's The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases from 1948.

(Please ignore the dogs, they like the smell of old books and I couldn't shoo them out of the photo.)

The book is filled with nothing but short snippets, making it the perfect thing to flip through while you're waiting in line, on the subway or at the airport. But at nearly 3,000 pages it's too unwieldy to carry around and certainly too delicate to throw into a backpack.

Several years ago I looked into having the book digitized and put into my smartphone, but none of the book-scanning options I could find were good. One service told me they could only do it by destroying the book in the process, ripping the pages out of the spine to scan it flat; another service featured an absurdly huge machine with two glass platens to keep the pages flat, two overhead cameras set at angles and a special lighting set-up—and the price they quoted me was attendantly horrific.

Now it's just a few years later and those big machines are about to become obsolete. The pages of scanned books needn't be held flat any longer, as software can correct for irregular geometry, OCR software is getting better and tiny, cheap, powerful cameras are becoming ubiquitous. It's just a matter of time before something like the Czur, billed as "The world's first true smart scanner," becomes the standard. Look at how it works, how easy the UI is and how it can be used for more than just books:

I do wish the video demonstration didn't feature a short story (Faulkner's "That Evening Sun") that prominently features the N-word twice on the same page. But developer Kang Zhou hails from Shenzhen, so English not being his first language, I guess we've gotta give the guy a pass.

(By the bye, sharp-eyed readers: If you freeze-frame on the story snippet, there's a telltale sign that they're actually scanning a pirated version of the short story. Can you spot the giveaway?)

The Czur is currently taking pre-orders on Indiegogo (it's already been nearly 800% funded) for $199, and that price includes a foot pedal not shown in the video. It's expected to retail for $399 and will ship in January. I'm tempted to order one so I can finally scan the Stevenson tome, but I know that the second I do, someone will finally release a digital version of it.

With designers considering the entire life cycle of new products and the boundaries between form and function blurring, our approach to materials carries more weight than ever before. But so far there hasn't been an easy way to learn about materials or stay current with the latest innovations taking shape. To fill that void, Eastman Chemical Company recently re-launched the Eastman Innovation Lab, their storytelling platform connecting members of the design community to material science. "In the US, some students spend time studying materials and processing, but much of the learning is hands-on after that," explained EIL's Creative Manager, Farrell Calabrese. "By working directly with the design community we begin to facilitate that continued learning." 

The website was updated and expanded based on user feedback and caters to just about anyone involved in the world of design: students, educators, industrial designers, architects, design engineers and brands. It's structured around four sections—Materials, Projects, Stories and Themes—that work in tandem to help users better understand materials and processes. 

The anchor point of the website is its Materials Library, guiding users through Eastman's portfolio with vital technical information. Alongside it are Projects, featuring case studies that point to specific design challenges and their material solutions, and Stories, chronicling the team's most successful collaborations and giving insight into an informed design process. If you're looking for a place to start, the Themes section allows you to explore a broader idea—like Sustainability or Education—before diving into specific case studies. 

By uncovering innovative ways of using existing materials and creating a space to explore new material solutions, the platform really drives home the notion that true innovation doesn't happen in isolation. It enables the worlds of design and engineering to meet somewhere in the middle and let material knowledge push design forward. "An example of that, though an older example, is when we worked with Ziba to explore the material benefits of our Tritan(Tm) material," explains Calabrese. "They really challenged our engineers to think outside of the box and push the material to do things we did not think were possible. In return, Ziba's designers were able to create a beautiful application driven by the functionalities of the material, working with it in an intimate way and pushing its capabilities. Both parties learned so much through that process and that's what the EIL is about—sharing those experiences so that everyone can learn from them."

I can hardly believe that it's been a full decade since I started the Bicycle Design blog by posting one of my old marker renderings. Though I started with a few of my own sketches, what really kept me interested in blogging were the design submissions from others that I began to receive in those first few months. Over the past 10 years, readers have shared some great designs with the community here, so I want to take the opportunity to look back on this 10th anniversary of Bicycle Design and share a few of the top posts.

Because Bicycle Design was hosted on Blogger at bicycledesign.blogspot.com for the first 4 ½ years, very few posts prior to the February 2010 move are included in the Google Analytics data. As a result, this list heavily skewed toward the last 5 years, but with that caveat in mind, here are the top 25 Bicycle Design posts ranked by total page views:

The Smart ebike is a pedal-assisted bicycle conceived by former Mercedes Benz intern Hussein Al-Attar, which he developed for the company in 2010. 

1. The Smart ebike by Hussein Al-Attar

Bicycle Design previews the 11-speed Shimano Alfine Hub, which compared to their 8-speed is about 90 grams lighter with 100% greater gear range. 

2. Shimano Alfine 11-speed

James Thomas speaks with the industrial designers behind the SRAM Red 2012 group of bike components, which incorporates new technology including trim-less front shifting and multi-link brake design.

3. The design of SRAM Red 2012

Will electric trikes like this replace cars on the road in the future? 

4. Drymer: a Dutch electric assist trike

The Mando Footloose is a chainless electric bike. How does it work? Short answer: the cranks turn an alternator that generates power to drive the rear wheel.

5. Mando Footloose: a chainless hybrid e-bike

For his final project before graduation, design student Yojiro Oshima designed and made a wooden bike that incorporates the benefits of a beam frame and a standard frame. The short cantilevered seat beam was designed to "reduce large impacts" while the "seat stay and the chain stay remain as usual to assure the stiffness."

6. Wooden bike by Yojiro Oshima

Suspension for the road is not exactly a new idea, but the Swing Shock that SR Suntour launched at Eurobike brings something new to the table. The Alloy and Magnesium Swing Shock was designed to replace the rigid forks found on many urban and commuter bikes. It offers 30mm of travel at a reasonable weight of 2.87 pounds, and it has simple lines that visually work on an urban fixie or singlespeed.

7. SR Suntour Swing Shock

Pro triathlete TJ Tollakson's bike setup is ultra customized and surprisingly experimental.

8. Is TJ Tollakson the Graeme Obree of triathlon?

Designer of the Trimtab David Parrott explained that he designed the recumbent trike as a transportation design project created through the lens of "Slow Design". He points out that, "it's a 3WD, electric-assisted, lean steered delta trike with seasonal fabric skins & seating, an acrylic aircraft-style canopy, and flatbed storage."

9. Trimtab 3×3 recumbent trike

The Urban Arrow electric assisted bakfiets bike was nominated for a Eurobike award— the bike rides up hills with ease and has a cargo box made from lightweight, high density foam. 

10. Urban Arrow- an electric assist bakfiets design

The new Turbo, just launched in Spain, is definitely an e-bike that is aimed at changing the category's image problem. This is not an e-bike designed for aging riders who don't want to pedal hard, but for young urban professionals who want to ride a bike that is fast, high-tech, and good looking.

11. Specialized Turbo e-bike

The Rael road bike concept by Evan Solida features upside down brake levers that increase modulation and power when braking as well as a redesigned stem that makes it easier for riders to find their ideal sitting position. 

12. Rael road bike concept 2.0

Two electric bike concepts released by Lexus and Volkswagen.

13. E-bikes from Lexus and VW

Bikes created by Pinarello/Diesel and Rapha, geared toward the fashionable crowd. 

14. Diesel/ Pinarello urban bike

Thomas gives his thoughts on riding the Batavus BUB commuter bike.

15. Batavus BUB review

The Organic Transit ELF, a electric/human powered hybrid vehicle, introduces a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter.

16. Organic Transit ELF

Cannondale has certainly come up with some strange concepts for bicycles over the years, but sometimes deviating from accepted norms is exactly how products evolve for the better. 

17. I must like harebrained ideas

Examples of off-road cruiser concepts for the beach or woods. 

18. Trek Sasquatch and Sand Crawler Cruisers

Stephen Britt designs a pair of electric assist pedals: "These replace your standard pedals and provide you with assistance to get you up hills, or carry heavy loads. Each pedal incorporates a motor, gearbox, Li-po batteries and a control board. As you pedal the sensors detect your effort and provide assistance. They unclip and slot into a charger for charging, much like with a power tool."

19. Fast Forward powered pedals

One year after a 7 pound custom fixie is made, Jason Woznick of Fairwheel Bikes manages to build a bike under 6 pounds. So where is the bottom limit for road bike weight?

20. A 6-pound road bike

What happens when you ask a rocket scientist to build a bicycle? Apparently, you get the City Cycle, which at first glance looks like a cross between the Hopsworkfiets beer bike and a city bus. Casimir Sienkiewicz and his team at Caztek Engineering usually work on projects for the aerospace or medical industries, but they jumped at the chance to design and build a 14 passenger "pedal-powered pub" which will be used by City Cycle Tours of St. Petersburg Florida for tours of the city's historic waterfront.

21. City Cycle-a pedal-powered pub

Thomas discusses the hype behind the sleek McLaren Venge road bike: "In the five years since I started this blog, I really can't remember a single bike release that generated so much attention on the internet so quickly."

22. Specialized McLaren Venge

After working a bit with handicap aids during his education, designer Marius Hjelmervik became frustrated with the fact that many of the products, though well engineered, "look like something out of a hospital from the 60's". With his final student project at the School of Architecture in Arhus, Denmark, he set out to create an off-road hand cycle that "looks like a modern bike, with great quality and rider experience, but doesn't cost a year's worth of income."

23. Forzer off-road handcycle by Marius Hjelmervik

Bicycle Design looks back at the Black Hole, a hubless wheel design from the 90s. 

24. A hubless wheel from the past: The Black Hole

Do advanced electric assisting cycling technologies allow for a new way to cheat in racing competitions?

25. Mechanical doping and the future of e-bikes

As I mentioned, there were quite a few posts that were popular from 2005 to 2009 that didn't make this list. The early guest posts by Mark Sanders and MichaelDownes were quite popular (as was my feature post about Michael in 2006). Posts about the Cannondale Jackknife concept bike (2006) and the JANO dual bike (2007) were among the first to be picked up by large blogs like TreeHugger and Gizmodo to really cause a spike in page views at Bicycle design. Joules, the electric stoker was another post that spread around the web and drove a lot of traffic back to this blog. The most viewed posts by far prior to the 2010 switch to WordPress were those from the 2008/09 "Commuter Bike for the Masses" Design Competition that I staged here at the old blogspot site. You can see the six finalists and the winner from that competition here.

Strida folding bike design by Mark Sanders

Looking back, it really has been a great ten years. Thanks to those of you who have been reading since the beginning...and to those of you who just started.

This post originally appeared on Bicycle Design.