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Young Farmers Develop Sub-$100 Laser Scanner

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Jason Smith and Weston Downs knew each other in high school. They had to; there were only five people in their entire class. Both raised on farms in small-town Montana, they parted ways after graduation, with Smith attending Harvard to study engineering, while Downs attended Montana State U. to study aviation. But once their degrees were earned, the pair returned to their family farms, which is good news for the digital fabrication community: Because it is there, in Big Timber, Montana, that they developed the CowTech Ciclop, a $99 open source 3D scanner.

"Our scanner is a fully open source machine, strongly based off the BQ Ciclop, an open source scanner made by the Spanish tech company BQ," write Smith. "[It's also] the first 3D laser scanner on the market under $100, shattering every competing price-point." Take a look:

At press time there were 27 days left to pledge, but Smith and Downs were already 600% funded; they'd sought just ten large, and to date have netted $60,000-plus.

It's clever and practical to let users print their own components in order to keep the price down. We were also intrigued by Smith and Downs' story; with a company name like CowTech, and an engineer pitching a digital fabrication add-on while wearing a T-shirt that says "Trust Me - I'm a Farmer," you've got our attention. 

Jason Smith
Weston Downs

We connected with Smith for a brief Q&A:

Core77: Is CowTech the name only of the scanner, or is it a company that you'll be launching more products from in the future?

Jason Smith: Ciclop is the name of the Scanner, CowTech is the name of our company that we plan to launch further products from, as well as a prototyping and design service. Our short term plans for projects are not set, we will finish this campaign before deciding on another one.

We plan to pick products that are enjoyable to design that also have market potential, and eventually plan to create products that are very applicable to farming and ranching. We have a number of ideas in the pipeline, but we aren't ready to release any of them yet.

What motivated you to return home after college?

A lot of things motivated my return to the family ranch. It was always my plan when I left home, to come back to it. Ranching is a way of life that is incredibly unique. It's hard to explain to people who weren't born and raised on a farm or ranch but you develop a connection to the land, the cattle, the lifestyle, that is hard to find anywhere else.

I wanted to go somewhere out of the state and away from home for college, just so I had a chance to see what else was out there. It's easy to be a little sheltered coming from a rural Montana community, and there is a big world out there. Interestingly, the city and all its opportunities and offerings helped me develop a greater appreciation for the lifestyle that I grew up with. After 4 years in Boston, there was little doubt in my mind that my ranch back home in Montana was where I wanted to return to.

Can you describe the different types of satisfaction gained in successfully executing farmwork versus solving a technological/engineering problem?

There are many obvious surface differences between engineering and ranching, but at their core they have many of the same draws. You put in hours of labor and sweat equity, but at the end of the day there is such tangible proof of the job you have done as well as a feeling of meaning that doesn't come with many jobs.

In many cases, ranching is engineering on a smaller scale. Miles from town, you can't afford to drive to the parts store on a whim. You often have to design a way to keep things working, at least temporarily, to get the job done. This kind of on-the-job makeshift engineering is a lot of what made me want to be an engineer, and where Weston derives much of his engineering talent. Whether we are on the tractor or inside running the laser cutter, we are solving engineering problems every day.


A User-Configured Modular Power Strip

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Power strips are woefully outdated objects. Most that you see today are not terribly different from the power strips of twenty years ago, despite the explosion in the popularity of electronic devices that the past two decades has brought us. Thus a trio of Munich-based designers calling themselves Good Gadgets have designed Youmo, a "smart modular power strip" that meets modern-day demands by allowing the end user to configure the strip at will.

This design raises an interesting question about the future of the power strip. Prior to the advent of cell phones and iPods, power strips were items that were meant to be unseen; they lived under a desk or behind a piece of furniture. There was nothing that we carried around in our pockets that needed to be charged,so we plugged things into power strips once, rarely unplugging them or interacting with them in any way.

Nowadays, of course, we unplug multiple items every day, making the floor or the underside of a desk an inconvenient location for a power strip. You'll notice that the examples in the Youmo video show the device residing on desktop, tabletop and countertop surfaces, within the end user's immediate plane of interaction. 

In your opinion, is that the new "home" for these objects? If so, it's a bit ironic; smartphones, for instance, have allowed us to combine many objects into one, reducing one type of clutter. And replacing it with another, in that there's now yet another item that must claim real estate on our desks.

At press time the Youmo was nearly funded, with USD $50,000 pledged towards a $55,000 goal and 36 days left to pledge.

Reader Submitted: Shibusa: The Modular, Dual-Function Bicycle

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Shibusa is a hassle-free commuting solution for getting to and from work while maintaining the ability to enjoy bike-riding in other recreational situations. Shibusa offers the benefit of being a capable electric-assist bicycle while also maintaining the spirit of a human-powered bike when the necessary components are swapped out. Modular components of the bike are both upgradeable and interchangeable meaning that personal appeal and possibilities far surpass that of current bicycles on the market.

Shibusa is the result of a nine-week bike study by Elvin Chu, Joshua Dycus, and Courtney Gruber, and advised by Professor Kevin Shankwiler with sponsorship by SRAM.

View the full project here

What The Funk: Why Don't Americans Ferment More Stuff?

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We Americans don't pickle like other countries pickle. And before you pipe up about how often you make pickles, or your mom does, or that one friend who wants everyone to love kombucha does, that's great but by U.S. standards you're special and internationally we're still behind.

While stateside the word pickle carries a specific vinegary-cucumber meaning, everywhere else in the world it almost always includes fermenting. The history of fermented foods is so long you could argue that pickles helped build human civilization. It's one of the simplest and safest methods of preserving, it can make nutrients more bioavailable and food easier to digest. 

Fermentation hasn't always been specialized or foreign to us. Before the rise of mass-produced canned goods American pickles were just as funky, homemade, and diverse as Japan's. Today's fermentation advocates range from gourmet cooks to Pinteresty health gurus, with a well-worn path through homebrewing country. But the practice just isn't as popular here as in countries like China or Norway. Hell, Korea's national dish is a spicy fermented pickle pile!

So what's our problem?

Is that from Bubbie's?

Yes, we're lazy. But even that isn't a great excuse. The easiest, oldest, and most common method of pickling is "lacto fermentation" which uses naturally occurring lactobacillus bacteria to preserve the food while choking out more harmful bacteria that cause rot. No vinegar, no heat, and no complicated pressure canning. You just cover your veggies with liquid, or mash them until they produce their own liquid, and let them sit for awhile. 

So why don't more people try it? Is it because it takes time? Is it the hipster/hippie associations? Is the 1950s canning industrial complex to blame? Or is it that we'd rather spend our precious minutes away from the computer making fancy pourover coffee and Snapchatting instead? Probably all of those, but (like a good American) I think pickling's popularity could be increased with cool gadgets, and sleeker tools might be a solution.

Fittingly, the design constraints on tools for lacto fermenting are incredibly simple. Mainly, you need to maintain an anaerobic (oxygen free) environment, where the good bacteria can flourish without exposure to the rot-producing microbes that do enjoy oxygen. Then you need to allow gas to escape while they eat the food and release their little bacteria farts. To do this you keep your foods submerged under liquid. 

And...that is it.

Kimchi demystified: put your salty cabbage in a pot.

Existing tools used in lacto fermenting range from incredibly oldschool to maybe-sort-of-modern. Some methods would only appeal to the same people who make traditional sourdough from scratch, and some would be at home on late-night infomercials. On the OG end of the spectrum are Korean onggi. These stoneware jars have been used to make kimchi and other preserved vegetables for centuries. They have a loose-fitting cap with an overhanging lip to let gas escape. Like a huge cookie jar, but full of cabbages. 

OG Onggi: Happiness is a yard full of kimchi.

Another age-old method is the the water-seal crock. These have been popular in many regions for a very long time, and both European and Chinese styles are still in use. Once filled with vegetables and liquid you keep the food submerged with something wide and heavy. The crock's lid sits in a trough of water that surrounds the mouth of the pot. This water barrier allows bubbles of carbon dioxide to escape the pot without additional oxygen or bacteria getting back in. This adds greater control - and safety - to the process with minimal fuss.

The sombrero brim is full of water.

If adoption of cooking trends was based solely on the attractiveness of the tools, these would probably show the most promise. In addition to the classic water crock styles, contemporary ceramics artists have adopted their own take on the method, and the form invites stylistic interpretations. Overall it's pretty idiot-proof, but would it be possible to update this type to be less heavy or delicate? Could a food-grade silicone, glass or flexible material work, while adding greater dishwasher-friendliness? And why aren't they stackable? I don't just eat sauerkraut. 

Totoros? Or modern water seal crocks made by Careen Stoll Ceramics.

People also use simple canning jars. They're cheap, see-through, and easy to clean... but they don't offer the ability to mitigate oxygen and other bacteria. The Pickl-It is one unfortunately named but straightforward solution for people who want the simplicity of swing top canning jars plus the safety of a water lock. These lids are a pre-made version of a DIY hack, taking an off-the-shelf Fido lid and adding the type of water lock you can buy for a buck or two from home brewing suppliers. 

Pickl-Its: The DIY solution for people who don't DIY.

The upside: they're fairly modular and fit a common base. Downside: they're not pretty, not stackable, a little unwieldy, and kind of expensive for what you get. Is it possible to streamline that water port? Definitely. Could you make something more self-contained that fits a standard Mason or canning jar? You know it.

The successfully kickstarted Kraut Source proves there's demand for that. It's a slightly sleeker Mason jar option with a bit more built in functionality. The stainless lid combines the traditional water seal with a spring-loaded depressor to keep food compressed. Plus it still looks rustic and artisanal so your food will take on a hip, Portland-chic terroir. 

But for the cutest pickle products, look to Japan. Not just adorable, Japanese pickle presses are a surprisingly simple option. While the construction of the most readily available styles (on English language sites) tends on the cheap and plasticky side, the core design is fun. It's just a French press for food! Load your veggies and liquid into the tupperware-like box, and screw the depressor down to keep them submerged. Et voila! Tsukemono or so. 

Bodum recommends course-ground cucumbers.

If you have room on your counter for a bullet blender, you could probably justify a pickle press. These little glass ones for quicker pickles do a pretty job by leaning into simplicity. And I'd bet good money that there are tons of beautiful or hilarious versions that my lackluster Google Translate skills couldn't unearth.

Japanese pickle weight, or exquisite design object?

And these are just the simple and traditional jumping off points. It's odd that in this era of whole-foods awareness, high tech home brewing, and sensor-filled kitchen appliances we don't have digital gadgets intended for chic picklers. While the fermentation process is exactly the same when you're using an earthenware pot and a brick, those components could be smartened up. Or maybe just gussied up. A modern chef loves elegant tooling.

Why We Should be More Pretentious, Emojis for Designers and an Intimate Look at the Industrial Revolution

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Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.

Grafters: Industrial Society in Image and Word

More looking than reading here: We Make Money Not Art visits a photography exhibition that finds a human (and artful) aspect of industrial photography through a collection of atypical worker depictions. The variety of relationships between manufacturing and man in the samples hints at a richness that is missing from portrayals of today's craft resurgence.

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

Did Keyboard Design Peak in the Late '90s?

I found this Afterpad post about how to hook up a retro keyboard to an iPad—and why you would want to do so in the first place—strangely compelling, mainly for its informative digression on the three major types of keyboards (scissor-style, rubber dome and mechanical) and its convincing argument for why mechanical offers the best typing experience. After going down the rabbit hole of related links—naturally, there's an r/mechanicalkeyboards subreddit—I'm starting to wonder if my standard-issue Apple wireless keyboard is in need of a serious upgrade, er, downgrade. 

Mason Currey, senior editor

Umberto Eco: "We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die"

The list of reasons I love Umberto Eco is long and describes its own contents. This short interview shows off his sense of humor, his love of words, and why he's a writer, philosopher, and grumpy Italian grandpa that we should all miss.

—Kat Bauman, contributing writer

Juliette Cezzar on Accepting Critique and Overcoming Resistance

I try to carve out some time each week to read a long, meaty, meaningful piece of content — and often find myself turing to The Great Discontent for their in-depth interviews with those who create. This week was an easy choice, as they recently featured the one and only Juliette Cezzar, who I admire greatly for her work and leadership in the design world. She talks about her path to design and learning to take critique, along with other lessons learned along the way. Okay, I'll stop fangirling now.

—Carly Ayres, columnist, In The Details

Say It with a Noguchi Table

This week Curbed introduced a set of emojis that the architecture and design tribe can call their own—because, let's face it, sometimes what you really want to say is best expressed by a tiny Frank Gehry flipping the bird

Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women

A Mapping App For Urban Wanderers

Efficiency in getting from point A to point B is overrated—there is so much to be gained from a little meandering. Likeways, an app released last month, tries to make that easier by generating a more circuitous route to your destination while taking you to some lesser-known, interesting venues along the way. These spots are sourced through their popularity on social media, but users can opt out of that feature and simply enjoy being off the beaten path. 

—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant

Why We Should All Be More Pretentious

Signs of pretentiousness for many of us will often induce eye rolls, but as author Dan Fox discusses in a recent interview, pretentiousness might be something creative people (like designers) actually benefit from if they can bear to embrace the trait from time to time: "Pretentiousness is a driving force in art, because it entails risk—the risk of over-stretching your ability, of perhaps falling flat on your face. But if you played it safe all the time, you'd never get anywhere interesting.

—Allison Fonder, community manager

Improvising On-Site With Minimal Hand Tools & Crazy-Looking but Effective DIY Power Tools in This Week's Makers Roundup

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Improvising On-Site with Few Tools

Proof that you don't need a shop full of fancy tools in order to make things: This week we get a rare look at one of Jimmy DiResta's onsite builds, where he travels to a tradeshow in Arizona with only a bag of hand tools. He creates a display counter out of construction lumber and palette wood using a handsaw, a block plane, a gouge, a drill/driver and a whole lot of improv. (Funny story: On the "Making It" podcast, Jimmy revealed that after he finished sawing all of the 2x4s by hand--an exhausting task--he looked down and discovered that someone had left a circular saw by his feet.)

Pedal to the Metal

Speaking of the "Making It" podcast, Jimmy's co-host Bob Clagett wanted a quick way to mute his microphone, so that viewers don't have to listen to a coughing fit or a bout of throat-clearing. Here he shows you how he created a mute pedal from scratch and wired it up:

DIY Wood Lathe

Just another week for Matthias Wandel and another of his crazy engineering experiments: Is it possible he could build a DIY lathe, primarily out of wood? Well, you've seen Wandel's videos before, so what do you think?

Circular Saw Sled on a Turntable

Speaking of crazy experiments, this week Izzy Swan continues tinkering with the turntable he built last time. This time, he attaches a circular saw above it and discovers he can not only plane the surface, but cut this impossible circular cove pattern:

Enormous Khaya Breakfast Bar

Frank Howarth continues building out his breakfast bar, this time wrangling some enormous pieces of khaya wood--and contending with a couple of potentially disastrous errors right from the get-go. Some of the best learning comes from watching how people get themselves out of jams, and I'm always thankful when builders leave the mistakes and Oh crap moments in their videos.

Tung in Chic

If there's a dark art in working wood, it's finishing. Between oils, varnishes, lacquers and polyurethanes, which is the best material to apply to a workbench? Brush on, wipe on or spray? Here Jesse de Geest explains his Keep-It-Simple-Stupid approach and favorite finishing product:

Portable LED Lighting on a Budget

I love my Festool Syslite, which has come in handy on a lot of occasions; but I won mine in a raffle and didn't have to pay the steep $200 asking price. For those of you looking for similar functionality at a profoundly cheaper cost--just $30 to $45--here Ron Paulk shows you an alternative from FastCap:

Tiny House Attached Storage Shed

Ana and Jacob White cap the back of their mobile tiny house with a storage shed. Along the way, they share a couple of mistakes they made, in hopes you'll avoid them if building something similar:

Benchtop Small Parts Organization

Got tons of small parts that you need organized? Here Linn of the Darbin Orvar YouTube channel shows you how she knocked up her "Ultimate DIY Small Parts Organization Caddy:"

An Introduction to Wood Species, Part 11: Utile / Sipo

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This continuation of the Wood Species series is written by Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker and founder of The Hand Tool School. It has been provided courtesy of the J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber Company, where Rogers works as Director of Marketing.

Utile/Sipo

Entandrophragma utile

Flat sawn Utile on the left, quarter sawn on the right

The names "Utile" and "Sipo" refer to the same species, but it seems as if the public has not yet decided on which name it prefers, as both names are used with equal frequency.

Utile is an African species that is used as a cheaper alternative to Genuine Mahogany, and it is a very popular species in our lumber yard. Utile is probably the Genuine Mahogany alternative that most closely resembles the wood which it is so often used to replace.

Utile still has an interlocking grain like other African species, giving it an alternating light and dark banded look. Although this is not as intense as African Mahogany's bands, Utile is much easier to work and produces less tearing, so it is often chosen over the other African species of Genuine Mahogany alternatives, especially in projects that require a clear coat or stain.

Utile's hardness is somewhere in between African Mahogany and Genuine Mahogany, which, again, makes it a good Genuine Mahogany alternative. For a while, Utile was hard to acquire and was listed as vulnerable, but responsible planting and foresting practices have dramatically increased the wood's availability.

However, at J. Gibson McIlvain Lumber Company we still take great care in our sourcing to acquire only the best specimens, as a wide variety of quality exists, depending on the import region.

We maintain a large volume of Utile in stock at all times, and we generally sell this lumber for exterior uses, cabinetry, and millwork, as well as other applications. The Mahogany-like color and texture make Utile a prized alternative that delivers many of Mahogany's benefits – without the Mahogany price tag.

_________________________________________________________

More Wood Reference:

Species:

» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 1: Properties & Terminology
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 2: Pine
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 3: Oak
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 4: Maple
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 5: Walnut
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 6: Cherry
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 7: Mahogany
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 8: Rosewood
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 9: Ebony
» An Introduction To Wood Species, Part 10: Teak

How Boards are Made:

» How Logs Are Turned Into Boards, Part 1: Plainsawn
» How Logs Are Turned Into Boards, Part 2: Quartersawn
» How Logs Are Turned Into Boards, Part 3: Riftsawn

Wood Movement:

» Wood Movement: Why Does Wood Move? 

» Controlling Wood Movement: The Drying Process 

» Dealing with Wood Movement: Design and Understanding

Reader Submitted: Banano: The Fruit Inspired Mini Speaker

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Banano is a portable speaker designed with the form of a banana as inspiration. I tried to provide a unique and fun user experience by emulating the familiar act of peeling a banana within this product in order to stimulate consumers' senses.

View the full project here

The Power of Design

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The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA)’s International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA 2016®) is open for entry through April 1, 2016, and for the first time, the summer ceremony and gala will be held in the iconic setting of The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.

For 35 years, IDEA has been honoring and promoting design excellence across a wide array of design and related disciplines. The IDEA 2016 jury is led by new Chair Cameron Campbell, IDSA. “I do think that’s the power of design,” says the Proef chief intangibles and strategy officer who’s worked with industry giants such as Boeing, Herman Miller, Apple, Nike and BMW. “Design is a very optimistic field for all of us to move in. And it’s not about individuals. It’s really about creating a sense of community and empowering people to work and do things together.”

The IDEA 2016 initial entry process, with updated eligibility criteria and categories, is streamlined. The IDEA 2016 jury is in place. Some panelists are former IDEA winners themselves; others have served previously on an IDEA Jury. The 26 global design experts include Patricia Moore, FIDSA—hailed by ABC World News as One of 50 Americans Defining the New Millennium. “This is a serious endeavor but it’s also a joyous endeavor,” she says. “And it’s what defines us as designers and helps us to build for the next generation to come.”

“First and foremost, it’s got to have a story… show me what you’ve got,” challenges IDEA 2016 Juror Owen Foster, IDSA, who's also IDSA’s 2015 Educator of the Year.

IDSA Board of Directors’ Chair John Barratt, president and CEO of design consultancy TEAGUE, is a former IDEA jury chair. “I believe it’s the best awards program there is in the world—and I’ve judged many of them. None, as thoughtful or as rigorous as this competition.”

Get five top tips for winning IDEA 2016. Check out former IDEA winners in the photo gallery and go behind the scenes with the IDEA 2015 jury to get an idea of what it takes to ace the competition:

IDEA 2016 is open for online entry through March 18 with a late entry fee period of March 19–April 1. Onsite jurying of the finalists will be held at The Henry Ford from June 3 to 7. Bronze winners will be notified mid-June. Just who wins Gold and who wins Silver will be revealed August 17 at the IDEA 2016 ceremony and gala at The Henry Ford. The 2016 IDSA International Conference: Making Things Happen is scheduled from August 17 to 20 at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center.

Questions? See IDEA 2016 FAQs or contact Karen Foust at karenf@idsa.org. Follow the journey @IDSA #IDSAIDEA #IDSADetroit16 on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Annually, IDSA also hosts five, coast-to-coast District Design Conferences in April (register now for #CDDC16 #WDDC16 #SDDC16 #MWDDC16 and #NEDDC16) and a Medical Design Conference in the fall, bringing together some of the biggest names and brightest minds in industrial design and similar fields. IDSA publishes INNOVATION magazine online and in print. The latest issue, 50.35.50, features 50 Notable IDSA Members; 35 Years of IDEA Winners; and 50 Memorable Moments in IDSA History. IDSA Ambassadors and INsights support industrial design with research, thought leadership and outreach.

Cantilevered Flatware, Yea or Nay?

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I'm sure Carson from Downton Abbey would flinch, but this set of Cantilever Flatware can not only be presented face-up, but also face-down. That's because the designers (ILoveHandles, whose work we previously looked at here) have chunked out the handles to keep the business end of the utensils up off of the table surface, "improving hygiene and reducing mess," in their words.

They've also given this treatment to a set of chopsticks and a pair of cooking utensils:

As for why this is in "Yea or Nay:" My first thought when I saw these was "Ah, that's cool." Then I started thinking about how I'd actually use these, and am not sure I'd avail myself of the features. Think about how you dine and see if you agree or disagree.

Once utensils have touched food, I never place them back down onto the table surface; if I need both hands, say, to make offensive gestures at my dining companions, the utensils always go back down on the plate or bowl that I was in the process of excavating.

The chopsticks require they be placed down on one of their four sides in order to achieve the cantilever. Mid-dining, I just don't see myself taking the trouble to inspect them to find the red dot (admittedly a nice touch) and rotate them accordingly.

The cooking utensils seemed a win for me, until I considered that they're usually dripping in sauce or oil during cooking, and setting them down as advertised will keep the utensil off of the countertop, but will probably drip. Also, I have a particularly tiny kitchen and can't spare the countertop real estate, which is why I usually leave utensils balanced across the pot/pan's rim and handle. (Admittedly not a good solution.)

To be clear, I'm in love with the form of all of these utensils—I'm just not sure I'd actually use them as they're meant to be used.

What say you?

Introducing the Winners of Our 1-Hour Design Challenge!

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Sometimes particular design prompts induce rather out-there concepts, and with our Sex Toys of the Future 1-Hour Design Challenge, this was no exception. You all submitted some fantastic, truly innovative and wild sex products for the year 2050. Without further ado, we hope you get off on this round's winners.

GRAND PRIZE

"Zero Gee Spot" by Justin DiPego

Zero Gee Spot is truly a concept for the future:

"The Zero Gee Spot is a self contained, reactive loveseat, designed to keep a couple together in weightless bliss...With finely tuned sensors and reactive AI, the nodes will reach out and stabilize the couple, keeping them floating and unrestrained, yet effectively held in place, like a balloon held aloft with gentle nudges."

Judges ultimately chose DiPego's design for it's highly innovative nature. "[One of the most innovative] was Zero Gee Spot—never heard of that being proposed before—so highly commended," notes our judge Judith Glover. Judge Dan Chen even offered some sweet add-ons to the device: "It would be cool if the nodes could also serve as actuators, or robotic arms that grab parts of your body, so you don't have to predict how your partner will move in zero g. This could also be used as an educational tool, like learning a 'dance move.'"

RUNNER UPS

"Rocker" by Mark Salerno

Rocker is an interesting concept for an ergonomic form that may be familiar in the realm of sex toys with an added futuristic digital layer— "'Rocker" is a companion for 2050 that allows features like choosing from an array of online partners," says Salerno, "repeat previously recorded love sessions with a real partner...A 'Super Dildo' in its 'Smart Saddle' contains spheres that enable a super-human experience." 

While this project didn't encourage intimacy between individuals in a very direct sense, its clear visual communication of the concept and form consideration were not missed by the judges. "The Rocker was well drawn and well presented- a lot of information included. It's still an old idea with new tech...[but I wonder,] are any of these new tech ideas around remote love making going to enhance 'intimacy'?)", asks judge Judith Glover. 

"Breath" by Robert Hanson

"Breath" takes an interesting and less overt approach by utilizing our sense of smell and the power of pheromones: "The BREATH device promotes and enhances these moments of real connection by infusing the air in our space with refined pheromone and synthetic neuro-chemical aerosols, [which] peek our warm and loving feelings towards our partners, take us out of stress, anxiety, doubt, and hesitation to then propel us into deeper and more impactful emotional and intimate moments." 

The judges all noted that the best element of this product was its potential to promote true intimacy: "its innovative," says judge Judith Glover, and "well drawn in the sense that you understand the concept and design immediately by the use of a user scenario and lastly...Intimacy...it's about 2 people being together at the same time, which was expressed strongly in the drawing."

"This is pretty close to taking drugs, but the user could explore or enhance their sensation safely and responsibly," said judge Dan Chen. 

Thanks again everyone for your submissions and helping to make the world of sex in the future better and brighter! We'll be in touch with all the winners soon, who will all be taking home some seriously awesome drawing gear thanks to Hand-Eye Supply, all valued up to $500! 

Also a big shout-out to Dan Chen, Judith Glover, and Jon Winebrenner— we couldn't have asked for a better group of judges. 

Also: stay tuned in the future for more 1-Hour Design Challenges by joining our Facebook group or following our 1-HDC discussion board page!

An Eco-Friendly Way to Dispose of Urine Collected at Music Festivals

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Hendrix fans often say how cool it would have been to attend Woodstock, but all I can think about is how gross the bathrooms must've been. Four hundred thousand muddy, pee- and poo-filled hippies tramping in and out of a handful of portable toilets? Plus, I'm no expert on psychedelics, but I'm pretty sure that tripping balls doesn't exactly turn you into a marksman. Peace and love aside, those Port-A-Potties had to be a small-scale ecological disaster.

When it comes to getting rid of human waste at music festivals, portable chem-toilets are usually the solution. But French industrial design firm Faltazi has proposed an alternate, more natural solution call the Uritonnoir that's made from little more than bales of hay. There are no chemicals involved save for the ones in our bodies, and the waste, if properly managed, turns into compost.

To create a Uritonnoir, the installer cuts triangular apertures into bales of hay with a chainsaw.

The bales then have recyclable, washable polypropylene funnels inserted into them.

The festivalgoer pees into this funnel, saturating the hay with golden goodness.

The developers reckon that locking the pee up in straw will prevent it from turning into ammonia, and keeping the whole thing in the shade will prevent the urine from evaporating. Instead, the plan is that the nitrogen in one's pee will react with the carbon in the straw to break it down. When the bales are hauled off after the festival…

…they are placed in the sun. Properly aerated, the bundle eventually becomes compost.

Admittedly it's far from a perfect design. For starters, women must use an additional device to route the urine, making it an awkward affair for them, and it's not clear how toilet paper is provided.

Also, there is no provision for #2; the pee-bale takes anywhere from six months to a year to break down; and the designers say a single Uritonnoir can handle just 60 users for two to three days before the smell begins to become a problem. (Woodstock's 400,000 attendees would have necessitated some 6,700 Uritonnoirs.) But at least Faltazi is taking the trouble to investigate ecologically-responsible ways to dispose of urine on a mass scale. Coachella, in contrast, has simply installed conventional bathrooms, where the pee will go where it usually does: Into our sewage system, and eventually into our waterways.


One Week Until Regular Pricing Ends for the 2016 Core77 Design Awards!

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You've taken your time polishing and preening your 2016 Core77 Design Awards entry, perfecting the language and sharpening the images. No doubt, your preparations are about to pay off. The home stretch for the Regular pricing period is officially here! In 7 days, that's Tuesday March 8th, the entry price will increase as we say goodbye to Regular pricing for another year and say hello to the Late pricing period.

That's not to say you should rush yourself. You'll want to submitthe highest quality entry you can, because only the very best Professional and Student designs will take home the top prize in their respective category: the Core77 Design Awards Trophy. Beyond its value as a symbol of tremendous achievement in the field of design, the Core77 Design Awards Trophy holds the unique distinction of also being a tool for creation. 

That's right, the Trophy is a mold.

The trophy that keeps on giving

Once you submit your design, you'll have all the time you need to think of ways to put your personalized Core77 Design Awards Trophy to good use, but in the meantime, here are five ideas to get your brainstorming started:

1)Make a candle. What better way to celebrate your triumph than by having it, quite literally, light up a room?

2) Construct a wax fortress. Build your very own stronghold brick by wax brick. With the name of your project on each bar, there will never be any ownership controversies.

3)Bake a batch (or two) of delicious brownies. Be the life of the party while also reminding your friends of your design prowess.

4) Create your own soap. Wash yourself in the sweet scent of victory.

5) Freeze ice cubes for oddly shaped glassware. As they say, there's a lid for every pot, and an ice cube for every glass.

The possibilities are endless, but time moves faster than you think, so finish up your entry and submit it by Tuesday, March 8th at 9pm Eastern.

The only way to win the trophy is by competing. Start your entry now!

Design Job: Create the Future as a Sr. Product Designer at Logitech in Cork, Ireland

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Ideal candidates have an outstanding portfolio and deep experience in envisioning, framing & conceiving disruptive new product experiences (HW / SW / Services). They should be a thought leader and conceptual thinker with a finger on the pulse of people, culture & trends and the ability to create amazing objects.

View the full design job here

How Many Industrial Design Concepts Is Too Many?

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One question we get from new clients while drafting industrial design proposals is how many concepts they’ll be reviewing in the early phases of a project. Every client and every project challenge is different, but more often than not we agree on an expectation of between four and six concepts for the first phase of design exploration.

Proposed effort and cost play into this decision, but the number of well-considered concepts we deliver is linked to more than that. Fewer than four, and you’re probably not exploring the full range of possible outcomes; more than six, and your client may be prone to make a poor selection—and end up with a failed product. This conclusion is backed up not just by our own experience over hundreds of projects, but by a healthy dose of cognitive research into the way people make decisions. More on that research later.

Illustrations by Bresslergroup

There are exceptions to the four-to-six-concepts pattern, of course. Some clients are looking to generate a large number of design concepts (think 20 to 30) early on. These tend to be the more design-savvy clients with strong in-house creative teams who hire us to bring a fresh, external perspective to a problem. Here we’re comfortable delivering a high number of often rawer concepts, knowing that the client has the experience and resources to filter that many concepts themselves.

The other exception is when functional and aesthetic concepts are explored in parallel during a design phase. Different technologies can stimulate widely varying configurations; different user interface control options can create numerous ergonomic layouts. Combine these with aesthetic variants, and concepts quickly multiply into the double digits. We find that focusing on functional, ergonomic and interaction preferences first, followed by visual exploration second, keeps the number of concepts manageable. This also helps by staging the decision process for the client.

The Science Behind the Sweet Spot

In the retail world, the “paradox of choice” is something we’ve known about for years. Famously described by Barry Schwartz in his book (and TED talk) of the same name, the paradox explains the paralysis that grips us when we try to pick one ice cream flavor out of an available 32, and why we’re often more satisfied after choosing a shirt from four options rather than 40.

The reasons are surprisingly straightforward: Having more options over-inflates expectations, gives more cause to doubt the outcome and increases the mental work needed to come to a conclusion.

This principle works the same way in an industrial design concept review, where choice paralysis can be equally disastrous. The client who demands 20 or more concepts is likely to have a heightened expectation that more must be better even before they’ve seen the first concept. Schwartz described how higher expectations often lead to a higher chance of disappointment (even if there are good options buried in those 20 to 30 concepts).

Besides having to spend more time simply learning about all of the possible design directions, the client’s choice is burdened by high stakes (significant production costs can ride on the outcome) and a reduced level of differentiation between the options. When people are faced with too many options, Schwartz found that they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Psychologically, these become framed as missed opportunities rather than potential rewards, and the resulting negative emotion affects the level of satisfaction we experience from the decision. More often than not, the review ends with a confused compromise on a not-as-good alternative, leaving the best concept on the wall.

The client who demands 20 or more concepts is likely to have a heightened expectation that more must be better even before they’ve seen the first concept.

By contrast, a concept review limited to four to six options lets each one stand boldly apart, so time need not be spent teasing out the subtleties between them. It also allows them to be directly compared in a way that makes it more likely you’re picking the concept that can be measured against the original goals and objectives of the project.

This is largely because of a cognitive mechanism known as Miller’s Law, which states that most human brains are incapable of keeping more than seven or so unique ideas in immediate consciousness at once—fewer if the ideas are complex. Miller’s Law is why PowerPoint slides tend to top out at five or six bullet points, and why it’s easier to remember a phone number than a credit card number.

It’s possible to evaluate more than seven items, of course, but only by “chunking” the options into subcategories, and winnowing them down through abstract comparison. This works OK when choosing salad dressing (eliminate all but the bleu cheese options), but when designing a product it often leads clients to elevate certain concepts because they fit the right criteria, not because they’ll actually work better.

When a review team is faced with dozens of options, their first instinct is to narrow them down. False processes of elimination ensue. The team might cling to an abstract quality like “rugged,” “professional” or “Apple-like” (always a favorite) and eliminate options that don’t adhere to it, even if those options are ultimately more appropriate to the audience and the brand. It’s much easier to make deeper, and ultimately better, assessments when the options are limited to a more palatable handful.

When a review team is faced with dozens of options, their first instinct is to narrow them down. False processes of elimination ensue. The team might cling to an abstract quality like “rugged,” “professional” or “Apple-like” (always a favorite).

In all these scenarios, let creativity take its course and generate a plethora of rough ideas for internal consideration. For the client, filter them down to a digestible number that clearly stand apart and that can be measured against the original goals of the project. Or, to paraphrase Einstein, make your design reviews as simple as possible, but never simpler.

I’m interested to hear if other designers have found a sweet spot with the four-to-six concepts approach.

Note: Bresslergroup advertises through Core77’s Design Directory. This essay was independently evaluated by Core77’s editorial team.


ICYMI: IKEA's Going To Ship Your Lamp In Mushrooms (Maybe)

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If you don't follow heavy-hitting sources like Packaging News, you may have missed a fun fungal story last week. IKEA is upping its green game, or at least its green PR. Sources at the international furniture giant report that they are looking into the viability of replacing non-recyclable packaging materials like polystyrene with mushroom-based composite materials. 

I don't care if it's recyclable. Please don't buy unlabled wine from IKEA.

While it sounds like something out of an ecologically minded student's dreamy portfolio, this story might have some weight. New York based brand Ecovative has been working with recycled organic materials to develop a grown option for custom-molded packaging held together by mycelium, aka mushroom roots. Their resulting product is imaginatively called Mushroom Materials. Like most mushroomy-materials we've seen, it takes clean plant matter sourced from agricultural byproducts, inoculates it, allows the rooting network to develop for a few days, and then casts it the appropriate forms. After enough rooty growth to make the material resilient, it's dried to halt growth and avoid spore production. The final product has decent crush resistance, can be produced in custom-fit shapes, and could biodegrade in the consumer's own backyard.

And with a UK IKEA spokesperson on record with a quote like, "IKEA has committed to take a lead in reducing its use of fossil-based materials while increasing its use of renewable and recycled materials," I wouldn't blame anyone for getting hopeful.

Art by Richard Giblett. Doubles as a mind map of IKEA furniture assembly process.

Other brands (some as big as Dell) have already made the switch to Mushroom Packaging for specific products. Given IKEA's ability to dictate the specifics of their products shipping needs and the material's flexibility in meeting them, it sounds like a potentially great fit for the two companies and a boon for too-full landfills. 

So why the skepticism? Well, investing in new types of mass production is expensive. Plus, while IKEA's well-documented interest in energy efficiency makes for good returns, the intentions behind a trash-conscious packaging move is hard to take at face value when the lifecycle of the furniture being shipped stays the same.

What do you think? Does this shroomy pitch have roots?


Is This the World’s First Female-Friendly Electric Guitar?

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When I first heard that the musician Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, had designed a guitar made especially for women’s bodies—as has been reported on FastCoExist, Mashable, Buzzfeed and elsewhere—I was stoked to find out more. I remember when my sister went to buy her first electric guitar circa 2006, and was immediately steered by the Sam Ash salesman to a set of pink and floral-decaled models—surely we could do better. But after talking to Clark’s collaborators at Ernie Ball Music Man, it turns out that the “guitar-for-women” angle might have been a bit oversold in the blogosphere.

“Annie never designed the guitar exclusively for females,” says Sterling Ball, the CEO and one of the lead designers at Ernie Ball Music Man (EBMM). “While it’s true that there has never been a major-market solid-body guitar in the history of it to be designed by a woman, none of us saw gender in creating this.”

Maybe not, but you can see where the media got the idea. Clark was not available to talk to us, but in an interview with Guitar World she emphasized the guitar’s light weight and slim profile, which made it ideal for “smaller people and women especially,” and on Instagram she wrote, “There is room for a breast. Or two.”

Still, the real news is not that the guitar is breast-friendly but that it is one of the very rare instances of a woman guitar designer taking the lead. In the past, there have been signature guitars by female players like Joan Jett, Nancy Wilson and Lita Ford, but those have been mildly tweaked versions of existing models; we couldn’t find any other instance of an electric guitar designed totally from scratch by a woman (but please correct us in the comments if we missed an example). “This was Annie’s design,” Ball emphasizes. “It was our job to make it tangible.”

Modeling the guitar
When the EBMM team arrived at the final design, it made playable prototypes that were three, four and five percent bigger than the previous model to find the exact right proportions.
The St. Vincent signature compared to Stratocaster and Les Paul bodies.

The process started with sketches by Clark, which the EBMM team quickly translated into a 3D model. What ensued was a lot like any design process: prototypes were passed back and forth, over and over, until everyone was satisfied. Ball estimates that EBMM made about 20 prototypes in all.

On Clark’s part, the goals were an exceptionally lightweight object—“I can’t even play a Sixties Strat or Seventies Les Paul,” she told Guitar World. “I would need to travel with a chiropractor on tour in order to play those guitars”—and an aesthetic that drew on Memphis design, 1960s–70s Japanese guitars, German art-pop pioneer Klaus Nomi and classic car colors. (The color scheme is based on a ’67 Corvette.)

Meanwhile, EBMM’s team was concerned with getting the size just right. “When we arrived at the final design, we then made prototypes that were three, four and five percent bigger,” Ball says. “The three-percent, with some minor tweaking, ended up being the home run.” Along with the size, EBMM had to carefully consider the guitar’s ergonomics and balance—although the team found that Clark’s design was already pretty well-considered from that standpoint. “You can draw a lot of guitars, but that doesn't mean that they will play well,” Ball says. “Annie designed a guitar that has a striking visual design that also has exceptional weight and balance and ergonomics. Sort of a “tastes great, less filling.’”

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, on the new guitar

Ball adds, “There are so many angles to the guitar and they became easy intersections for ergonomic control.” Which isn’t to say that the balancing process was easy, exactly. “You are trying to get the guitar ergonomically correct for hand position, arm comfort and body balance and fit,” Ball says. “Sometimes you fix one and it affects the other.”

Of course, all parties also paid attention to how the guitar sounds, with Clark specifying an unusual wiring setup. “You have one tone knob, you have one volume knob, you have three mini-humbuckers so you get five different configurations of sound and it really has a whole lot of flexibility as a result,” she told Guitar World. “It’s sort of wired in a counterintuitive way, but I think it’s the best use of those particular pickup configurations.”

The final guitar body is about 18.5 inches long, just over 12.5 inches wide and only 1.625 inches thick. It’s made of an African mahogany, which EBMM says provides an excellent tone and sustain. (“All of our tone woods are ethically harvested from certified suppliers,” Ball notes.) It’s available in black or blue starting at $1,899.

EBMM is already hoping that this is just the first product of its collaboration with Clark—Ball says he would like to “build a family of guitars that Annie Clark needs to support her art and craft.” As long as they stay away from floral decals, I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

UCSD, Parsons and the Cooper Hewitt

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Last week we mentioned how governments were dabbling in discursive design, and this week three major educational and cultural institutions weighed in with different forms of support for this intellectual arm of design practice.

Perhaps the biggest news was the announcement by the University of California San Diego (UCSD) starting a new undergraduate major, Speculative Design. Within the Department of Visual Arts, known for an emphasis on experimental art and the resistance of commercial art and even commercial fine art, the inclusion of design to its offerings was not without some initial resistance. As its Chair, Jack M. Greenstein reflected upon the genesis of the program three or four years ago: with "design so closely related to product and marketing…we couldn't really foresee how this would work."

This rejection of design due to its relationship with commerce has long been a point of tension within schools of art, sometimes resulting bad blood, formal schisms, and even banishment. The same reason that UCSD eventually found that speculative design made sense for them—that it is ultimately idea-based and shares many of the same goals as experimental art—is precisely why it can be discounted by mainstream design.

Just as it has taken the good part of a century for schools of design to emerge (rather than having industrial design, for example, located in schools of architecture, schools of engineering, and schools of art) discursive design has not found a singular home in academia. But similar to corporate product development processes where design is seen as the link between marketing, manufacturing, and engineering, discursive design can be the bridge between art, technology, and more traditional design education.

A 5-hour recording of UCSD's inaugural event. Benjamin Bratton's lecture lays out important historical references and parameters for speculative design (2:45–34:00). Fiona Raby's delivers the keynote about her and her former students' speculative design work (36:30–1:22:30). Sheldon Brown (2:57:00–3:28:00) with Speculative Culture and the Human Imagination. Teddy Cruz (4:00:00–5:16:00) on the UCSD Visual Arts faculty and their approach to speculative design.

As opposed to UCSD's seeming emphasis on discursive design's more artistic capacities, the MIT Media Lab stresses its value in the technological sphere. Their Design Fiction Group, under the leadership of Hiromi Ozaki (a.k.a. Sputniko!) is particularly interested in prospective students "with a strong interest in emerging technologies" and with "backgrounds in synthetic biology, bioengineering, and electronics." And certainly many industrial design programs are looking at discursive design projects and courses as a way to extend the cultural reach of design as part of an expanded notion of 21st century practice.

As part of UCSD's launch event for the program, Fiona Raby gave the keynote speech, presenting the many and influential projects of her co-run studio, Dunne and Raby. This occurred just a day after The New School's Parsons School of Design publicly announced that she and Anthony Dunne were beginning a "new gig" within their School of Design Strategies.

Dunne and Raby's United Micro Kingdoms was commissioned by the Design Museum in London. "The project presents perspectives on a fictional future for the United Kingdom. It sees England devolved into four self-contained counties, each free to experiment with governance, economy and lifestyle. These 'live laboratories' interrogate the cultural and ethical impact of existing and new technologies and how they alter the way we live." Digital image, Tomasso Lanza.


In moving from their celebrated positions at the Royal College of Art, Parsons can offer them a broader collaborative community. Raby says, "In joining The New School, I will be able to not only work with faculty and students to explore new forms of socially engaged practice in relation to emerging technology, but also collaborate with some amazing people in disciplines like anthropology and political theory, which Anthony and I haven't been able to connect with before."

While their positions include teaching, they are also going to be driving collaborations with other universities, notably the MIT Media Lab. The hope, says Tim Marshall, The New School's provost, is that "their inspiration and insight will help our students to not only prepare for but also help shape our social and technological futures."

And it is this question of social and technological futures that Forbes contributor Johnathon Keats questions in, "Can the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial Save Us from the Next Global Die-Off?" Published a day after Raby's keynote and in anticipation of the Triennial's February 12th opening, Keats discusses several discursive design projects to be exhibited that deal with synthetic biology and questions of its relationship to how we might (have to) live our lives. Designers Daisy Ginsberg, Neri Oxman, and Ana Rajcevic exhibit objects and images of hypothetical creatures, synthetic organs, and animal-inspired prosthetics for humans.

Daisy Ginsberg's Rewilding with Synthetic Biology. "Designing for the Sixth Extinction investigates synthetic biology's potential impact on biodiversity and conservation. Could we tolerate 'rewilding' — the conservation movement that lets nature take control — using synthetic biology to make nature 'better'? Letting synthetic biodiversity loose to save the 'nature' that we idealise would disrupt existing conventions of preservation."

These uses of current and future synthetic biology and bioengineering are of course not predictions, but provocations. As UCSD professor, Benjamin Bratton stated in his insightful (and perhaps incite-ful) lecture just prior to Raby's keynote: "These technologies are Pharmakon [Socrates' term]: remedy and poison. Any perspective that emphasizes their positive or negative potential without assuming the inverse is incomplete or dishonest." The Cooper Hewitt as a cultural institution is trying in this way to keep us a little more honest.

In regard to this week's events from the UCSD program announcement, to Dunne and Raby's gig at Parsons, to the kickoff of the Triennial, we turn to Keats' for a helpful summation: "While more frequently found in art, this philosophical turn belongs equally in the realm of design, where it can problematize product development before manufacturers remake society in their own image. Moreover, design is the universal language of the modern world. Using design speculatively brings philosophy to everyone."

The "everyone" is certainly an ethnocentric oversight, given that discursive design is currently a product of and for the privileged world. But all of this is a start. In order to responsibly, substantively, and extensively deliver on this promise, we need even further academic emphasis, even more visionary practitioners, and even greater public engagement in discursive design's future.

Designers! Help future a future.

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Design Entrepreneurs Find Success By Focusing on Laser Cutters and Lakes

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In a nutshell, you need two main things to become a successful design entrepreneur:

1) The ability to design unique things that people want to buy, and

2) The means to produce those things.

A small family-run business called Lake Art in Harbor Springs, Michigan has nailed both. As locals raised in the shadow of the Great Lakes, they know that members of the local populace "share a passion for the rivers, lakes and oceans that are, or once were, an integral part of their lives," the company writes. "From the avid fisherman to the boating enthusiast to the beach lounger, we all appreciate time spent on the water."

Thus the company designs lake-themed decorative objects and producing them using the perfect digital fabrication tool: A laser cutter/engraver. Here's an example of some of their pieces:

Lake Art's business is apparently booming. Since being asked to join the family business several years ago, Ashley Wiggins, a design grad from Northern Michigan University, has added staff to meet Lake Art's growing client base; business grew 200% since she came on board, according to local paper Harbor Light News, and the company supplies some 400 retail stores in North America.

Laser cutters are the ideal tool to produce slices for topographic maps, which also makes them perfect for cutting bathymetric (underwater) maps. The company has some 5,000 different bathymetric maps in their database, all of which can be incorporated into their products. But while they are the perfect tools for their product, that doesn't mean it's easy:

"People just assume we send information to the lasers and that's it," Wiggins laughed as she explained the step by step process. "Most of our customers do not realize how much work goes into creating a Lake Art map. Each one of our finished products is the responsibility of an entire team; every piece travels through several hands as it makes its way through production."
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