Despite my shitshow of a writing desk, I'm a big fan of knolling and prep stations in my other work. Kitchens and workshops are safer, cleaner, and more satisfying to use when tools and materials are clearly available and ergonomically ordered. For that reason, I've always been interested that home kitchens don't take more cues from the pros at restaurants or even on TV. 

Pre-chopping and a fiddly array of tiny bowls might seem unnecessary, but having ingredients prepped and ready to go can be a meal-saver. This is particularly true in a tiny kitchen. 

The Frankfurter Brett team first debuted last year, with a heavily supported Kickstarter for a pro grade chef's workstation, and this year they've scaled it down into a Basic model for home use. Its bro-y creators are Johannes Schreiter, a chef, and Joseph Schreiter, a product designer. 

The Frankfurter Brett system is a take on kitchen streamlining that pulls from both professional logic and innovative product design. At heart, it's a stout cutting board plus sliding racks to hold bins for prepped food and food waste. Beyond that, it advocates a system for cooking that considers everything from space efficiency to ergonomics to waste reduction.

View from below

Much like the one-handed system that caught my eye back in October, this system integrates and separates storage for prepared food and food waste in two distinct bins that hang below the level of the cutting board. This takes advantage of gravity and minimizes dropped bits as you transfer off the cutting board. It also pulls the working area closer to the front of the cutting board and gives you more storage area at the back of the board. The rear rack can hold containers of ingredients waiting to be prepped, regularly used seasonings, or even an iPad or book stand. 

They point out that the addition of the bins adds depth to the work area, but this just pulls the work area forward and doesn't change much about the angles needed to cut safely and effectively. As a wicked short person, I might point out that it's hardly a universal fit issue, but the overall point is sound. 

The bins are quick to remove to stage a new ingredient or to dump food scraps. They're also tough enough to mix sauces in, and lidded to save overflow or store for later. The larger bins are even big enough to hold unwieldy tools like whisks or tongs that can add mess to a workspace when not in use. The sliding brackets will also likely fit similarly sized bins from other sources, and the rails appear to be easily removed for cleaning.

While the bin system could lead to a bit of user error cross contamination at first, getting food waste off the cutting board efficiently is enormously helpful for workflow. You can get pretty close to this concept with standalone bowls or tubs, but the modular staging and flexible racks certainly free up your hands. 

This new line is available in five different wood options and a ton of bin configurations, and it's already well funded. The super simple concept seems to have struck a chord with a lot of mess (and space) minded home cooks.

Pick your calamity of choice: Zombie apocalypse, EMP attack or you went back too far in a time machine. You find yourself in a situation where you need to build something sturdy out of wood, but there are no cordless drills nor screws, just a rusty hammer and a box of nails. What to do?

Here Richard Maguire, a/k/a The English Woodworker, shows you the old-school technique known as nail-clinching. This is a fast, simple way to get a sturdy connection:

We cued that video up to the relevant part, for those of you with short attention spans (or sneaking some Core77 time in at work). For those of you with the luxury of time, here's the rest of the video, where he makes the actual tool chest:

A major Asian consumer electronics company approached us to support their European and Asian design teams with a new perspective on communication tools. We developed a series of co-working workshops with a focus on rapid concept generation through an iterative process to find new solutions for the home phone.

Designers, tell us: did you have many opportunities within your industrial design programs to exercise your ability to design under different visual brand language restraints? Thanks to our discussion boards, we came across an interesting academic project created by JNiklasson and some of his fellow industrial design engineering students at Luleå University of Technology. 

In this exercise, students were asked to design a model robot vacuum cleaner under different brand names—in this example, the chosen brand was Milwaukee:

JNiklasson adds, "Today's [robotic vacuums] looks very plastic, boring and breakable. So we tried to go in the opposite direction with Milwaukee's language, to express a more powerful look and 'cool'. We were given different companies, and the lesson were mainly to learn how to study companies language and express it in a robot vacuum cleaner."

Interesting commentary and critiques from fellow designers ensued—cwatkinson notes the utility of an exercise like this, stating "I have seen many designer who ignore [visual brand language rules] and spend days generating "styled concepts" that are never even looked at because they do not fit within the VBL."

This discussion got us wondering, what kinds of advice do our readers have for solidifying a consistent brand voice? From some of our own research here are a few rules of thumb we find important to keep in mind:

1. Write down your mission statement/company guidelines.

Most likely, if you write down something akin to your mission statement, a number of defining adjectives and phrases will pop up. This type of documentation is important as you move forward and will help translate philosophy to a consistent visual language. 

2. Pay attention to the little things

You know what they say: the devil's in the details. Taking the above exercise as an example, it's important to pay attention first and foremost how a brand identifies itself while also making sure the product accurately conveys its function. When explaining their visual decisions for the vacuum JNiklasson said this: 

"We did our first sketches similiar [with a rugged visual language], but got feedback from mentors that our vacuum cleaner looked like it didn't want to move. Therefore, we changed our style to go for their Tools that had movement. They have edges, similiar to a thunder as their logo, not so much chamfers as their other products. The black colors almost captures the Tools from behind, and the red goes from the front and towards the back in a edgy style (like a thunder). If you look at our sketch (the only one we showed) you can see chamfers, more details and so on. We tone [visual heaviness] down because the vacuum cleaner should not express that it is going to break anything in your home."

3. Channel in to your own style

While it's important to pay attention to successful examples of visual brand language, it's also pertinent to understand ripping off another brand will get you nowhere. Take inspiration from the general practices and values of other brands, not their style and particular niche!

Do you have any other pieces of advices or helpful exercises to share with your fellow designers relating to visual brand language? Share your thoughts in the comment feed below or on the original discussion board! 

The scribe line in the picture looks a little ratty because it took a bunch of tries to get a shot in focus.

Every time someone comes in and buys a marking or mortise gauge, I give them a quick demo on how to use it. It's not unusual for customers to know they need a gauge, but not how to use one. It's not their fault. There is a hell of a lot of misinformation on this subject, and using a gauge properly isn't intuitive.

The goal of a gauge is to provide a line that is just deep enough to catch a chisel or a pencil. Some people like deep cuts with a knife, but the deeper the gauge line, the more you will have to plane the finished surface—otherwise finish will catch in the line and the entire world will see the gauge line. The great woodworking writer Charles H. Hayward noted that when he apprenticed (around 1910), visible gauge lines in a finished work was considered sloppy, but it was a common practice. These days, it is all too common and perversely considered a proud mark of "hand craftsmanship."

The problem that people have in using gauges is that when the gauge sits square on the wood, its pin will dig in, follow the grain, wobble, and give you a jerky cut. So various woodworking gurus have advocated filing the pins really short, so even if the gauge sort of works, you can't see where you are going; or filing them into knives, so you get a deep line that is hard to get rid of later; or remounting the pins on a diagonal; or giving up entirely and using a wheel gauge.

Here is how you really solve this problem:

1) Set the fence to your desired setting.

2) With your hand curled around the fence and beam, tilt the gauge away from you and rest it on the long cornered edge of the beam (the corner away from you). The picture and diagram should make this easier to understand.

3) Put pressure on the fence in so the gauge is tight against the wood, and with the corner of the bean firmly on the wood, tilt the gauge towards you. With this method, with all the pressure going into the fence and edge of the beam, it is trivial to control the pressure on the pin. You can have a tiny bit of pressure on the pin that just leaves a mark for smooth visible wood, or you can just as easily bear down on with more pressure for rough wood so that you get a mark you can see.

3) Then push the gauge away from you, always keeping the long edge of the beam on the word. You push the gauge away from you so that you can see what you are doing. And of course with the pin tilted it won't dig into the wood.

4) You don't want the gauge to go off the the end of the board because once the beam goes off the wood, you will lose control. So stop just before the end of the line and repeat from the other end of the board this time tilting the gauge towards you.

5) It's better to have a light mark than a dark one. If you have trouble seeing your scribe mark, just run a very sharp pencil in the groove.

6) That's it. A sharp pin isn't super important because in general, you want a thin shallow line, but that's a personal preference. I don't think I have ever sharpened a pin in my life.

Marples combination gauges

We sell gauges from about $15 and up. They all work. If you are getting just one gauge, I would suggest the Marples screw adjustable combination gauge. The screw adjust allows you to set the width of a mortise independently of the fence setting, which is a real boon. However, in a pinch all the gauges we sell work. Colen Clenton's gauges feel wonderful in the hand. You won't regret the purchase, but it's certainly a next gauge to get, when you settled into joinery and have the urge to splurge. Over the years I have acquired a lot of gauges because I will set a gauge to particular measure, and then put a piece of tape over the thumbscrew so that I don't accidentally move it, and I'll recognize that it's set for a particular project. On a long project, I can tie up gauges for months, so I have a bunch of gauges.

Colen Clenton's Mortise Cutting Gauge

You'll see over the years and over your projects a hierarchy of favorite and "others" will naturally emerge.

________________________________________________________

3D printing was initially used as a method of building prototype parts, but it has now become a more popular fabrication method used to create final stages of products, ranging from medical and dental implants to jet engine parts. In the near future, many products will be produced entirely by 3D printers. Needless to say, 3D printing manufacturing technology is extremely close to becoming commercially viable and ubiquitous throughout the design industry as a whole.

The Entropy Table

Based on the desire to explore new aesthetics that will be possible using 3D printing as a manufacturing process, LUNAR designers, Jeff Smith and Gerard Furbershaw, created The Entropy Table. The Entropy Table was conceived around a basic unit of order, the cube. The columns that form the legs and top corners are orderly stacks that transform to a chaotic jumble within the table.

Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67

The design duo's initial design concepts revolved around bridges and other structural designs and then later evolved into modular architectural designs inspired by Moshe Safdie's Habitat's 67 and repurposed shipping containers used for housing.

Repurposed shipping containers used for housing.

In addition to architectural designs, Smith and Furbershaw were inspired by some of the compelling work that is already being done with 3D printing in the fields of architecture, product design and civil engineering. 

Arc Bicycle

One of their major sources of inspiration was the Arc Bicycle, a bicycle frame fabricated with Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) by students at he Delft University of Technology. WAAM will also be used to create a 3D printed steel pedestrian bridge that will cross one of Amsterdam's canals. The bridge will be built by two steel 3D printing robots that will start from opposing sides of the canal and build the structure until they meet in the center.

3D Printed Steel Pedestrian Bridge

Lattice Structure

The potential of creating lattice structures through Selective Laser Melting (SLM) also resonated with the design duo. SLM can be used to fabricate an open structure that would be very difficult—if not impossible—to create with any other manufacturing process.

Smith and Furbershaw sought to explore how the use of 3D printing as an emerging manufacturing technology can enable designers to create and manufacture aesthetic solutions that have not been possible with conventional manufacturing processes. As part of this exploration, they chose to design a fairly large product: a table. Due it's rich history, the table furniture category was a good test to see if a new compelling aesthetic could be created based upon 3D printing technology.

A 3D printed model of the metal part of the table (solid approach, not grid). The model is about 8" long.

The Entropy Table's design revolves around the manipulation of cubes. A cube is the epitome of order—their equal X, Y, and Z dimensions make them somewhat like a Cartesian building block. The table's four legs are constructed of cubes stacked on top of each other, all the way up to the table's top surface. The Cartesian order occurs only in the four corners of the table.

Cubes within the four legs are rotated at different angles and placed at different heights to transform into a chaotic jumble that, like the definition of entropy, lacks order or predictability. The six walls of each cube in the table are formed by a 3D printed stainless steel square grid.

To reflect the chaos of the jumble of cubes while providing a functionally flat working surface, a 3D printed clear polycarbonate part caps the table. Where the table's cubes dip, the polycarbonate part's cube-like volumes drop down to mate with the depressions in the stainless steel gridded table structure. A solid thin clear polycarbonate layer caps the cube-like polycarbonate volumes and covers the entire table.

An illusion is created through the combination of the different angle rotations and height placements of the stainless steel square grid walls and the clear polycarbonate volumes. This results in a transparency that appears chaotic and visually contradicts the flat functional surface that is actually there.

The Entropy Table is still in prototype phase, but we're hoping it comes to life soon. 

Here's an unusual commission: A DJ and record store owner friend of Jimmy's asked him to make a special commemorative box that will hold three LPs, a 32-page booklet, a magic wand and a DVD.

We always enjoy watching and hearing Jimmy design out loud, not to mention his variety of production techniques: Here he uses bamboo skewers for joinery, devises a simple rocking mechanism, shows the value of having handplanes around to clean up machine-cut joinery, and uses a razor blade on wet finish to get a neat visual effect:

Position Summary: The Product Designer designs and develops new products and product improvements by performing the following duties. This position is responsible for taking products from concept through production under aggressive timelines. Must possess some knowledge of molding, plastics, soft goods (not required but a plus)

At the end of a long day, nothing is more tiring than hoisting that heavy bottle of hooch, removing the cap and pouring the contents into a glass. I mean what are we, a bunch of sommeliers? If I wanted to pour things I'd tend bar for a living. No, what we need is booze on tap; there's got to be a better way than this bottle nonsense.

Well, now there is! A rash of folks on Etsy have been making these liquor dispensers:

Nomad Woodworking

Nomad Woodworking

Nomad Woodworking

Ohio Woodworking

Ohio Woodworking

Z and G Woodworks

Red Barn 94

Manmade for ManCave

The common design flaw with each is that the spigots ought be higher, and there should be a padded surface beneath on which you could rest the back of your head.

Instructables

If you'd like to make your own, here's an Instructable. But beware that you may have an issue if you don't like the taste of rubber. As one Instructables member who built this one writes,

"Has anyone else had any problems with the alcohol deteriorating the rubber seals in the spigot? After sitting for a few days, the liquid came out black (not because it was full of Jim Beam Black)."

That issue aside, what I really want to know is how you first load the bottle into the dispenser without dumping booze everywhere. Is it like when you change the water cooler bottle at the office, where the first few splashes are essentially the Angel's Share?

Control Is an Illusion

The gulf between abstracted plans and on-the-ground reality is a real concern to the user researcher. These stories remind us that you can't anticipate all of what will happen in the field. We anticipate our destinations in their optimal versions, but unanticipated ordinary and extraordinary occurrences are coming for us.

Ironically, the bonus value of field research is in the things that you can't anticipate—that you'd never think to ask about—but discover once you enter the context you're interested in. If you go to a customer's site, you can't control what's going on in their business that day. If you do research in public, you can't plan for who else will be there or what will take place.

In this excerpt from my new book Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries, Nicolas Nova and Elaine Fukuda show us that we can anticipate and design for anything, but the lesson we take from the drama in these stories is that we will fail if we believe that. 

Nicolas Nova: Do You Want Me to Act?

I remember a study I conducted that was set in a big shopping mall in France. We were there interviewing users of smartphones for an R&D project. The place was pretty standard, and we decided to sit in a fast food joint called "Quick," at the entrance of the mall (which means a lot of people were passing by). Given the focus of the project, we had to videotape the interviews and take pictures of the posture of the user. This meant that the presence of cameras was hard to hide and that passers-by couldn't avoid noticing them.

After four interviews, we started the fifth one, kind of tired after hours of discussions with informants. Right in the middle of this interview, my colleague and I saw a tall guy moving toward us with urgent haste, putting his two hands on the table, and screaming the following line: "I've just been released from prison, and I'm hungry! What are you guys up to? Are you in the video business? Do you want me to act? Or what?"

The size of the guy, his level of excitement, the face of our informant, and the people around us made the event very odd, as it stopped everything for a second or two. It's this sort of situation in which you have to behave yourself and avoid pissing off the nervous intruder, take care of the informant awkwardly paused in her description, and reassure the audience that was frowning at us. The guy seemed so energetic (after all, he'd just re-entered society), and he looked at the same time excited about a new opportunity and being a thug about to rob us of our devices. The "or what?" was said with so much hatred in his voice that we were a bit nervous.

We explained to the guy that we were interviewing someone, asking her about her perspective for a research project, and that he could be a participant later on. We were hoping that would be the end of it, a sort of way to make him understand that this was not the moment to chat with us.

Of course, he didn't seem convinced, or he simply didn't get it because he said, "Oh yes, I've got a friend in Marseille in the video industry. I know your stuff!" To which he added, "But why do you have so many telephones?" My colleague explained the project and that was the end of it. "Arf, I don't get it, I don't care, plus I'm hungry," and he left as fast as he had arrived a few minutes before.

Nothing really bad happened here, but it was awkward for us, a sort of break in our interview day, which actually readjusted our energy because we then completed three more afterwards! 

Elaine Fukuda: They Call Me Mister

I admit I don't have a lot of experience with children, but the oppor­tunity to shadow a patient through an entire day's hospital visit was one not to pass up. The patient being 13 years old added another layer of consent and assent, a mythical ethnographic research unicorn of sorts.

The goal of shadowing was to understand the experience of the entire visit from start to finish, through multiple provider visits, labs, tests, and the waiting times in between. I met the patient and her mother as they were pulling into the parking garage, and the girl started the day with a scan. During the next two hours, this girl patiently laid in a claustrophobic tunnel, and did everything as asked, from changing positions ever so slightly, holding her breath for 30 seconds at a time, and breathing at a specific pace.

Having fasted since the previous evening, she was ready for lunch, but wanted to get everything done before their provider visit, so she and her mother decided to get a blood test done before lunch.

We arrived in the pediatrics department and her mother stood in line to check in while I joined the patient in the waiting area. After a few minutes, a volunteer came over for what I felt was a break in our somewhat awkward small talk.

The volunteer was a kind elderly man with a book cart offering free books for patients to take home. The patient, tired from the scan and possibly feeling out of place in the bright and cheerful pediatrics environment, shrugged and said there wasn't anything she liked. Determined, the volunteer took out a "magical coloring book," which colored itself with a flip of a page. She was still not impressed.

Then came the pièce de résistance. From the cart, the volunteer pulled out a heavy woven rope and introduced the patient to his friend, Mr. Stick. Mr. Stick had a magic ability, you see: with a grand gesture, he could become taut. In order to turn back into a rope, the patient was instructed to ask, "Mr. Stick, will you go down?"

The shade of red across the teen's face had long passed lobster, and she and I stared at each other in disbelief. Her mother was still in line across the way, and as the adult I felt responsible but conflicted on what to do. Surely the man had no idea what he was implying? Being a very good sport, she complied and sure enough Mr. Stick fell limp.

But the volunteer didn't stop there. He turned to me, holding the middle of Mr. Stick, now back in its rigid state. He asked me to tell Mr. Stick to go down, which I did. Nothing happened. The volunteer said I must say, "please," which I did. And again nothing happened. He then said, "I guess Mr. Stick doesn't go down if you're not a child."

"Hey, I think they're calling your name," I quickly said to the patient. And with that we escaped the somewhat creepy, but well-intentioned volunteer.

"That was awkward," she said.

It wasn't until after the blood test and during lunch that we were able to debrief and talk about the encounter with the volunteer. I was afraid her mother would be upset that I hadn't intervened sooner. She was shocked but laughed, wondering if someone could really be that clueless. As I started to explain what had happened, the patient (who had been sitting right next to the volunteer) intervened:

"No, its name was Mr. Stiff, not Stick."

Me: "Oooh, that's even weirder."

Mother: "I'm really curious how you're going to write this up."

Takeaways

• It's OK to walk away, especially if you've tried everything. Sometimes circumstances totally prevent you from accom­plishing your research objective. But trying and failing can be illustrative, whether it's about participants and aspects of their culture, or about how your organization is perceived, or even about this particular research venture. If nothing else, it's a chance to have a laugh. Knowing when to walk away (from anything, not just an interview) is a life skill and not some­thing easily codified.

• Improvise. This often is expressed as saying "yes, and . . . " to everything that comes your way. In research, you have to be more selective about what you say yes to. When you're in the field, think about improvising as working from a script that is being created on the fly. Of course, improvised performances don't always proceed gracefully and sometimes splutter to an awkward halt. Improvisers don't consider that a failure, and as a researcher, neither should you. These awkward moments can happen, despite doing everything "right." If the script you start with falls flat, you can start creating a new script, pivoting to a different conversation. You can build improv muscles by taking an improv class, especially one that is less focused on comedy and performance and more on improv as an approach for solving problems creatively.

Interested to read more? We're pleased to offer Core77 readers an exclusive 20% discount off the list price of Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries: User Research War Stories, Steve Portigal's new book. Simply place your order through Rosenfeld Media and use the coupon code CORE77DDD upon checkout.

The Atlantic's ongoing "Inside Jobs" series lets you "hear what American workers have to say about their jobs" in candid terms. So far they've got folks from 103 different professions, everything from deliverypersons to CEOs, delivering answers to give you a sense of what their work lives are like.

I searched in vain for "Industrial Designer" but the closest I could find was "Architectural Designer." While that interview, where writer Adrienne Green interviews Cleveland-based Julie Engstrom, is pretty good, and touches on similar issues our field suffers from—gender imbalance, for one—we want to hear what a working industrial designer has to say.

So, if you were the one chosen for the interview, how would you answer the questions below?

1. How did you get started as an industrial designer?

2. What exactly do you do as an industrial designer?

3. What is an average day like for you?

4. Do you think that most people understand what industrial designers do?

5. Industrial design is a male-dominated field. Have you felt affected by the gender dynamic in the profession?

6. How have you seen your industry change over the last decade?

7. What is the most challenging and the most rewarding part of your job?

8. How is your work tied into your identity?

Also, please state your country; it's not just American ID'ers we want to hear from.

GH 1 is a form study/concept for a column heater intended for use in gallery spaces.

This article is part of the Design for Impact series, a collaboration between Core77 and Autodesk focused on designers using their craft to promote environmental and social change. 

Change begins with knowledge. Armed with new insights, critical skills, and the confidence to take risks, motivated change agents initiate powerful action.

Suz Somersall is using her platform as a change agent to empower new generations of women in engineering. Through her national education initiative, KiraKira, Somersall leverages the educational pedagogy of Science, Tech, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) to chart a path toward greater gender inclusivity in the field, using 3D modeling to leverage girls' creative curiosity.

KiraKira students explore the engineering software 

Despite some improvement in the past decade, women remain dramatically under-represented in engineering fields. According to statistics provided by the National Science Foundation, women constitute only about 12% of engineering professionals. That's about 200,000 women in a field of 1.6 million engineers, with the most striking areas of under-representation in mechanical, civil, chemical, and aerospace engineering.

While the numbers demonstrate the disparities, they don't indicate the two principal challenges: the obstacles to success for women in engineering and how we get people to care about them.

Women Shaping the Future

At a time when many have expressed concern about the future of the economy, KiraKira is positioning women to take an active role in shaping what industry looks like for generations to come. Perhaps the greatest asset the economy can harness is a more diverse cross-section of perspectives devoted to solving current challenges in energy, housing, infrastructure, transportation, space exploration, and climate change.

"Giving girls the power to see what's happening in the world and to respond to it as engineers, they have the potential to change how we envision and create things in the future," says Somersall.

Leading with Creativity

It is in this landscape that Somersall sees an opportunity to leverage her insights into what motivates many girls: the power of creativity. Many girls show aptitude and interest in engineering at a young age only to reject advanced degree programs and careers in the field.

KiraKira students check out a 3D printer

Reflecting on her own path, Somersall recalls how her early enthusiasm was almost thwarted by the traditional science pedagogy. "When I was in middle school, I loved math and science. I played Final Fantasy, was into video games, loved building things: forts, tools, gifts for my friends. I was definitely a maker," says Somersall. Soon after entering college, however, her enthusiasm waned. "The passion I had for science didn't resonate when I saw what the engineering classes offered. It seemed to resonate more when I saw the design and art classes."

She turned to art and design, attending the Rhode Island School of Design to learn jewelry design. It was there that she was introduced to creative building tools like Autodesk's 3D modeling programs.

"I realized that these engineering tools were going to let me be creative and have the fun that I wanted to have," she says. "That's kind of where I'm hoping we can bring some of that blending of engineering and art and introduce that to kids at an earlier age."

Shifting engineering education from technical to creative often resonates more with girls, addressing their unique learning motivations. "If you lead with creativity, the passion will follow," says Somersall, advancing KiraKira's guiding philosophy: "Engineering is fun."

Classes without Borders

KiraKira offers engineering education to middle schools and high schools around the country. In-person classes are offered in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, while the online learning platform makes it possible for students anywhere to learn engineering skills, free of charge. Additionally, KiraKira will 3D print students' creations and send them through the mail. "As long as you have a computer with Internet access, you can do it," Somersall says.

Somersall conceived the KiraKira program as a way to teach tangible skills as well as to inspire students. In-person classes are led by female engineers and designers, while online, students can watch interviews with successful architects, or participate in a fashion design class, learning how to make a dress with 3D modeling software. Game design, jewelry design, animation, architecture: whatever the student's interests, there are classes that cover them, beginning with nurturing their creativity and building the skills from there.

More than 10,000 girls have passed through the KiraKira program since launch - a number set to increase exponentially. In addition to her work with school age girls, Somersall launched a program with the Women's Prison Association to help incarcerated women build new skills they can leverage when they re-enter their communities. For many of the women, KiraKira provides a life-changing opportunity to change the course of their futures and the future of their families.

Somersall sees the greatest reward in the innovative designs her students create, which she says inspires her daily. "I get e-mails every day showing the 3D models our students are creating. It's the highlight of my day when I see their incredible designs," she says.

A student design rendered through KiraKira

Intuitive Tools

Teaching with Autodesk tools makes it easy to customize learning for different ages and skill sets.

"Tinkercad is incredible because of how intuitive it is for first-time users. It's basically taking building blocks and creating objects. It's also very fail-proof. The way that the program's built, it really encourages students to have fun and not have fear of their designs not working or not being printable," she says.

For more advanced students, Fusion 360 gives them a more sophisticated, robust platform for exploring ideas. "Some deeper learning has to happen there, but it's a great introduction to the gateway of more sophisticated design that can happen within 3D modeling," says Somersall.

KiraKira students at work

Adds Liz Nugent, Autodesk Education Brand Manager: "Suz has an undeniable gift for exciting a group of students to learn technical skills while designing fun and timely projects; the support we see young women providing other young women is amazing."

Today's Students, Tomorrow's Mentors

Mentorship relationships are founded on a culture of connection. KiraKira leverages the intimacy of the mentorship relationship – which traditionally fell to parents who would pass along traditional skills to their sons and daughters – through their ever-expanding learning network. KiraKira is not only building engineers, it's building the next generation of mentors who will serve as role models for years to come. Wherever tinkering happens, whether it's in the sewing room, the garage, or in front of a computer, the community is forging connections that may last a lifetime.

Somersall invites adults to encourage the young women in their lives to join the KiraKira community. "We encourage students, parents, and people in general to reconsider their notions of what's possible and think about how their child's interests can intersect with engineering," says Somersall. "As long as you have the passion and you can strike a chord, then the learning will happen."

Lately I have read some things online, had some conversations via social media, and fielded a few phone calls both as The Renaissance Woodworker and the Director of Marketing for a lumber company about using wood and environmental responsibility. I just had to say something in an effort to get some real information into the ether and hopefully stop some of the stupid falsehoods that my fellow woodworkers seem to have been fed. Somewhere along the line, we woodworkers have been bullied into thinking we are doing something wrong by working with wood, especially anything exotic. This needs to stop. Stop apologizing for using wood: an infinitely renewable, highly sustainable, and environmentally friendly construction medium. Whether you are selling your work or just building for your own enjoyment, you need to educate yourself in order to defend your position when the inevitable environmentalist comes trying to make you feel bad for not caring about your environment.

Wood is Already Green

Wood doesn't need a special certification label to be green. As a marketer I truly admire the machine that has inserted FSC into household usage across the US. I won't say that FSC isn't a good thing, but the certification isn't a magic bullet that means no puppies were harmed nor greenhouse gas expelled during the harvest and sawing of the stick in your hands. In most cases, provenance on an FSC product is a short trail filled with doubt, yet somehow it has become the gold standard for environmental responsibility. We should be concerned about how our forests are managed and the responsible woodworker should look upstream in the supply chain and understand where their wood comes from and what has happened from stump to their wood shop. In many instances, FSC can help with this. Relying on them to tell me my wood is green, however, is just silly. The irony is that wood is already green! It does actually grow on trees which has become the cliche for high availability. When you cut down a tree, you can replant one in it's place. In fact, common practice is to replant 10-20 of them. It is the perfect renewable resource. A growing tree actually sequesters more carbon than an old growth tree, so in terms of combating the Greenhouse Effect, nothing could be better. On the converse, nothing releases that sequestered Carbon faster than a forest fire, which is common in an old growth, poorly managed forest. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to buy this specific brand or species to be a green woodworker. "Green Woodworker" is already redundant. Be proud of it. Read more about the ultimate green building material.

Illegal Logging is Not Rampant Globally

How many times have you heard this one: "I only use locally sourced lumber in my projects to protect the rainforest."

The sentiment is nice and it makes everyone feel good, but it is claptrap! I'm not going to sit here and deny that deforestation in the Amazon basin or in the Far East is happening. The facts are clear on that, and it is clearly visible from the air. Guess what—the lumber industry isn't causing it. Almost 95% of the rainforest land clear cut was done by the cattle ranchers and farmers. 

If any industry is concerned about the forest health, it is the people who actually make their living selling forest products. Long gone are the days of cut and don't look back from the end of the 19th and early 20th century. Replanting initiatives were started in the early 20th century here in North America when loggers sheepishly realized the damage they were causing. Sustainable forestry was born then (probably earlier if you look hard enough) and, at least here in North America, it has continued and become even more of an exact science called Silviculture. 

The South American, African, and Asian forestry industry didn't make this realization until much later, and that is a sad reality. However, tropical species grow much faster than our temperate species, so aggressive replanting initiatives have brought many species back from the brink of endangerment. 

In most cases, forest regulation is much tougher in foreign countries than it is here in the US and Canada. Long term forestry management plans are required just to apply for a land concession. Trade regulations go one step further and though as an importer they can be a bit obnoxious and dramatically drive up the price of lumber, the long view is to prevent the wholesale destruction that existed in the past. 

Illegal logging does happen. I wish it weren't true, but those logs are not making it into US and European markets because of the heavy regulation in the form of the Lacey Act and CITES. Black markets exist everywhere so something must be slipping through, but it is unlikely that you are buying illegally logged boards when you go to your lumber dealer. Last I checked, there weren't many guys selling boards out of the back of their truck on the street corner. The products from this illegal and unethical logging have grown in recent decades due to the overwhelming demand from newly developing countries in the far east like China who seem to have the same attitude that we had in the 19th century about forest conservation. This is where the concern should lie and not on woodworkers in the US, Canada, and Europe. Regulation has made it very difficult to get material that is not the product of responsible forestry plans.

We MUST buy Exotic Lumber to Protect the Rainforests

Lumber is a business. It requires a significant investment of capital and manpower to produce logs that can be sawn into lumber. Regulation requires that long term plans be in place to ensure a healthy forest that can continue to produce logs to meet demand while not damaging the health of the forest. Caring for the forest is essential to ensure the business will survive. 

Bans on logging or a lack of market demand means that the capital expense cannot be regained in profit from sale. ROI plummets and the business must find a way to make a profit on their inventory. This is absolute Business 101. So how does the land owner survive? They sell their land which is now useless for producing their product to someone who can use it for other purposes where their is a market. Forests are cut down to be used as farm land or cattle land instead. All because the demand for the initial product (trees) died. 

If we continue to buy exotic lumber, trusting that these businesses have a vested interest in maintaining a healthy forest, then the market remains strong and protects those trees from clear cutting. 

Boycotting exotic lumber because you are concerned about the environment is the worst thing you can do. I can think of 5 actual examples where suppliers of ours in Africa have stopped harvesting Khaya (African Mahogany) because the price has been driven down so low that it is impossible for them to make a profit while maintaining the forests. In almost every instance, the concession has been sold to a non lumber company to recoup losses. 

This brings up another issue: Not only to we have to continue to buy this lumber, we have to recognize that costs need to continue to rise in parallel to the rising fuel and labor costs in emerging economy nations. In many instances, raw material prices have been driven down to the point where it isn't worthwhile to stay in business. This is not just for exotics but also here at home with our domestic species.

Lumber is one of the greenest products in the world. We make beautiful things out of it and protect our environment, as well as make a tangible effort towards continuing to protect our earth at the same time.

Yes, I'm a woodworker. I use woods from all over the world BECAUSE I am concerned about the environment.

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This "Hand Tool School" series is provided courtesy of Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker. Rogers is founder of The Hand Tool School, which provides members with an online apprenticeship that teaches them how to use hand tools and to build furniture with traditional methods.

"Boot"

Footwear designer, Jayda Hany, started off aspiring to be a womenswear designer, but her aspirations changed while studying architectural engineering The American University in Cairo. It was in school that she started to realize the close connection between footwear design and architecture—she had, "always viewed the shoe as a moveable, small-scaled structure." After finishing at the American University in Cairo, she went on to study footwear design at the London College of Fashion.

The transition from architectural engineering to footwear design was a big one, but she quickly noticed similarities between the two design processes, "I realized that footwear design and architectural/structural design are exactly the same regarding the design process—the research, the detailing, etc. The only difference would be the scale."

"Winglet"

Hany's Connector collection points out something we often forget about shoes—their main function is to hold our weight. Her use of non-glamorous screws, rivets and 3D printed plastics screams, "this is how I was made" to the wearer. Highlighting the making process in a final design is something not often seen in the footwear realm, so this in-your-face take on the subject is refreshing. And the shoes are even attractive! The clunky materials come together to create beautiful forms that are surprisingly streamlined.

"Vortex" detail

"Vortex" heel

Architecture is a clear inspiration for the collection, but it runs deeper than you'd think—Hany's material choices and colors were specifically chosen to reinforce her architectural theme. In her own words:

"Connector is inspired by the Truss structural system, which is a cross-braced system consisting of a joint that connects truss members repetitively. All of the red pieces in the shoes represent the joint—they are 3D printed in order to have ultimate accuracy. The joints are then reinforced with stainless steel rods that utilize tensile and compressive forces to bear the weight—just like a Truss would do in a building—to achieve maximum durability. I used clear acrylic platforms that are cut on a CNC machine to achieve transparency, so the user can view how the shoe is composed. I intentionally used non decorative screws and rivets to emphasize the functionality and industrial look of the collection."

"Hybrid"

Connector is an extension of Hany's view that the shoe is a mobile structure meant to support the body's weight:

"A structure by definition is what supports a load and prevents collapsing. The body's weight, in this case, is the load that is carried by the structure, i.e the shoe. The only difference between a building structure and a shoe is that the building is designed to be static, whereas a shoe is used for walking, running, standing, leaning, etc."

"Clog"

Notice how cohesive the collection is—that's no easy task, considering the bulky materials she chose to use. According to Hany, the most challenging part of designing such a cohesive footwear collection was to keep her shoes as simple and to-the-point as possible. Simplicity was key in in her design process in order to keep her inspiration from getting lost in translation. 

"Cantilever" detail

Another detail designers should take note of—check out Hany's clever 360 degree GIFs:

360 degree view of "Hybrid." 

This is a great portfolio idea, especially when you want a potential employer to see your work in more detail, but they're based in another country. Hany is definitely an up-and-coming footwear designer to keep an eye on.

To see more details of the Connector collection (and more awesome 360 GIFs), visit Hany's website.

The Nest industrial design team is looking for a talented Designer. We are passionate about reinventing unloved but important home products by redefining human interaction and its aesthetic quality with strong attention to detail. The Work: At Nest you will collaborate closely with

Win yourself an awesome gift this holiday with Core77's Pick 5 Ultimate Gift Guide! Share an interesting themed holiday wishlist with us by TONIGHT for a chance to win awesome prizes including an Amazon Echo or a GoPro! Submissions are due tonight (December 9th) by 11:59 PM EST and winners will be announced this Monday, December 12th. 

Later day around 4 PM EST, we'll also be announcing 4 weekly winners who will be taking home a candle from Keap!

You have two different opportunities to win:

Community Choice Prize

Create a gift guide and get your friends to vote for you (Tweet something like, "Just submitted my @Core77 Ultimate Gift Guide! Help me win by voting for mine before midnight here: www.core77.com/ultimategiftguide #C77GiftGuide". The guide with the most votes will be the winner of either an Amazon Echo or GoPro!

Editor's Pick Prize

One winner will be chosen by the Core77 Editors to win the grand prize. Key to winning this prize? Pick gifts under a solid, interesting and fun theme and catchy title to catch our editors' eyes! 

What are you waiting for? The showdown ends tonight at 11:59PM EST.

Make your holiday wishlist now!

Again, here's how to win:

1. Create a Gift Guide.
2. Get your friends to vote for you!
3. On December 12th, a community choice winner and top editor's picks will win grand prizes like a GoPro or Amazon Echo!

Another Krampusnacht passed, and you made it! And there's still a few weeks left in 2016. You must have done a lot of good this year, or maybe Krampus just had his hands full elsewhere. 

Festive!

Krampus is everybody's new favorite old world holiday sprite, and he's kind of a jerk. Though he's a relative newcomer to American pop culture, he and his child-stealing ways have been celebrated in the Austro-Bavarian region for hundreds of years, and most holiday historians trace his lineage to pre-Christian rites. Unlike our more passive aggressive relationship with Santa (who's clearly in the pocket of Big Coal), bad kids in the Alps get beaten by a goat demon with a very upsetting tongue, and the worst are scooped up and taken away in a magically expansive sack. So he does have some tricks in common with St. Nick.

To celebrate this cheery and reflective holiday, it's common to exchange Krampuskarten, or Krampus cards, and dress up as your favorite interpretation of Krampus himself. Here are a few old and new interpretations that show why we're grateful to have escaped Krampus's clutches for another year, even if we didn't deserve it.

Sporty

Ritchey Beckett

Adam Reynolds

Scott Benson

Yikes

Double yikes

Triple yikes

Happy Holidays!

It's unknown if this is an original Amish design, being that it's sold online and we're pretty sure the Amish are not allowed to have websites. But a company called Barn Furniture Mart is selling this stepstool that transforms into an ironing board and is Amish-crafted.

It's a tad pricey at $370, though it is made out of solid oak. Red oak, to be precise; if you want it made from quarter-sawn white oak or cherry, that adds another $280 to the price.

I think it's cool that we live in a society where Amish furniture can be sold online, but I do wonder what the markup is.

As medical and recreational use grows, options for home storage remain outdated and ineffective at storing and preserving cannabis. Introducing Greenskeeper a uniquely functional storage system designed specifically for cannabis users. Wine and tobacco lovers have a multitude of high-quality solutions to properly store their collections yet cannabis consumers are left using plastic bags, food containers and glass jars. This was the impetus that led to develop Greenskeeper for Santa Cruz Bakeware