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Literally Brilliant "Lighting Robot" Brings Sunlight To Parts of Your Home That Can't Get Any

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At certain times of year, the sun bounces off of a glass skyscraper outside my window and illuminates my apartment from an unusual angle. And the room then looks dramatically different. The sun has to thread the needle to hit this position, and the phenomenon only lasts for a few moments.

Biotechnologist and bioinformaticist Dr. Diva Tommei has developed a literally brilliant way to capitalize on this reflection of sunlight. Check out her robotic, solar-powered invention:

While she refers to the device as "Lucy" in the video, the product's name has since been changed to "Caia." Look at the dramatic difference it makes in a room:

Caia was successfully crowdfunded last year on IndieGogo and is going into production, with the first units slated to ship this June. It is expected to retail for $299.



A Solar Generator With Collapsible Steel Roll-Cage for Added Stability

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In an effort to establish themselves in the renewable power market, Rock Technologies reached out to us to develop their primary solar generator for consumer use. Our design features a weather and dust resistant plastic housing for added durability and an intuitive control panel with multiple power port options. The collapsible steel roll-cage was design with three essential features in mind: to give the PV1000 an added level of protection, to keep the device raised off the ground and to aid in transportation. The PV1000 allows users to bring power to a wide array of devices using stored AC power or by utilizing one of Rock Technologies’ tempered glass solar panels.

View the full content here

The Making of Coroflot's New Mobile Work Unit 

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This past week, our partners over at Coroflot.com unveiled their brand new office on wheels, the Mobile Work Unit (MWU). The MWU is the result of Coroflot.com's collaboration LOS OSOS, a Portland-based design studio known for designing creative retail, workplace, and exhibit environments.

All photos courtesy of Josh Partee.

The cheerful unit features polycarbonate siding, wood interiors, bench seating, an open office area, and a food prep station. Rounding out the space is the company's brand new logo on the front of the trailer.

LOS OSOS' Principal Designer, Laurence Sarrazin notes the structure's unique siding:

“The thing I’m most excited about is that the construction is post-and-beam, which alleviates the wall’s function as a structure. So I used polycarbonate as siding, which allows all this light to come in while offering an acoustical barrier.”  

Coroflot is a longstanding web platform dedicated to connecting designers with professional opportunities, but the goal of building a physical office space was to bring the company's mission to life. 

"Coroflot is a virtual community, but the connections between employers and people seeking work, those are real world connections. We felt it was important to introduce a real world component into what Coroflot does" —Coroflot Co-Founder, Eric Ludlum

Here's a closer look at how the innovative space was built:

Congrats, Coroflot.com and LOS OSOS on a super cool new space!

A Typeface Tale with a Twist, Imagining Future Scenarios From the Comfort of Our Homes and Designing Cars for Different Cultures

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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.

Lady Gaga's Halftime Show Drones Have a Bright Future

It's probably the first time you've seen 300 drones flying in formation, but it's almost certainly not the last. The technology underpinning the Intel Shooting Star drone system is fascinating in and of itself, but its potential applications are even more so. The same drones that accompanied Lady Gaga will one day revolutionize search-and-rescue, agriculture, halftime shows, and more.

—Stuart Constantine, publisher and managing partner

The Tale of a Typeface Found

This is a very fascinating behind the scenes from Pentagram explaining the story behind their assignment from Syracuse University to create a distinctive new typeface for the school. The task at hand ended up inspiring an interesting excavation of Syracuse's intimate history with one of America's most important type designers.

—Allison Fonder, community manager

Imagining Future Scenarios From the Comfort of Our Homes

An example of a beautiful future world you could imagine!

This week, instead of an article, here's a (way too) relevant Kickstarter project—the Investing in Futures game by More&More Unlimited. 

The quirky game encourages you to design different future scenarios and then make physical things from your imagined worlds. You could make songs, rituals, souvenirs, representative food dishes—just about anything. So many possibilities, so little time (from the looks of our bleak future IRL).

—Emily Engle, assistant editor

Landmarks of Japanese Automotive Technology & Why US Car Manufacturers Should Take Note

Trump has added a bit of 80s' flavor to his trade-war rhetoric by taking aim at the lopsided automobile trade between Japan and the US, blaming Japanese regulatory barriers for the 0.3% US auto marketshare there. Wether that qualifies as Alt-Fact or not, there are other factors at play; the majority of American imports have the steering wheel on the wrong side for driving on the left side of the road as they do in Japan, and there is an absence of styling adaptation and marketing for the local market. US car manufacturers and their designers might glean some insight into cracking this nut by browsing the Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan's collection of "240 Landmarks of Japanese Automotive Technology."

Pictured: The 1947 Tama Electric Vehicle, which by the 1949 model was getting 200km of driving on a single charge, the range of what most electric cars get now-a-days.

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

The War on Drugs

The popular television show "Narcos" has brought the roots of the never-ending war on drugs back into the popular consciousness. So too have news reports of the Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte and his hardline, violence-backed battle to rid his country of drug dealers. Now César Gaviria, the former President of Colombia who waged war with the infamous Pablo Escobar, has a message for Duterte and his supporters. "The polls suggest that Mr. Duterte's war on drugs is equally popular [to the war that I waged]. But he will find that it is unwinnable."

Killing drug dealers and users is relatively easy—and does nothing to solve the overall problem. It also has the nasty side effect of making folks willing to provide an illegal substance fabulously wealthy and powerful. In this article, Gaviria runs down the much more complicated combination of policies that offer a better overall solution.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

Weekly Makers Roundup Special Edition: Laura Kampf's Happy Machine

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Laura Kampf embarks on a cool experiment for this week. To counter the litany of depressing news in the media, she spends four days to create four videos of her building a machine designed purely to make people smile:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Finale


Toy Design & Casting, Testing Power Carving Tools, How to Tap Threads into Wood and More

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Mr. Pen Man

Something very different from Jimmy DiResta this week. Jimmy, a former toy designer, goes back to his roots:

Testing Out Arbortech's Power Carving Tools

Izzy Swan recently purchased a set of Arbortech's stuff, and does an experimental carving to learn how to use them:

Art Frame

Frank Howarth creates a rail-and-stile frame for the large art piece he created last week, taking care to ensure the 4-foot-wide centerpiece has room to expand and contract:

Making an Axe Handle

April Wilkerson "gets the hang" of making an axe handle after a mid-project setback:

Tapping Threads Into Wood

Marc Spagnuolo is bringing a new tool to market, a set of taps designed to be used in wood. Check out some of the applications:

Building French Doors

Pretty cool to see from start to finish: The Samurai Carpenter builds, including the framing, a large set of wood-framed glass doors from scratch and installs it all:


Charging Docks and Stations, the Ultimate XBox Stand, Fixing Busted Headphones and More

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Apple Watch & iPhone Charging Dock

Bob Clagett creates a handy desktop charging station for his iDevices:

DIY Media Console

Ben Uyeda creates a platform for his turntable along with place for LPs and speakers beneath:

Mortise Layout Tip

Nick Ferry shows us his neat trick for accurately marking the location of two mortises at once:

Enclosed Charging Station

Ryan Nodwell of ShopBuilt creates a drawer-style charging station. He incorporates half-blind dovetails which he cuts using the bandsaw and a palm router:

A Messy Headphone Cord Fix

Ben Brandt painstakingly repairs his son's headphones, making some key errors along the way. He's posted it so that you can learn from his mistakes and, errors aside, he still got them working in the end:

Designing and Building The Ultimate Xbox Stand

The Eames-quoting Chris Salomone creates a visually striking stand to hold an XBox set-up:


Design Job: Take the Stage! Universal Music Group is Seeking a Graphic/Multimedia Designer in Santa Monica, CA

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We are UMG, the Universal Music Group. We are the world’s leading music company. In everything we do, we are committed to artistry, innovation and entrepreneurship. We own and operate a broad array of businesses engaged in recorded music, music publishing, merchandising, and audiovisual content in more than 60 countries.

View the full design job here

Design Job: Unleash Your Inner Planeteer! Earthjustice is Seeking an Interactive Designer in San Francisco, CA

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Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We take on the biggest, most precedent-setting cases across the country. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health; to preserve magnificent places and wildlife; to advance clean energy; and to combat climate

View the full design job here

Call for Submissions: AZ Awards 2017

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Azure’s seventh annual international competition celebrates the best work in architecture and design produced before December 31, 2016. The jury’s top selections will be published in Azure’s annual AZ AWARDS Issue, on newsstands in June 2017. Submit Now! Deadline is February 21, 2017

View the full content here

A Hyper Futurist Floating City Moves Forward

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Would you live in a city afloat in the ocean? Would you be extra interested if it had a new and innovative take on self-government? Though it sounds fanciful, it's a closer at hand take on SpaceX type visions for future development, and this month it got closer to being built... maybe even by 2020. 

As we covered last July, the Seasteading Institute has been investigating and investing in the tech needed for real world aquatic living for over 5 years. The project was started by Elon Musk's old Paypal partner Peter Thiel and ex-Google engineer/economics guru Patri Friedman. As you might imagine, the project is more than your standard startup. Beyond high tech beachy architecture, Seasteading's plan for "startup cities" aims to expand everyday social space into the sloshy embrace of the ocean.

When we last heard from them, the visionary project was using its crowd funded capital to continue design work with DeltaSync, and shopping around for a host country groovy enough to keep up with them. While many nations would love to boast this kind of development as their own, the Seasteading Institute is angling at an extreme form of social and political autonomy, so finding the right partnership proved crucial. 

As of January 13th, the project has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of French Polynesia, agreeing to cooperate on developing legislation for the slightly tweaked 'Floating Island Project' by the end of 2017. Shockingly the project looks to be scaled back dramatically from the "modular" barge system first promoted, but many of its proposed powering systems and ecosystems remain.

While blowing through press info, I got the impression that the French were reopening old colonial behaviors near the equator. But this barge of futurist design is being supported only if the project can demonstrate financial and cultural benefit to the country and surrounding ecosystem. Plus, no France! This partnership is particularly interesting because it will require working in an area even more directly affected by foul weather and shrinking land than the creators' hometown of San Francisco. 

Review: The Footwear Design Episode of Netflix's New Design Series

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Netflix has released all eight episodes of "Abstract: The Art of Design," which goes behind the scenes of a variety of creative fields. Since industrial design is an impossibly broad category, we're treated with not one but two episodes of narrower ID focus: Footwear and automotive. We'll start our reviews with footwear.

Creator and Executive Producer Scott Dadich has shrewdly opted not to tackle entire fields, which would be impossible to cram into ~45 minutes; instead he trails a luminary from each of the chosen disciplines, allowing them to walk you through their profession and backing them up with supporting interviews and plenty of eye-candy B-roll.

Nike's Tinker Hatfield is the man here. We get to see, through Hatfield's eyes, what was essentially the birth of the modern athletic footwear industry, and the influence of athletic coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. Hatfield, a promising athlete and potential Olympian in his youth, became sidelined by injury and entered design through the side door. Bowerman's attempt to design a shoe that could compensate for Hatfield's injury opened the latter's eyes to the possibilities of using design to solve problems.

"Solving problems" is something you continually hear Hatfield say throughout the episode; for those who think of footwear design as frivolous, it's eye-opening to hear how, for instance, an NBA player's feet are "trashed" after ten years on the court as a result of footwear that does not meet their needs. And how do you stop a 220-pound man from rolling his ankle during a crossover? Hatfield's focus on finding pragmatic solutions for athletes competing at the highest levels drives him, as it drove Bowerman, to take pen to paper.

So does Hatfield's pure artistry and kinetic energy. This is a man who is always sketching and seemingly always moving; for every shot of Hatfield's work is more footage of him in motion, hoisting weights, surfing the tide, pushing off on a skateboard, zipping through Portland on a scooter.

Some of the things you'll learn about the footwear design industry by watching this episode:

- The role of star athletes in challenging perceptions

- How the original Air Max was inspired by Renzo Piano's Pompidou Center

- How Nike lost crucial ground to Reebok in the '80s by overlooking a fitness trend

- Hatfield's take on the disruptive nature of breakthroughs

- How the "Back to the Future" shoe is actually intended to evolve into something practical and injury-preventing

- Hatfield's philosophy of using design to provoke, rather than slowly "move the needle"

- The challenges of having to come up with something new year after year

I can't say much more without giving away the store and/or spoiling the episode for you. If you have Netflix and are a fan of design, whether footwear or non-footwear, you've got no excuse not to watch this. If you don't have Netflix, I'd say this episode alone is a good excuse to take advantage of their free one-month trial.

Here's the series trailer—the full season released on Friday and is available to watch now:

Up next: A review of the automotive design episode, featuring Ralph Gilles.

An Ambient Notification Device that Brings Your Digital Life Into the Physical World

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Mobile devices have long been our personal couriers, delivering the content generated by our digital lives. Every day we absorb a miscellany of notifications, texts, and tweets - all visualized on a flat backlit screen. Nico is an ambient notification device that brings people’s digital lives into their physical world in a unique way.

View the full content here

Buckminster Fuller Challenge's 2017 Call for Entries, a Webcast with frog's VP of Design and 21 Designers Attempts at Solving an Architectural Mystery

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Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.

Monday

Happy Anniversary to: 2017 Fuller Challenge

Buckminster Fuller issued an urgent call for a design science revolution to "make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." Answering this call is what the Fuller Challenge is all about. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the unique prize that encourages applicants to take a full systems approach to solving real-world problems.

Online competition. Submit your entries before March 31, 2017.

Tuesday

Solve an Architectural Mystery at: Follies, Function & Form

This exhibition unites 21 visionary architects and landscape architects to address one of the great mysteries at Olana State Historic Site: the summer house. In the 1886 "Plan of Olana," a detailed blueprint of Frederic Church's vision for his large-scale designed landscape, the plan's details are largely accurate, yet it contains a structure labeled "Summer House" for which there is no documentary evidence.

New York, NY. On view through April 22, 2017.

Wednesday

Webcast with frog's VP of Design, Fabio Sergio — It's Free and Open to Anyone!

Design has been evolving, rapidly changing our concept of what design is, what designers do, and how design creates value for organizations and society. In this webinar discussion, frog VP of Design, Fabio Sergio will briefly introduce the expanding role of design, providing examples and practical advice on how to embrace design as a strategic asset. This webcast is free and open to anyone!

Online. February 15, 2017 at 12:00 PM EST.

Thursday

An Academic Experience: IIT Institute of Design 2017 Spring Open House

IIT's Open House takes place this week! During the event, Helen Tong, consumer insights manager at SC Johnson, will share her experiences at ID and how she has utilized her skills to develop her career and become a more holistic problem solver. Guests will also have an opportunity to participate in breakout sessions with staff, students, and faculty and tour their space and view materials developed in current courses.

Chicago, IL. February 16, 2017 at 5:30 PM.

Friday

Walk Through Time at: Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals

Beverly Buchanan explored the relationship between place and personal, historical and geological memory. This exhibit presents approximately 200 objects, including sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, and notebooks of the artist's writing as well as documentation of performances. A new video installation of her existing earthworks is presented for the first time.

Brooklyn, NY. On view through March 5, 2017.

Saturday/Sunday

Past Winner: Under Armour's 3D ARCHITECHs

Claim Your Fame by Entering: A' Design Award and Competition

This prestigious awards program is the world's leading international annual juried competition for design. The A' Design Accolades are organized in a wide range of creative fields to highlight the very best designers from all countries in all disciplines. Entries to the competition are peer-reviewed and anonymously judged by an influential jury panel of experienced academics, prominent press members and established professionals.

Online competition open through February 28, 2017.

Check out the Core77 Calendar for more design world events, competitions and exhibitions, or submit your own to be considered for our next Week in Design.

A Cushy Chair Inspired by Samurai Armor and Insects

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Each year, Stockholm Design Week keeps design enthusiasts up-to-date on the latest in the design world. A piece of furniture that caught our eye during this year's show is the result of a collaboration between Stockholm-based design studio FÄRG BLANCHE and the recycled textile-based flooring company, Bolon. Together, the two very different studios came up with the bug-like LONG NECK chair.

If you've ever felt the need to spend the next few months tucked away in a sturdy, yet comfortable cocoon—perhaps because of winter or the currently chilly political climate—look no further... 

LONG NECK's shape is both organic and structured—taking inspiration from samurai armor and insects. The stiff armor inspiration, which can be seen in the chair's shape, is contrasted with the choice of textile as the main material. The fabric gives the chair an insect-like personality, most closely resembling a pill bug

The chair is so quirkily lopsided and endearingly misshaped that I want to go right up and hug the monstrosity—as long as it doesn't bite.

LONG NECK's design process is equally as alluring as the chair's final structure:

Overall a fun and unexpected piece as the result of an unexpected collaboration. Stockholm Design Week came to a close yesterday, but you'll be able to catch LONG NECK as part of the ARMOUR mon AMOUR collection showing at Milan Design Week this April.


Woman Dies Riding WTC Oculus Escalator, News Blames Design. This is Nonsense

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At 5:30am on Saturday, two twentysomething twin sisters were riding an escalator in the World Trade Center Oculus. One of the sisters fell over the side, plunging three stories to the marble floor below. She died of "blunt-impact injuries to her head and torso."

Her surviving twin, who understandably is currently being treated for trauma, told police that her own hat had fallen off and her sister leaned over the railing to try to catch it, but leaned too far and fell over the side.

The TV news report I saw then had a reporter quoting a bystander as saying "In my opinion, I think that they need to build the walls a little higher when they build these escalators…. The walls are not high enough to prevent tragic accidents like what happened today."

However, when investigators reviewed video of the incident, they found something different than what the surviving twin had described. What they saw was that one of the sisters was "laying prone on the banister of the escalator, like she was pretending to be flying" and "mimicking a superhero before she lost her balance."

Those quotes are taken from NYC's Daily News which then goes on to state that following the woman's death "attention began to shift to the design of escalators at the $4.4 billion facility." They quote an unnamed transit supervisor as saying "They should definitely make [the escalator sides] higher, but with a place to hold on with your arms."

Folks, this is complete nonsense. The reporter even measures the sides of the escalator and gets a height dimension of 40 inches. I just checked the "Public Spaces" chapter of the Human Dimension and Interior Space book of standards, and while escalator railing height is not addressed, handrail height is pegged at 30 to 34 inches.

Let me say that as a lifelong New Yorker I absolutely hate the design of the Oculus. To me it is the work of a starchitect imposing his ego on average citizens to the tune of 4 billion dollars. The building has nothing to do with 9/11, nor does it pay any fealty to Minoru Yamasaki's original World Trade Center design nor does it serve as a fitting monument, in my opinion, to the people who lost their lives there and the first responders who continue to suffer lingering health effects. And I feel I can criticize Calatrava for these things, subjective though they may be.

However, to criticize the designer for escalator railing heights that are perfectly adequate, but have been misused by someone in a way that's grossly negligent of their own personal safety, is completely idiotic.

I feel bad for the family of the woman who died, and I've not mentioned any names here out of respect for them. I've seen what I believe are valid instances of poor design leading to people's deaths, here and here. But I don't think this is one of them.

A' Design Awards & Competition—Last Call for Entries

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A' Design Competition is one of the world's most well-known international annual juried competitions for design. The A' Design Awards are held in many different creative fields to promote and recognize the very best designers from all countries in all disciplines. 

Entries to the competition are blind peer reviewed by an expert jury panel of experienced academics, prominent press members and experienced professionals. The A' Design Award is an opportunity for distinction, prestige, publicity and international recognition to The A' Design Award Medalists through the A' Design Prize, which is given to celebrate all awarded designs.

XXL Award Trophy and the Gold Trophy in Box

Entering your work to A' Design Award is a great opportunity for all design oriented brands that produce original design work. A' Design Award is a platform to promote original design work to millions of design oriented audiences, including design buyers and editors. As a part of the A' Design Prize, winners are granted services such as exhibition of awarded works, inclusion of awarded designs in best designs of the year annual, an exclusive PR campaign for awarded designs, invitation to the black-tie gala-night and award ceremony and most importantly, the ability to use the award winning design logo on your marketing and communications. 

The primary aim of the A' Design Award is to create a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles by highlighting the best designs in all countries and in all creative fields. The final objective of the award is to push designers, companies and institutions worldwide to come up with superior products and projects that advance society.

Entries to A' Design Award are accepted in categories such as Spatial Design, Communication Design, Industrial Design, and more. The unabridged list of award categories is available here.

Submissions are accepted annually until the design award deadline of February 28th, and results are announced annually on April 15, at the end of World Design Days. We will be announcing the winners on Core77.com on April 15!

Designers worldwide are invited to take part in the accolades by entering their best works, projects and products. Learn more about The A' Design Competition and see past winners at Design Mag, which showcases good design work worldwide.

Register your best design projects to The A' Design Competition here.


Past A' Design Award winners:

Valtra T4-Series by Kimmo Wihinen - Platinum A' Vehicle, Mobility and Transportation Design Award in 2016


Kitch T by dsignedby - Platinum A' Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Award in 2016

Biologic by bioLogic team - Platinum A' Textile, Fabric, Textures, Patterns and Cloth Design Award in 2016

Riutbag R15 by Sarah Giblin - Platinum A' Fashion and Travel Accessories Design Award in 2016

Ageloc Me by Nu Skin Enterprises - Platinum A' Beauty, Personal Care and Cosmetic Products Design Award in 2016

Japanese Sake "koi" by Aya Codama - Platinum A' Packaging Design Award in 2016

Digilock by Tong Jin (TJ) Kim - Platinum A' Digital and Electronic Devices Design Award in 2016

Arab Media Forum 2014 by Dennis Schäfer - Platinum A' Interface and Interaction Design Award in 2016

Ideapad Y700 by Johnson Li - Golden A' Digital and Electronic Devices Design Award in 2016

Invictus by Ana Silva - Golden A' Furniture, Decorative Items and Homeware Design Award in 2016

Uslon by Valery Griaznov and Katerina Semenko - Golden A' Safety Clothing and Personal Protective Equipment Design Award in 2016

Scw Chocolate by Ning Li - Platinum A' Packaging Design Award in 2016

Design Job: Join the Herd! Moose Enterprise Pty Ltd is Seeking a Product Designer in Melbourne, Australia

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Want to design cool product that will land on toy shelves all around the world??? This might be your chance. You have to have over 5 years experience managing complex projects end-to-end, and exposure to the manufacture of product in China. In addition, you need to have a quirky edge,

View the full design job here

Hands-On with Evolve 2017

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Brought to you by solidThinking

As a designer with years of experience with parametric solid modeling in engineering CAD packages my recent experience test driving the 2017 edition of Evolve from solidThinking was a back-to-basics breath of fresh air. Evolve feels largely unhampered by the constraints of popular mechanical CAD packages because of its excellent implementation of NURBS editing with parametric enhancements. This blend of pure NURBS surface modeling, with solid modeling and parametric enhancement, provides a designer with flexibility and control. A robust and easy to learn construction history further balances with familiar surface modeling capabilities allowing for on the fly adjustments of source geometry and seamless downstream updating of complex models.

To understand the versatility of Evolve it is important to recognize the effort made to centralize the construction history feature. This is a feature that is on by default but can be disregarded when necessary. To test this in practice I created a relatively simple bottle with handle concept with near perfect surface continuity as a solid shell. The construction history maintained the ability to edit the original revolved surface, locations of source geometry and many other features after layering on several iterations of surface operations. The flexible hierarchical construction tree allows edits to the source curves while automatically updating the final shelled solid model.  The construction history is not strictly hierarchical and source geometries, like curves and surfaces, are treated as parameters that can change on the fly. This means a designer can make minor or major changes to most objects with only a few mouse clicks even if the new source source geometry was created after the original operation was executed. In practice this means a modeler or designer can create forms without consciously thinking about history, as it is on by default.

Because the tree is not rigidly hierarchical, a designer can also iterate on most any participating geometry in the tree and swap iterations in and out for true flexibility in the final model output. This makes edits to base geometry feel like freeform sculpting or sketching in 3D, and opens the door to concept development and design iteration right in the 3D environment. It also allows for iteration on a visualization model while also maintaining technical integrity, so each tweak or iteration made on the fly can be ready for further development.

Evolve's construction history feature is highlighted in a case study, provided by solidThinking, of the Philips OneBlade design process. According to Philips' design lead Jens Andersson "...Its [Evolve's] construction history features allow me to adapt my models for both business or technical reasons while development is ongoing verses starting from scratch." After putting the construction history through some technical paces, I agree: it is a unique and powerful feature created with designers and the design process in mind. And per Darren Chilton, solidThinking's Program Manager, this feature and the idea of Evolve as a conceptual design tool are central to the design philosophy behind the software.

Evolve supports the technical integrity of models by integrating a solid modeling mentality within the NURBS surfacing environment. Many tools with the ability to generate a surface come with a parameter that can also generate a solid. Evolve also features tools for using surface edges to create lofts, sweeps, and blends and combining disparate surfaces to create manifold solids. All this solid modeling is built seamlessly onto the NURBS editor with an eye toward surface continuity which means less time spent fiddling with stitching and joining edges to get a watertight NURBS model. In practice Evolve can create excellent "looks-like" models with less worrying about discontinuous edges and buckled surfaces while also creating solid geometry that is ready for 3D printing and other rapid prototyping process in a single workflow. In addition to its own internal features, Evolve also offers plug-ins and tools to integrate it with industry standard engineering suites like SolidWorks.

The new 2017 edition of Evolve builds on its construction history feature through two new construction history enabled tools: Planar Symmetry and Radial Symmetry. As the names suggest these new tools provide methods for working with symmetrical models as part of the construction history. This means a designer can produce a portion of a symmetrical design and pattern it within the construction history hierarchy. To change or iterate on the design one only needs to edit the source geometry and see the results on the radial or planar symmetry instantaneously. These new symmetry tools are also interactive with Evolve's polyNURBS. An incredibly fast freeform modeling tool set with an intuitive polygonal modeling GUI at their core, PolyNURBS are already remarkably fun to work with. With the addition of real-time symmetry tools, polyNURBS allows a kind of freeform sculpting that is difficult to describe. Imagine, if you will, beginning with a simple polygonal cube mirrored across a plane. What edits you make to the original cube are reflected to the other side. But what happens if you extrude a face from one side across the plane of symmetry? Overlapping faces, vertex errors, and loss of polygonal integrity? Not with the new Planar Symmetry tool! With this new tool the geometry automatically coalesces at the plane of symmetry to create a fully joined and symmetrical model. The same applies to the Radial Symmetry tool as demonstrated by a wheel concept design video featured on the solidThinking website. The two example images here, an example of polyNURBS merging at the plane of symmetry and a 30-minute spaceship concept, show just how intuitive the symmetry tool is when used with polyNURBS objects. 

PolyNURBS have received an additional advancement in 2017 with the Advanced Selection tool. This function, built into the Edit polyNURBS tool, allows for easy selection of edge loops, face chains and other logical groups of polygonal elements. This enhances the already intuitive select, extrude, and push-pull nature of polyNURBS, providing a feeling of freedom while modeling, while also maintaining control and solid integrity. As with previous editions, Evolve also offers a seamless integration of its surface tools with the polyNURBS objects. This means working with open or closed poly-based, "nurbified" models is not limited by the polygonal toolset and a designer can use the already familiar NURBS tools with the poly-based objects. Above all, working with the PolyNURBS tools is fun and liberating because of their accessibility and fast performance. This makes these tools a creative asset that can create precise, specific forms or act like a lump of clay in the virtual workspace that can respond intuitively to a designer's gesture and whimsy.

Finally, it is important to note that Evolve 2017 still includes the fully redesigned interactive rendering engine that premiered in 2015. Combined with all the other capabilities of the software, this fully capable rendering engine rounds out the software with high quality visualization at a designer's fingertips. The last time I did a hands-on with Evolve the rendering was remarkable for its simplicity, quality and integration and this is still the case in the 2017 edition. As a result Evolve is a scalable solution for concept design, iteration, modeling, rendering and visualization. It was also remarkably easy to get to know the software with the getting started videos, included tutorials, intuitive help feature (F1 will automatically load the help document for the currently active tool) and some practice. In conclusion, I continue to be impressed with solidThinking Evolve and recommend taking a look the next time you are in the market for a new modeling solution.

Request a Free Trial Today!

solidThinking Evolve allows industrial designers to develop forms faster, using either Windows or Mac OS X. It enables you to capture an initial sketch, explore styling alternatives, and visualize products with realistic renderings generated in real time. Evolve provides organic surface modeling and parametric control, with NURBS-based surfaces and solids and a unique ConstructionTree history feature. Visit our website to request a free trial of solidThinking Evolve.

A Look Inside Firefly Bicycles' Shop

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Every cycling enthusiast dreams of ordering a custom frame, made to fit their specific dimensions and riding style. Based in South Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, Firefly Bicycles have been fulfilling the dreams of a dedicated client base since 2011. They produce around 120 bikes a year and will build any style of frame a customer wants—if the buyer is prepared to join the 12 month waiting list.

Company founders Tyler Evans, Jamie Medeiros, and Daniel Leader met while working together at Independent Fabrication. When IF relocated from Boston to New Hampshire, the trio stayed put, and made the decision to start their own shop. All avid cyclists, they set out with a detailed business plan and fortunately got access to a machine shop Tyler's architect friend wasn't using. This meant they could move in and start building with minimal set-up investment. Branding agency id29 helped position the new company as a high-end frame maker, and the experience and contacts of the team helped them hit the ground running. Orders came in from the start, and they haven't let up since.

They moved into their current space in 2013. It's a good size, comfortable and immaculate for a machine shop. Located in a relatively unassuming ground-floor factory, the front lobby functions as an exhibition space and features a dedicated rig for bike fittings. The back is organized into sections for each stage of the build process, including an anodizing bay and sandblaster for custom graphics, and a permanent photo studio. Tyler does all the in-house photography, and every customer receives a photo book documenting his or her bike's production from start to finish.

Titanium is the frame material of choice at Firefly. Graphics are applied through anodizing the material using masks and controlled voltage to alter the colors. The bare metal and spot applied, vivid colors have become the visual identity for Firefly frames, making them easily recognizable at a race or in a group ride. The Firefly team pride themselves in precision and attention to detail during every step of the build process, and the finished products offer testimony to the attention spent on every detail.

With roughly 620 bikes shipped since they started, they are not currently seeking to expand their business (maintaining a work-life balance) but rather will continue to focus on improving their processes and production quality. They recently finished the most complex request to date—an electric bike with custom housing in the bottom bracket for a Bosch motor and battery—and all the electronics hidden neatly inside the frame to keep the appearance minimal.

After a recent visit to the workshop, lead frame designer Kevin Wolfson sent us a few photos of their build process, and detailed how they make one of their bikes:

Photo by Don Nieva

Every Firefly is custom made for each client to suit their specific needs and riding style. That means the fit, frame geometry, tubing, component compatibility, frame options, and finish are all specific to the rider. We have a proven process to carry out the whole design process remotely, but when possible customers will visit our shop for a full fitting in person.

After Kevin finalizes the frame geometry, Jamie pulls the tubing and small parts for the frame and then machines each part individually. We bend, shape, butt (alter the tubing wall thickness along the length to save weight and improve ride quality), and miter all of our frames in house.

The tubing is precisely machined so that each joint is as tight and clean as possible. Those efforts result in a stronger and straighter frame later on.

Once the tubing is machined and cleaned, Jamie places it into our frame fixture, which is set to the frame's specific geometry. The fixture holds the tubing straight during the tack welding process.

Jamie carefully tack welds each joint, welding it just enough to hold the frame together for the next steps.

All of our dropouts are proprietary designs that are CNC machined locally out of 6AI-4VA titanium. The grade of titanium and design of the dropouts makes them extremely strong and improves functionality. Small design details like the shape of the dropout opening make installing the wheel noticeably easier, for example.

After tacking, Tyler checks the alignment of the frame on our alignment table. The heat from welding distorts the frame, so he plans a welding sequence based on the starting alignment in order to keep the frame as straight as possible throughout the welding process.

Every frame we make is TIG welded. Titanium can't be welded in the presence of oxygen, so we fill the frames with argon gas "back-purge" the welds. Tyler has over 20 years and tens of thousands of frames worth of TIG welding experience, and it shows in the quality of the welds.

Tyler places a "heat sink" in any joint that he is welding to soak up some of the heat from the welding process and reduce distortion. One of titanium's greatest strengths is that it is very difficult to bend after welding. That makes it extremely durable, but also harder to work with. Tools like heat sinks help us manage the distortion during welding and align each frame to within .01", about the thickness of a Post-It.

In the final alignment, Tyler checks the frame in each dimension. A straight frame handles better and is a sign that the construction was done precisely and correctly.

After welding, each frame is prepped for building by hand, including reaming the head tube, facing the head tube and bottom bracket, and chasing the bottom bracket threads, shown here.

We developed a "flat-mount" disc brake dropout in 2016. That dropout works with low profile disc brakes that mount with two brake bosses to the chain stay. It is perfect for road, cross, and all-road bikes. In order to make the dropout short and stiff, we place one brake boss on the dropout and then weld the second boss into the chain stay. Here, Jamie machines the chain stay to prep it for that brake boss.

We will often design custom graphics for our frames. Sometimes we will work with graphics provided by the customer, and sometimes we will create graphics from scratch. In this case, Tyler hand draws a graphic for a customer who requested a serpent theme.

Daniel hand finishes each of our frames. There is no substitute for time and an astute attention to detail when finishing titanium. Depending on the finish, the whole process can take 1-3 days per frame.

In this image, Daniel lays down masking for custom anodized graphics. Anodization on titanium is a carefully controlled process by which we apply a thin layer of oxide to the titanium tubing. We control the voltage to control the color, and use custom masks to create an endless array of anodized graphics. Anodized logos are more durable than paint or decals, and provide beautiful but subtle touches of color to the frame.

We choose components for our frames that perfectly suit each customer's needs and budget. Building the bikes here allows us to make sure everything is placed correctly and works perfectly. A simple detail like hood placement, for example, can have a significant effect on the fit.

We take photos of the process of building every frame we make, and then take studio photos in our photo studio. That gives every customer a visual record of their bike's creation, and, hopefully, fosters their personal connection to the process.

Internal brake routing and tight junctions highlight the fine detail work and expert craft that goes into each frame.

Custom finishes can be inspired by specific images or come from very general ideas. In this case, the customer simply requested a custom anodized graphic with geometric shapes. We took it from there and created this graphic, which we dubbed the "hexi-fade."

When every detail is considered with our level of care, the result is a truly personalized bike that fits and functions exactly as the customer wants.

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The Firefly showroom in Boston is open during regular working hours, with no appointment necessary to visit. You can find tons more photos of their shop and their bikes in use on Instagram.

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