Mallet Prototyping and Demo

Jimmy DiResta prototypes a bunch of brass-hooped wooden mallets, then replicates one during an in-store demonstration:

Under-Stairs Wheeled Shelf Unit

Matthias Wandel improvises a rolling storage unit out of scraps:

Musings on Radial Arm Saws

Frank Howarth runs down the ins and outs of one of his favorite quirky tools, the radial arm saw:

Multi-Bit Screwdriver Hack

Jay Bates harvests the hardware from inexpensive multi-bit screwdrivers to create some nifty gifts:

How to Build a Dining Table - Walnut Breadboard Ends

April Wilkerson continues building her dining table, creating a handsome tabletop out of Walnut and adding draw-bored breadboard ends:

Wiping Varnish Shootout

Marc Spagnuolo demystifies the finishing process with this four-way shootout of different wipe-on varnishes:

Laura´s Macbook Case (built in Adam Savage´s Cave)

Pretty cool crossover this week, as Laura Kampf gets to build a project inside Adam Savage's drool-worthy shop:

How to Make a Sofa out of Plywood

Ben Uyeda uses 2.5 sheets of plywood to create his Modern Sofa:

Cutting Holes Through Glass Experiment

Sometimes you've got to fabricate your own tools in order to perform unusual operations. Here John Heisz attempts to create a device that will cut circles of various sizes in glass:

Folding CNC Workbench

Not a build video, but DIY Tyler talks you through his functional, space-saving folding CNC workbench:

Giant Wooden Fidget Spinner…

Dustin Penner makes a huge fidget spinner, all out of wood—including the bearings:

…at Super High Speed:

Penner then gets the thing going with a diesel-powered air compressor:

Metro’s Design Studio is seeking talented and motivated Senior Graphic Designers to provide graphic design services as temporary employees (3o hours/week). The selected designer(s) will work with the award-winning, in-house creative team in Metro’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters under the supervision of Metro’s Creative Director and Art Directors.

Dating all the way back to Neolithic times, the mortise and tenon is the oldest wood joint known to mankind. While the specific provenance of the joint is unknown, I'm willing to bet the inventor wasn't a virgin. In the thousands of years since, craftspeople have developed an almost absurd variety of joints, some of which you learned in the ID shop at school, some of which you've never heard of, and that one that you can always see in your head but have forgotten the name of.

Kent Welsh runs Griffin Modern Furniture & Design, a custom production shop based in West Des Moines, Iowa. I was struck by the unique aesthetic of his pieces:

The form factors are Mid Century Modern-ish, but the aesthetic is a cross between steampunk and military, with a dash of Cold-War-era Communism.

If you're thinking of setting up your own furniture design/build shop, there's a couple things you can learn from Welsh. One is that he's got fantastic photography.

Two is the practice he follows after a customer orders a piece: "I typically send a daily log with photos of your piece as it's being built," Welsh writes. "This seems to be very popular."

You can check out more of his finished pieces here, and he's got a gallery of process shots here.

The MSI 360 degrees Conference Camera & Speaker has been completely designed and engineered by SLIMDESIGN. This camera can be used in numerous positions: laying flat to monitor all the people in a teleconference, as well as free-standing and wall-mounted positions. Its built-in microphone and speaker allow you to take it wherever you want and to be ready within a minute for your next meeting.

"We wanted to make the best for the most for the least"
- Charles Eames

When was the last time you choose the harder, more expensive approach to solve a problem? 

That's the reason behind why the adoption of the Design Sprint practice has been skyrocketing worldwide. But before backing up that claim, let me set the stage with some foundation for the reader that is unfamiliar with the term Design Sprint.

What is a Design Sprint?

Think of a challenge the business you are in may be facing. If you can't think of a real one, just play along and pretend you have one. Now, what if you could work together with customers, employees, and partners to fix, improve, or even completely transform that situation?

What if I told you all of this—from discovery to solution—could be accomplished very cheaply in a timeline as short as one week? Sound too good to be true? 

Well, that's the power of a Design Sprint.

A Design Sprint allows a product development team to use Design Thinking to map users and stakeholders' needs and work along with them to create and test solutions with real users in only a couple of days. Now I'm sounding a lot like those "as seen on TV" ads, but wait, there's more: everything can be done with an extremely low, near zero budget.

All of this make Design Sprints a low cost / high added value "gig" no product developer can afford to be unfamiliar with.

How it Works

There are many approaches to Design Sprints, but the overall flow of a Design Sprint follows this structure:

Source: Design Sprint School.

Kick-off

This is where Sprint Masters gather the team, analyze previous known materials, work on user recruitment, and scope the challenge definition.

User Research

Some approaches rely more heavily on human-centered research than others and may differ on what types of users the sprinting team is more interested in having conversations with. This is a crucial stage to inform the team on how to create relevant offers that solve real problems and address real needs.

Idea Generation

This is where the Sprint master and the sprinting team get together with end users, specialists, and other important stakeholders to generate ideas and refine concepts.

Prototyping

Prototypes are a lot of fun. This stage is where the sprinting team tests the newly created concepts with end-users and gathers valuable feedback.

Adjust & Iterate

Sometimes during a sprint the sprinting team may have the opportunity to make adjustments to their prototypes and run a second prototyping session.

Like I said before, there are many approaches you can learn from when it comes to Design Sprints. In this article, I will talk about two: The Google Ventures model and the MVS model.

The Google Ventures Model

The Google Ventures model was published by Jake Knapp in his book "SPRINT - How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days" (2016). The GV model, as we will be calling it from now on, inherits most of its techniques from Design Thinking. Although the book was launched in 2016, the GV model's most known sprint "The Blue Bottle Case" took place around 2013. Since then, the Google Ventures team has been sprinting with numerous startups and companies. You can read many of those case stories here. 

Day 1

The team defines the challenge, makes a map, defines target customers, and talks to experts from inside and outside the team.

Day 2

Starts with a benchmark research on great solutions for the team to get inspired on, use it, remix, and improve. The team then defines a "How Might We" question (don't worry about this right now, we'll cover it extensively later). Finally, the team moves into idea generation mode.

Day 3

The team decides on the best solutions and moves on to create a storyboard.

Day 4

Using the storyboard as a foundation, the team will build a realistic prototype and do a trial run.

Day 5

Test the prototype with users, watch and learn from them.

Pros: Inherits tools from Design Thinking. Easier to recruit users since user sessions take place only on the last day. Great if you have high-quality raw input coming into the sprint and are able to put together a very diverse and creative team.

Cons: Very little exploratory research. No co-creation with users, which may silence serendipity by turning off the gathering of user insights and user generated ideas at early stages. The team builds first and learns from users later.

The Minimum Valuable Service - MVS Model

The MVS, Minimum Valuable Service, model is an open source framework based on Service Design. 

I kick-started the MVS in 2014 with the release of my book, "The Service Startup :: Design Thinking gets Lean". Since then, the model has been evolving in collaboration with the global sprintmaster.co community, universities, and people using the model worldwide. You can read many of those case stories here.

Day 1

This is where the team maps the ecosystem of the challenge and refines their understandings about who the interesting stakeholders might be.

Day 2

A day of fast paced ethnographic dives and deep interviews to uncover how people learn, use, and remember their relationship with the challenge.

Day Off

This is for the team to process the user interviews and recruit targeted users.

Day 3

This is where the team gathers with users to co-create concepts with end-users and all relevant stakeholders.

Day 4

This is where the team tests the concepts with users.

Pros: Inherits from Service Design which makes it more tailored for service offers. Intense exploratory rounds including co-creation and user research help create variation and produce a diverse pool of raw insights even when you don't have a diverse team.

Cons: Because of the amount of exploratory research involved, it may be a challenge to recruit users so quickly. You may end up with less than ideal users.

Deciding which Approach to Use

It's less related to the "super-powers" each methodology may carry (like people used to think) and more related to the resources you may have at hand before the sprint starts. Recently we've answered the same question during a practice feedback session we held at the Design Sprint School. 

Here is the thread:

Source: Design Sprint School.

When to Run a Design Sprint

Usually, a Design Sprint works better in situations where the challenge can generate a real outcome:

- Co-develop with a new partner.

- Improve the checkout process of our website.

- Create a new product.

- Improve our product to beat the competition.

- Test a solution we have for relevance and adjust if needed.

Warning: Sprints are Messy WYSIWYG Animals

Photo: Sprint in action. Cisco Innovation Center in London and DesignSprintSchool.com core-team. Source: Design Sprint School

 

It is imperative that the sprint master and the sprinting team set up the mood and expectations with the client correctly. 

Design Sprints are intense and messy, and there is no cover layer to shield the sprinting team from the client's view. There is no shelter to retreat to and surprise the client with "a-ha" moments. What you see is what you get in a Design Sprint.
People will get happy, sad, frustrated, irritated, happy, and sad again all in one day, all in the same room. The work is collaborative, and the client is designing as well. 

Many sprints flop because people leading them fail to communicate, clarify, and align these characteristics and end up in a room with stakeholders that want to be impressed and served by the design sprint team.

It's been a while since we got into the battle of proving Design Thinking as a relevant asset to businesses anywhere. In it, Core77 has been instrumental in helping educate the world on the value of the Design practice and how it can really create a monster positive impact to the business bottom line. 

But what I see happening with Design Sprint is different. 

First, It takes a millisecond for any product developer to realize the value of it. The value of a fast-paced design-infused hackathon with customers and employees. It's really a no-brainer—no further explanation needed.

Second, it's fast and cheap. So people jump on it with a more open "what do I have to lose" mindset. This ultimately means they carry less pressure on their shoulders, which helps innovation thrive. A one-hour brainstorming in the right cultural environment, with the right creative mood, has the potential to generate ideas that dozens of meetings in the wrong cultural environment will never be able to. 

It's been great to see Design Thinking and Service Design helping companies and initiatives that before would never sign up for it. From high-tech industries and their machine learning new adventures to NGOs fighting Dengue mosquitos, HIV or helping Syrian Refugees.

Photo: Design Sprinting a drone solution to combat Dengue Mosquitoes in Malaysia .

Design Sprints are the future of Design Thinking and Service Design. Why? Because of its "why not?" nature: 

- Low risk, low resources? let's give it a try.

During its mere four years of existence, design sprint adoption levels have been growing exponentially fast. This becomes even more evident when we compare it to the adoption levels of Design Thinking and Service Design during the same period. It also helps the fact that Google has been spreading the word about the approach, and applying it to every startup they are backing. 

Good news: This may be the mass adoption of Design Thinking designers always wanted to see. 

Bad news: To the despair of many, including design firms and the Academy, Design Sprints are also teachable. They can be easily learned by anyone and are more about street smart than academic training. Because of that, in very the end, they may contribute to disintegrate once and for all the idea of Design Thinking and Service Design as siloed disciplines and specialized practices, freeing its skills, methods, and practices to emerge as an ingenious yet ubiquitous new design practice.

About time. 

Threaded connections, such as bolts and nuts, are used in a wide variety of applications, ranging from plastic toys to massive bridges. The one similarity that ties them together is that these connections need to stay together when we want them to, but also come apart when needed. For example, the valve covers on an engine have to stay in place while driving, but we also need them to be removable, so we can service the engine components.

This article will explore different methods to ensure that these types of connections stay together when we need them to. The term "Thread Locking" is typically used for methods of ensuring the threads stay in place without loosening and will be used often in this article.

Defining Threaded Connections

There are many types of threaded connections, but the primary types are as follows:

- Bolts and nuts – This is probably the most common and low cost type of threaded connection. It is used on applications ranging from automobiles to cell tower antennas. The image below shows an example of a bolt, nut, and flat washer.

- Screws and Tapped Holes – With this type of connection, we are installing a screw into a hole that has been drilled and tapped into a housing or mechanical component. The most commonly recognized difference between a screw and a bolt is that screws typically go into threaded holes while bolts go through 2 unthreaded components and fasten with a nut. The image below illustrates a screw fastened into a threaded aluminum extrusion.

We can see three cap screws that are all going into tapped aluminum components. These may be used instead of bolts for precision, ease of assembly, and reduced component play—likely a combination of factors in excess of what we've already mentioned.

- Threaded Components - these are most commonly shafts or housings (typically cylindrical) that have both been threaded to fasten together. A flashlight bulb and battery tube is a good example. The image below illustrates the concept of 2 cylindrical housings threading together.

The final idea I want to touch on is the concept of torque and preload. Threaded components are torqued together to create some form of axial preload. This torque is measured in units, such as in-lbs or N-m, but is always just a force acting to "twist" the components together. With threaded components, this torqueing together creates an axial force that is referred to as preload. The image below illustrates a before and after picture of a bolt being tightened. The red lock washers are in the expanded state, but when the assembly is torqued together, the lock washers are compressed and behaving as springs.

In some cases, the frictional forces from this preload are enough to hold the fastener together. But in other cases, we need to use thread lockers. Some of these cases are high vibration, expected stress relaxation (creep in plastics), and cyclic stresses.

Thread Locking Categories and Methods

Thread locking can be separated into the following categories, which use mechanical items to prevent loosening or adhesives that prevent loosening:

Mechanical Hardware – these are physical components that are used to prevent threaded fasteners from loosening. Some of the common items that are used are:

- Lock Washers – there are a few styles of lock washers, but they are all placed under the head of a bolt or screw with the intent of preventing it from loosening and to maintain a preload. The image below is of a split lock washer.

This type of washer acts as a spring when the bolt is tightened. That spring action maintains some preload, even if the screw relaxes a little. However, the effectiveness of these components in high vibration conditions may be low. Another type of lock washer is the Nord-lock, which relies on mechanical ramps and teeth to prevent loosening, as shown below:

The teeth bite into the bolt or screw head, as well as the material under the washer, while the ramps are oriented so they "climb" in the direction that would loosen the fastener. In other words, to un-torque the bolt, you have to increase the preload, while overcoming the ramps. These are effective but relatively pricey and typically used on larger hardware. There are a lot of other lock washer styles, so I encourage you to research additional options.

- Nylon Insert Lock (nylock) Nut – these have a circular nylon insert that locks the threads in place by deforming over the mating threads. They may not hold the peak preload in all cases of vibration, but they will typically retain the nut, even if it loses some preload. An image of a nylon insert nut is shown below.

These are commonly used in high vibration environments on non-safety critical applications where you still want to prevent the nut from possibly loosening and falling off. As an example, this type of fastener is used on my hitch mounted mountain bike rack, as shown below.

In this application, there will be no immediate safety hazard if the preload is lost because the screw still supports the load in double shear. However, if the screw falls out, there may be a safety concern, so we need to make sure the bolt remains connected.

- Safety Wire – the use of safety wire is very common in aerospace, defense, and racing. It works by installing a steel wire through a hole in a screw, bolt, or nut and anchoring it to another item. Safety wire is often applied between a series of fasteners to hold them all together. The image below details such an application.

We can see that for one nut to loosen, the other must be tightened because of the orientation of the wire. This is very important to remember, because safety wire installed in the incorrect orientation is almost entirely useless.

- Castle Nut/Safety Clip/Retainer Pin – there are several iterations of the castle nut, but they all behave in a similar fashion. Some sort of pin is placed through the threaded shaft or bolt to prevent a nut from backing off. The image below illustrates a castle nut:

In this application, a hole is drilled in the bolt, so the cotter pin can go through the slots in the castle nut. This prevents the nut from rotating in either direction to prevent loosening, but it still allows for the pin to be removed and nut loosened, if needed. The image below is an example of a castle nut being used to secure a wheel hub in place:

Adhesives

n many cases, adhesives are used to keep threads locked in place. They are even used in conjunction with a mechanical method above in many instances. In the oil and gas industry, where the drilling environment sees extreme vibrations, it's common to use a lock washer and an adhesive. The adhesives can be broken down as follows:

- Threadlockers (Loctite, Vibratite) – this category can contain a wide variety of adhesives, but they all serve the purpose of bonding the threads in place. Loctite is the most widely known brand in the United States, but there are several alternatives. The image below shows an example of Loctite 242 (blue) applied to a bolt.

It's important to note that Loctite comes in several grades, some of which are not intended to be removeable. You'll have to ensure you're using the correct grade for your application.

- Dry Patch – this quite literally means a dry patch pre-applied to threads to act as a thread locker. In some instances, it's just a dry nylon, and in others, it's an active adhesive. The image below shows a dry patch of a combination threadlocker/sealant used to seal a pneumatic pressure relief valve.

Dry patches may be used to eliminate the process variability associated with manually dispensing adhesive threadlockers, or it may be used to improve the logistics of loose hardware that will require threadlockers. As an example, I recently assembled some furniture that had dry patches on all the hardware. The manufacturer knew this would improve the reliability of the assembly and wouldn't require the end user to apply liquid threadlocker.

I've summarized these methods in a quick reference chart that will get you started in your search for a proper thread locker.

As we've seen here, there are a multitude of ways to prevent threads from coming loose under normal operations. However, it's important to choose the right method for the application. While the chart above will help get you started, more research should be done before you decide on your ultimate solution. When selecting your method, it will help to walk through these options with vendors and coworkers in an effort to match your application with a close fit. Your design can be further optimized if you test a few different options to see what gives you the best blend of attributes.

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Holland's Rijksmuseum has in their collection this "detector lock," created by a British locksmith named John Wilkes circa 1680. Made of nothing more complicated than brass and steel, it essentially has two-factor identification as you need to both possess the key and know how to operate the damn thing. And it's got a clever little counter:

HCSC is committed to diversity in the workplace and to providing equal opportunity and affirmative action to employees and applicants.We are an Equal Opportunity Employment / Affirmative Action employer dedicated to workforce diversity and a drug-free and smoke-free workplace. Drug screening and background investigation are required, as allowed by law.

I enjoy IKEA hacking as much as the next guy, but Balenciaga's $2.1k "homage" to the classic blue bag felt a bit hackneyed. While the accessible furniture and home goods company has stated publicly that the high fashion rip off is "flattering" this new ad might suggest otherwise. 

It's a fun little commercial for the humble item, and does an admirable job of showing the original bag's real and slightly outlandish uses and users. They do make a great hauler for landscaping and messy breakups, but if I tried to strap a bunch of open topped bags to my car roof I'd wind up with littering tickets and several fewer possessions. 

Think I'm blowing air about the beef? The soothing voiceover poses the verbatim question, "Why should functionality and quality be a privilege for the few, when we can do something about it?" Then shows a fancy gentleman posing with his suit and blue bag in front of a mirror, before the ad's final shot lingers on the bag left unworn on his bed. With each tart wink at their copycat, IKEA gets to reiterate their brand messaging as a design house for the common folk, the laborers, the proletariat. Whether it's justified or not, I'm starting to wonder if the Balenciaga design was a deep ops co-brand all along. 

The Nebraska-based folks behind Levrack had a problem that those of you with shops will recognize. "Our shop was in need of a storage solution," they write. "Every type of shelving that we tried seemed to add to the clutter, and take up much needed wall space."

You've undoubtedly seen the "mobile aisle" solution that libraries (and Lego HQ) use to cram a lot of storage into a limited footprint. That system is efficient, but requires laying tracks in the floor. So Levrack's developers did the mobile aisle one better:

In the world of voice-controlled digital assistant-driven smart speakers, Amazon and Google stole the march on Apple last year with their Alexa-powered Echo and Google-Assistant-powered Google Home, respectively. Yesterday Apple answered, pulling the wraps off of their forthcoming Siri-powered HomePod.

Price

Unsurprisingly, the HomePod is a premium offering, expected to retail for $349. (The Echo's about half that at $180, and Google Home runs just $130.) Apple's betting that folks will pay more for an audiophile-quality speaker, an area where the Echo and Home fall short.

Sound Quality

The HomePod is being billed as a high-tech, sensor-laden speaker whose A8 chip will automatically adapt the sound quality to fit the room its within. Seven "beamforming" tweeters and a subwoofer will supposedly provide sound far superior to Amazon and Google's offerings, theoretically justifying the price, and Apple suggests that buying two would make for a good home theater system.

Utility

It's tough to quantify which of the three devices will prove more useful to the end-user, as that has to do with what kind of functionality is desired. All three can control "smart homes," and after Apple releases the device and the dust settles, it may come down to who's worked out the best UI/UX. We won't know that until Apple's offering has been on the market long enough for real-world reviews to come in.

Design

That Apple's won the looks battle is hard to deny, and ought be expected at the price point. Aesthetically speaking the Echo looks cheap in comparison, while Google's offering appears merely inoffensive. However, I do wonder how the fabric covering on the HomePod will hold up over time, and it does seem like a magnet for dust to me. 

In terms of form factor, everyone is sticking with variations on a cylinder, and the HomePod echoes the design language of Apple's Mac Pro, which is in my opinion a timeless form. The HomePod will be available in white and "space grey."

Availability

The HomePod will hit shelves this December.

At press time, all Apple had posted of the HomePod on their YouTube channel was this teaser video:

Echo and Home users: Are you happy with your systems, and/or would you jump ship come December?

If you own your home, it may make sense for you to invest in kitting it out with solar power. But for the millions of folks who rent, it's not possible to go green in this way.

That will change if SolarGaps, a system of solar-panel-laden Venetian blinds, work as advertised. The blinds, which automatically track the sun to maximize their exposure, practically sound too good to be true:

The project has been successfully Kickstarted, with $66,156 in pledges on a $50,000 goal. There are still eight days left for those who want to get in on it, with blinds starting at $390. (Amusingly, they're also selling $39 single slats, for those who'd like to charge USB devices.)

One question I have is about functionality: If the blinds are set to track the sun, aren't you then giving up their original light-blocking feature? I suppose the trade-off may be worth it, depending on how green you want to go.

As technology continues to evolve and as more things turn digital, we are living in a world of immediate satisfaction. We are losing the physical and tactile impact that a photo holds. This camera concept merges the attributes of a polaroid with a DSLR and digital camera to create a device that allows you to save and share moments of your life in the best way.

Did anybody else love those dinosaur sponge pills, but wonder what would happen if you swallowed one? You can deliver on that slightly menacing magic with this new shapeshifting pasta invented by MIT's Tangible Media Group. 

Beyond whimsy, lead researcher Lining Yao, and supporting researcher Wen Wang, note that 67% of the space in macaroni pasta packaging is air. Taken to a global scale, flatter or adaptive foods could save an enormous amount of packaging costs.

While experimenting with printed gelatin, the Tangible Media Group team found that certain variations in thickness would produce reliable 3d shape changes when exposed to water. By using a mix of media—gelatin and starches—they could encourage the flat "noodles" into curling, contracting and twisting.

The outcome of the project was a conceptual pairing with renowned haute cuisine chef Matthew Delisle. Delisle took several of the uniquely shaped pasta and used both their final form and their transformation process as elements in a deliciously over the top meal. 

Whether or not the curling noodles find their way to grocery stores, or even Michelin starred restaurants, the team's findings might well show up in forward thinking packaging and product design before too long. 

We get a lot of submissions from exciting Kickstarter campaigns in our inboxes here at Core77. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. So many that we can't possibly feature them all—until now. Every couple weeks or so, we're going to pick our favorite Kickstarter projects currently crowdfunding and feature them in a roundup for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

DFRobot's BOSON Kit: Powerful Building Blocks for LEGO STEM

Attractive electronic blocks that help develop creative and logical skills.

eto: A Beautiful Innovation in Wine Preservation 

If this wine decanter is as fun to use as it is to watch...

Barkitecture: The First Affordable Designer Dog House

Treat your dog right with a fashionable, flat-packed, portable dog house. 

Array - Tailor Your Light

"A minimalist, ambient LED lamp that offers cutting edge control over your light's color and brightness"

Reissue of the IBM Graphic Standards Manual by Paul Rand

An important reissue that takes updates and color into upmost consideration. 

SID, The Next Revolution in 3D Storytelling

Easy 3D selfies and live-streaming? Intrigued.

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Overview CMF plays a huge role in the HP re-imagined print experience, and our CMF team is growing! We’re seeking a CMF Designer with a keen awareness of what’s going on in the world of how macro trends affect product CMF. You must have the ability to make intelligent business choices, focus on strategy across the print LOB, work with internal business partners and manage multiple materials developments. Development experience with resin, textiles, patterns creation, paint, film, metals and sustainable materials is required. Ability to engage with materials suppliers and initiate materials developments from conception through production is a must.

While recently lauding/lamenting Cotopaxi's rare stylish travel backpack, I was struck by how few options there are for slick packs that accommodate bulky cameras and travel necessities without losing EDC appeal. Options for sturdy carry alls tend towards sack-like hiking packs, dorky extra-padded equipment bags, or going Full Messenger with overbuilt strap-crazy packs. Giant packs are awesome for single use purposes, but when traveling or working it can be a bummer to dig a single important item out of the bottom of a deep bag. 

Boundary's solution? Just hide your camera bag in the side of a normal backpack. 

The Boundary Prima system is currently blowing the heck up on Kickstarter, but it does a lot more than most "innovative" pack prototypes. This system rests on an expandable 25-30 liter commuter backpack, built with heavily vetted eco-conscious Bluesign materials, ergonomic straps, and smart weather-resistant features you'd actually want in a daily use pack. There are a grip of pockets, several lined with particularly soft materials to reduce screen scratching. It even comes with a removable padded and storage-added laptop sleeve. 

They add a helpful user-friendly vertical zipper, distinctive metal hardware, and smart compression strap placements. Perhaps most importantly, to really feature-pack the pack the Prima nests a specialized "Verge Case" camera bag that can be side accessed, or unsnapped and used separately. To really drive the point home, you can remove the backpack's waist strap for use as a shoulder strap on the camera bag. 

The bottom of the Verge Case unzips to provide more storage, and the backpack's side pockets and compression straps can stow tripods and other longer gear. 

I had my reservations about covering another Kickstarter bag project - there are so many ways for these prototypes to come up short IRL - but after a stellar review by the eagle eyed folks at Carryology I had to admit that the design is pretty special. 

Is it the "best modular backpack" out there, as they claim? Obviously not (I'd argue that title is held by Mission Workshop's exceptional R8), but the Prima System does a bang up job at integrating safe camera portage and elegant storage into an independently solid backpack design. 

Between the company's desire to create durable and resilient product, their investment in ecologically sound manufacturing, and the attention to real life use, I think Boundary's Prima system will carry off a lot more than a single successful campaign. 

Elie Aghnides was the inventor of the faucet aerator in the 1930s, which supposedly earned him a fortune. He reportedly came up with the idea for it while looking at a waterfall.

Years later, in the 1940s, Aghnides was watching a tractor laboring through New York City's Central Park and figured he could design a more efficient connection between the vehicle and the ground. He came up with the concept of enormous, slanted hemispherical wheels, and by the 1950s had developed a prototype called the Rhino that had amphibious capability:

Here's what it looks like in motion:

I've read at least one account claiming Aghnides "hoped to sell it to the U.S. military as a replacement for the tank," which I doubt the veracity of as it makes no sense; a vehicle like this would make a poor mobile gun platform, and its enormous, hollow aluminum wheels are antithetical to the concept of armored vehicles.

In any case, it appears the concept never got past the prototype stage, but the vehicle's unusual-looking enough that we thought you'd like to see it.