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Design Job: Transform Complex Data Into Indispensable Products as an Interaction Designer at Bloomberg

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Bloomberg's UX, Product and Technology teams are committed to creating valuable and meaningful user experiences for our customers. We transform complex data and work processes into products that are indispensable to our users. Bloomberg is looking for an experienced Interaction Designer with experience designing complex transactional systems into intuitive and valuable products.

View the full design job here

RUNVI: Smart Insoles that Track Performance & Help Reverse Bad Running Habits

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Knee injuries, ankle injuries and straight-up laziness are three common excuses for living a lifestyle without running, but according to NWTN Co-Founder Daniel von Waldthausen, two of those three excuses can simply stem from running improperly our entire lives. While NWTN's smart insole, RUNVI, can't help in the laziness department, what it can potentially help with is injury prevention. 

The RUNVI system offers accurate technique and performance measurement in addition to real-time coaching and personalized dynamic training plans. The result is a full, personalized running profile for each user. "It's like having a personal run coach in your ear at all times," says Waldthausen. In fact, RUNVI is even more accurate than a real run coach when it comes to statistics, as it can analyze your movements and form straight from real-time data.

RUNVI sets itself apart from other fitness tracking apps like Nike+ with its advanced metrics, which include cadence, foot-strike pattern and symmetry. Foot strike pattern data is especially invaluable to have as a runner because it allows you to correct bad habits like heel-striking in real-time.

A retrospective case-control analysis of 2002 running injuries.

The system's accompanying app seems comprehensive and pleasant to use, but what's most interesting to us is the physical component of the system. Instead of bulky clip-on "wearable" hardware, the RUNVI team took things to the ground—where the actual running happens—and developed an insole packed with 30 advanced pressure sensors that continuously measure data. The CORE Lithium Ion and USB rechargeable battery pack is tiny, rechargeable and removable, and it's strategically located beneath the arch of the user's foot.

When you think tech-embedded insoles, the first word that comes to mind is bulk. Much to our surprise, RUNVI insoles actually weigh 100 Gramm (0.22 Lbs), which is almost the same as regular insoles. According to Waldthausen, we've become accustomed to thicker, cushier insoles that may be comfortable but actually end up making our feet work in ways they aren't intended to. RUNVI insoles were designed thinner to combat this, which in turn allows for some of that extra tech weight.

Rechargable battery - it looks huge in this photo, but in real life, it's very tiny.


Even so, Waldthausen notes that the design team's main challenge was designing pressure sensors and a battery pack thin enough to keep the insoles comfortable and light. A main battery feature to note is that insoles can be replaced while keeping the same CORE battery pack, so if you need replacements after wearing the fabric and sensors down, that is possible.

When asked about how the idea behind RUNVI differs from typical wearable fitness devices, Waldthausen immediately pointed out the personalized nature of the system. He noted the arbitrary nature of the 10,000 step-per-day goal we all have engrained in our minds because of the Fitbit model—why do we all have the same goal when we're individuals with custom fitness needs?

At press time, RUNVI has already received $108,065 on Kickstarter—much more than their $58,738 goal. There's less than one days left to pledge, so get on it if you're interested

The Pink Coffin Pool Floatie 2018 Deserves 

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Designers Andrew Greenbaum and Ian Felton of Pom Pom just served 2018 exactly what it deserves—a pink inflatable coffin. We caught wind of the satirical twist on the designer pool floatie trend yesterday morning, and put it to the Instagram poll test, which revealed many people are interested in the product.

Well, good news: the pink coffin is now on Kickstarter

It ain't cheap at $120 a pop, but rest assured, your crippling social anxiety and sunscreen reliant skin will thank you. The materials used for the float are broad spectrum UV proof—practical for both myself and my fellow redheads. 

If you're concerned this is a campaign that won't deliver, don't be. Greenbaum and Felton reassure that, "At the end of the day...it's an inflatable pink coffin. You can trust us."

Greenbaum and Felton are SCAD grads that began working together on side projects during their time in school. After graduation, Greenbaum worked as a custom lighting designer and office space interiors designer, and Felton worked as a high end custom furniture designer for private residential projects. 

Both designers still work on their own separate projects, but they're excited to collaborate once again with Pom Pom. "We really just wanted an outlet," says Felton. "An outlet for weird ideas—satire, comedy, and strangeness. We also wanted to design objects that could ultimately fall between the lines of commercial object and art—taken with a huge grain of Himalayan salt. We've got a lot more ideas for Pom Pom, so this is definitely not a one trick Pony."

So, there it is. Expect more from these guys in the future, but for now RIP in your pink inflatable coffins.

Reader Submitted: Eco-Conscious Manual Toothbrushes with Clip-On Brushes

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HILT is a manual toothbrush service that empowers its users to reduce their plastic waste by providing handles manufactured from a selection of longer lasting, recycled or degradable materials. An accompanying subscription service provides the users with bristle heads, these bristle heads are designed to manufactured using the minimum amount of plastic. However, users are also encouraged to return their old bristle heads to be recycled. HILT encourages users to stick with the service and keep recycling their old bristle heads through a points system that grants rewards and discounts on HILT products.

A simple toothbrush may not seem like a lot of plastic, but after accounting for manufacturing waste, plastic packaging and the sheer number being thrown away, the figures become staggering. Through the HILT website and app, users can track not only their plastic reduction, CO2 reduction and amount recycled, but also that of the entire HILT community, so together, they can see the difference they are making.

HILT Toothbrush Handle Range
HILT Handle & Accompanying Packaging
Bamboo HILT Handle
Recycled Synthetic Tortoise Shell Hilt Handle
Recycled Toothbrushes HILT Handle
Stainless Steel Hilt Handle
Titanium Alloy HILT Handle
HILT Bristles & Freepost Return Packaging
HILT User
Design Process Summery
View the full project here

Brilliant Design for a Gas Can: The SureCan

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Now relocated to farm country, I recently needed to gas up a lawn tractor. I went to Lowes to purchase a gas can. I grabbed the standard $20 one, which looks like this:

But next to it I spotted another gas can, listed for an absurd $50, that looked like this:

I couldn't understand why this one cost more than double, and set the other can down to take a closer look. A sticker on the side demonstrated how to use it, and it did indeed appear innovatively designed. Since Lowes has a pretty liberal return policy, I left the $20 can on the shelf and purchased the $50 one to try it out.

After a trip to the gas station I returned to the farm and learned that the SureCan, as it's called, works amazingly well. Here's what it looks like in action:

Using it was incredibly easy, and I won't be taking it back. Hoisting and aiming the thing was simple, and the trigger works perfectly, allowing you to dispense with precision.

I looked into it and the SureCan was invented by general contractor and cabinetmaker Brad Ouderkirk, who "spent a lot of his time filling gas powered machines and constantly spilling all over his expensive equipment." Ouderkirk spent four years designing the SureCan, building his own prototypes out of wood and plastic. Here's a closer look at the design, development of and need for the SureCan:

One of our favorite types of stories is when someone looks at an established, tried-and-true object that everyone takes for granted, then figures out how to improve it. Congratulations to Ouderkirk for not only designing it, but successfully bringing it to market.

Tools & Craft #100: The Finest Water Fountain in New York City

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I'm a big fan of pastrami, and I go to Katz's to get it. Katz's has been on Ludlow Street since 1888, and aside from superb pastrami, and what must be the largest restaurant seating capacity in New York City, they have the single coolest water fountain I have ever seen.

A genuine Art Deco relic, the three shelves store I-don't-know-how-many hundred glasses. With three spigots, that's a lot of glasses of water real fast. And it's beautiful and elegant to look at. And the water is cold and we all know water tastes better when it's in a glass.

I tried really hard to figure out a connection to woodworking but I failed. However, great design is great design in any medium, and I know I learned something useful from seeing this great fountain; I just don't know exactly what.

___________________

This "Tools & Craft" section is provided courtesy of Joel Moskowitz, founder of Tools for Working Wood, the Brooklyn-based catalog retailer of everything from hand tools to Festool; check out their online shop here. Joel also founded Gramercy Tools, the award-winning boutique manufacturer of hand tools made the old-fashioned way: Built to work and built to last.


Better Butter Dispensing

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I'm skeptical of kitchen gadgets in general, but this one seems genuinely useful, at least if you're a frequent consumer of butter. Most of us store butter in a butter dish, and cut slices off of it with a knife. If you refrigerate your butter (a Northeastern America thing? I recently learned of Midwestern and Southern households that leave it out all day and night), cutting it yields inconsistent results. Enter the Butter Twist, which is both the storage vessel and the means of precise dispensing:

The Butter Twist has been successfully Kickstarted and should start shipping later this year.

You Have 2 Days Left to Vote for the 2018 Core77 Design Awards Community Choice Winner!

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On Saturday, July 14th, voting for this year's Community Choice Prize Winner in the 2018 Core77 Design Awards will officially come to a close, which means you still have a little more time to:

A.) Vote for your favorite design award-winning project of 2018 to win, or....

B.) Promote your own winning project for a chance to win / sabotage anyone else's chances of winning by blowing up your Twitter feed with reminders!

What might you ask is the grand prize for winning the 2018 Community Choice Prize? The lucky winner this year will receive airfare and one free ticket to our 2018 Core77 Conference to be held October 25th in New York City! Learn more about the conference here

In order to vote, simply go to your favorite project page in this year's awards on our design awards website and hit the "Vote for this project button" in the yellow square on the right side of the page—yes, it really is that simple.

If you're a winner yourself, don't forget to share this on social media as a reminder! The more your friends and colleagues are made aware of the Community Choice Prize, the better you're chance of winning.

It's now or never—click here to check out all of this year's winner so you can decide who should win this year! Happy voting. 


Pitch a Workshop for the 2018 Core77 Conference in New York City

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We're looking for dynamic workshops to add to our exciting list of 2018 Core77 Conference presentations! This years theme is all about launching and growing your creative business or product line. Do you have practical knowledge around this topic? Are you passionate about working as an independent designer? Do you know a lil' somethin' somethin' about running a successful business?

If so, we want YOU!

Workshops that delve into a specific topic are preferred. To give you an idea of what we mean by this, a few workshop topics we already have covered are:

-Branding yourself as an independent designer 
-Crowdfunding tips and best practices
-PR for Designers: Does your work need PR? If so, how do you get it?

Fill out our survey by 11:59PM on TUESDAY July 31st to be considered. Selected workshop leads will win a complimentary pass to this year's festivities and a 1-hour workshop slot during the event.*

The 2018 Core77 Conference will focus on starting and running a design business, or launching your own product line. Attendees will walk away with tangible skills and toolkits to help them produce, finance and promote their products, their services, and themselves, along with a network of connections to help nurture their nerve. It will be informative, it will be honest, and it will be fun.

Learn more about launching and growing a creative business at this October's Core77 Conference in New York City. Buy your ticket before July 31st for Early Bird pricing.

*Travel costs and accommodations not included.

Drought in Wales Reveals Hidden Subterranean Monuments

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Architecture is supposed to be permanent, but take a good look around you, and ask yourself if the house or building you're in will be around in a thousand years. We have access to better materials science than the Romans did--well, except for concrete--yet the architectural evidence of their existence will likely outlast ours. (Our mark will be that we screwed up the environment.)

Now a combination of environmental conditions is revealing long-forgotten Roman structures. An unprecedented drought in Wales has revealed ghostly outlines in the earth, visible from above:

So what's going on here? As reported by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, here's precisely what we're seeing:

"Newly discovered cropmarks of a prehistoric or Roman farm near Langstone, Newport, south Wales."
"The 'playing card' shape of Pen-llwyn Roman fort, Ceredigion emerging in parched grassland."
"The almost ploughed-down medieval castle mound at Castell Llwyn Gwinau, Tregaron, showing clearly under parched conditions."
"A newly discovered Roman fortlet near Magor, south Wales, emerging in ripening crops."
"The Iron Age hillfort of Gaer Fawr near Lledrod, Ceredigion, looking across the parched landscape of mid Wales."
"The buried ramparts of Cross Oak Hillfort, Talybont on Usk, showing as cropmarks."
"Extensive cropmarks of Trewen Roman farmstead or villa, Caerwent, south Wales."

The presence of the visible outlines has to do with the construction methods of ancient fortifications. These illustrations below show how moats and defensive walls, once reclaimed by nature and modern farming, still leave telltale traces:

Next we'll look at how we modern-day earthlings do the exact opposite--building tall, impressive structures that we eventually demolish, leaving nothing behind for future archaeologists to find.

Manhattan's Lost Skyscraper: The Singer Building

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Core77's NYC headquarters are in what is informally called the Singer Building, located in SoHo. Aside from the distinctive red and green façade, the building is easily discernible by the throngs of Core77 fans surrounding the entrance at all hours, eagerly hoping to catch a glimpse of our staff and ask for autographs. But this Singer Building, once the headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, was for a time known as the Little Singer Building.

That's because in 1908, flush with sewing machine profits, Singer erected a massive building with a 47-story tower in Manhattan's Financial District, and that came to be called the Singer Building.

Upon its completion it was the tallest building in the world, which is important to people with penises. Designed in the Beaux Arts style by architect Ernest Flagg, the building towered over lower Broadway, yet still displayed restraint; the tower only utilized 25% of the 12-story base's footprint.

That design choice would be the building's undoing. But we'll get to that in a moment.

Because photo compositing technology had not been developed at the time, other famous structures like the Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty and the Capitol Building were recreated next to the Singer Building for comparison's sake, so that a sketch artist could refer to it. They were all torn down the next day
Though the building was 47 stories, this says "41 stories" because the illustrator believed that stories with prime numbers were invalid
Seeking a way to waste vast amounts of electricity, Singer began NYC's trend of dramatically lighting building exteriors at night
Erected in 1908, the building's height was so novel that it wasn't until 1916 that people realized they could kill themselves by jumping off of it
The vaulted lobby ceiling featured tall, hard-to-reach illuminated glass panels designed to torture the maintenance men who had to change the bulbs

In the 1960s, amidst waning fortunes, Singer leased office space at Rockefeller Center and put the Singer Building up for sale. However, the design was considered space-inefficient and thus undesirable, as the square footage afforded by the tower was vastly disproportionate to the building's footprint.

The building was demolished from 1967 to 1968, and Core77 HQ once again became known as the Singer Building. Or, as we call it around the office, the Building Where We Refuse Your Autograph Requests Because It Makes Us Feel Powerful.

Reader Submitted: Möbel: A Foldable Chair Designed to Ease the Moving Experience for Students

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Möbel is a comfortable, attractive, and foldable seating system that makes the moving process much smoother. Möbel easily assembles and disassembles, so you won't have to worry about selling your furniture, or throwing it away, and having to buy a new one after you move. Instead, Möbel will move along with you wherever you go, and you don't need to worry about renting a big truck or calling friends to help you move it!

View the full project here

Resource for Designers: Here's How to Get Instant Quotes for On-Demand Manufacturing

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"The ease of being able to upload a part," says Josh Haldeman, an industrial designer for protective gear company Bullard, "and instantly know what it's going to cost me is phenomenal." Haldeman is referring to the instant online quoting process for Xometry, a company that connects manufacturers and fabricators with designers and producers who need things made.

Xometry has built up a network that, earlier this year, consisted of roughly 800 manufacturers across the U.S., and the company connects them via its portal to about 8,000 customers. The idea is that "a local machine shop in Pennsylvania can reach major companies like NASA, General Electric, and BMW," the company explains. The numbers are about to get bigger: Last week Xometry announced they've acquired MakeTime, another on-demand manufacturing company, and once integrated the total number of manufacturers jumps to 2,300, while the potential customers number about 10,000.

This is good news for industrial designers seeking manufacturing facilities with transparent pricing. If you want to dive in and check out their Instant Quoting Engine, here's the link.


Trump Wants New Paint Job for Air Force One, Here are His Guidelines. Your Submissions Please!

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Did you know that Raymond Loewy designed the paint scheme for Air Force One? It was approved by JFK and Jackie Kennedy and has been the AF1 signature livery ever since. But Axios is reporting that changes are afoot, as "Trump wants a color scheme that 'looks more American' and isn't a 'Jackie Kennedy color.' He doesn't think the current blue (technically 'luminous ultramarine') represents the USA…. The president's preferred design is believed to include red, white and blue."

Got any ideas, Core77 readers? Give us a sketch, a rendering, anything!


Brilliant Materials Insight: Human Hair Can be Used to Clean Up Oil Spills

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Here's a perfect example of analyzing a material's properties, then exploiting them to solve a problem. In 1989 an Alabama man named Phil McCrory was watching footage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on television. The sad footage showed an otter drenched in oil--and McCrory observed that the water immediately around the otter contained less oil, as it had been absorbed by the otter's fur.

This was noteworthy to McCrory, as he was a hairstylist. As he explained to NPR:

And I was thinking, well, the otter was, you know, getting saturated with oil, then the hair that I sweep up should do the same thing. So basically, I took the hair home, put it in my wife's pantyhose, created a little imaginary [oil] spill [in a kiddie] pool, and cleaned the water up. Within a minute and a half, I had the water crystal clear, and all the oil was in the pantyhose loaded with hair.

Inspired by the footage, McCrory gathered a bunch of hair clippings from his workplace, stole a nylon stocking from his wife and stuffed the hair into the stocking. He then filled a kiddie pool with water and dumped some motor oil into it. When he submerged his pantyhose-and-human-hair sausage into the pool, he found that it soaked up the oil.

Today McCrory's company, Ottimat, harvests otherwise worthless human hair clippings--60 million pounds of it is discarded each year in the U.S. alone--to produce the nylon-stuffed sausages for oil spill cleanups. The sausages are chained together into long booms that are deployed around the affected area. McCrory's partnered with a charity called Matter of Trust, which coordinates hair and animal fur donations through their Hair for Oil Spills program. Here's how it works:


So what happens to the oil-soaked booms once they've done their job? It appears there's no clear answer:

- BP has declined to use the hair booms, stating that "they've had some difficulties in the use and disposal of hair booms in the past;"

- the BBC reports that "the options tried by the charity include feeding the whole mess to worms to break down into fertilizer;"

- the same article points out that chemist Malcolm Fox tested oil-soaked wool and "recycled the wool mats by putting them through an old washing mangle to recover the oil, which could also be used again;"

- McCrory himself suggests that "The oil saturated bundles can be burned as fuel and energy value of the petroleum they contain can be recovered."

Still, it's a brilliant first step to solving the problem of oil spill cleanups. Now someone needs to step up and figure out what to do with the cleanup materials.



Adam Savage Releases EDC Two Bag

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After Adam Savage debuted his EDC One bag last year, based on an old NASA design, he "immediately decided that I wanted to make a second bag," he writes, "for two reasons."

"First, the EDC ONE was sized for me and my specific needs, but I could see use for a smaller version that also pairs well with the original. I resolved to make a smaller bag, while retaining the same tool bag aesthetic.
"Second, some fans expressed disappointment in the cost of the EDC ONE. It's as inexpensive as I can make it, while still keeping manufacturing in the United States. So I did my best to provide an alternative product for those who would really like to have one."

Savage's EDC Two, again produced in collaboration with Mafia Bags and produced from recycled sailcloth, is manufactured largely from one panel (rather than the five required for the EDC One), which helps to bring the cost down. It's also smaller at 6" x 12" X 10" vs. the One's 8" x 15.5" x 10", and it's not merely the same bag with reduced dimensions: "Simply scaling down all three dimensions yielded a weird looking bag that looked more like a toy than a tool bag," Savage writes. "Eventually, after about 4 prototypes, we dialed in on a set of dimensions that felt exactly right."

The $145 price point is easier to swallow than the $225 One, and while it obviously depends on what you're hauling, it looks a lot more tote-able to me. Comes in both Savage's signature white (which makes it easier to see tools inside) or black for the fashion-minded set. Check it out here.


Prototyping a Dust Mask with Integrated Eye Protection, Phase Two

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Here in Phase Two of creating a dust mask with integrated eye protection, industrial designer Eric Strebel demonstrates the balance between digital and manual: When to CAD and when not to CAD, and the benefits of modeling vs. leaving yourself room to shape things by hand, finding the form in a more natural, intuitive way.

Missed Part 1? It's here.

Reader Submitted: Prepdeck: A Complete Meal Preparation System

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Prepdeck is an all-in-one meal preparation system loaded with over 45 features and accessories to help you prepare, measure, and store ingredients. The system is developed specifically to keep you tidy and organized when cooking at home.

View the full project here

How VR Is Changing the Game for Product Designers

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A few years ago when my colleagues were designing an aging-in-place walk-in shower for Jacuzzi, they rented a nearby virtual reality facility to evaluate a simulated version of an early prototype.

The VR facility staffer donned a suit packed with sensors, and the designers on Bresslergroup's project team were able to ask him in real time to interact with different elements of the prototype. Observing how some of the controls were in a hard-to-reach area, the design team immediately saw the value of changing these and other design elements.

Today we have the ability to set up and interact with a VR-simulated prototype whenever we need to, and without leaving our office – and the cost is a fraction of what we spent to rent the VR facility just a few years ago. And the technology continues to grow more accessible. If you can figure out how to leverage it for product design, it can easily translate to faster turnaround and cheaper development costs.

Farewell, Foam Core Mockups?

Foam core mockups have been a staple for industrial designers since the beginning of our profession. Once an object gets bigger than two by two feet, it's often useful to build some kind of volumetric model to evaluate placement of controls, positions of openings and doors, and relative scale compared to the users.

I was taught in my first years of design school how to meticulously craft by hand a presentation-worthy foam core or foam model based on CAD drawings. Laser cutters and CNC machines make this process more precise, efficient, and speedier.

At Bresslergroup we frequently build these models for clients to conduct ergonomic assessments and get feedback on in-progress work. Models can be built with moving doors and drawers to simulate usage scenarios and evaluate workflow. In most cases we make refinements based on learnings derived from interacting with these models.

But the larger models, such as the one shown below of the aging-in-place shower, can take skilled designers days and even weeks to construct. And if a large change needs to be made to the model, it again takes time and significant effort to modify.

Transporting something of this size has its challenges. If a client isn't within driving distance, in many cases it's not feasible to deliver a model to a client's location. In the case of one model we built of a room-sized lab instrumentation system, we rented a truck to drive it (in pieces) to our client a couple of hours away. Then we re-assembled it on-site.

Hello, Virtual Reality Environments

Enter VR. Devices such as the Oculus rift and HTC Vive have enabled consumers and professionals alike to embrace the technology, experiment with it, and discover its potential.

At Bresslergroup we've integrated VR into our workflow. Our CAD planning still begins in our chosen CAD platform of choice – readying the design for VR requires no extra work. But instead of iterating with physical materials, we can now quickly jump into VR to explore variants more quickly.

VR makes quick work of creating and playing around with variants to test our assumptions. Native CAD files can be imported seamlessly into a VR environment in just a few minutes. (Above are screenshots of the shower imported into our VR environment.)

Once in VR, different variants and configurations of this model can be evaluated side by side in full scale. Watch the video, above, to see how we can manipulate and move the shower seat and reach for shelves and grab bars while in VR, adding to the immersive experience. When designing products such as these, not only is access important but so is the ability to reach critical areas.

Have VR, Will Travel: Our Portable Setup

The ability to quickly try things out in full scale is an extremely important tool in our design toolbox. But when we want to share the model with our clients, the ability to pack it up and take it on the road is key. Below is a GIF of me unpacking the kit and setting it up – as you can see, it's a lot more efficient than building, deconstructing, transporting, and reassembling a foam core model.

Our setup consists of an HTC Vive and a VR capable workstation and of course, a case to carry everything. We have developed a workflow to quickly bring in Solidworks models with textures and shading.

We expect our setup to evolve as quickly as VR evolves (which is to say, quickly). The new Oculus Rift is $199. In a few years you'll be able to get an HTC Vive for that price. Google Chrome now supports web-based VR for the Oculus Rift; and more apps are being introduced to enable us to upload a CAD model, create a scene, and send it to a client. With one click, the client will be able to open the VR scene and interact with our latest prototype.

Today VR is usable and affordable for ergonomics testing and to test our own and our clients' assumptions. This lets us iterate and improve a design before we build a prototype. Before VR, if designers and engineers didn't have the time or budget to build foam core models, they would end up with very expensive prototypes that would then require changes. Now we can make sure the first prototype we build is optimized for ergonomics.

In the future, we expect to be able to use VR for user testing. (Check out this report from the recent HFES Symposium by my colleague, Aditi Singh's – she writes about the trend of Using AR/VR Technology for Human Factors Research.) This future is close—and it's exciting.


The MoJack and the Jungle Jack: Two Different Approaches to Quick Lifting

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Now relocated to a rural environment, I'm learning about all sorts of new tools and objects I'd had no exposure to in the city. I've just purchased, and am now familiarizing myself with, a lawn tractor/riding mower. While researching the required maintenance routines I came across the Mo-Jack and the Jungle Jack, two very different solutions to the same problem.

A lawn tractor has a deck beneath it housing the cutting blades. These blades periodically need to be sharpened. Because the blades are attached from underneath, this presents the problem of how to access them. A non-professional user like myself can take the time to disconnect the deck, slide it out, flip it over and work on it that way. But a professional landscaper or mechanic, for whom time is money, would desire a faster way to access the bottom of a machine.

The MoJack tractor lift solves the problem this way:

The Jungle Jack takes a different approach:

The MoJack design seems more idiot-proof to me, as the weight of the vehicle rests on the suspension as it is raised. (Even a light-duty lawn tractor like mine weighs 600 pounds). I like the simplicity and greater speed of the Jungle Jack, but obviously greater care must be taken with the connection point.

Core77 readers who use/maintain lawn tractors, if you've got any efficiency tips or things you'd like me to research/write about, please sound off; I'll soon be able to speak your language.


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