Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard are just some of the most famous tech companies to come out of garages. They're far from the only ones. The garage is a near-ubiquitous fixture of Silicon Valley culture, and has grown into a symbol of experimentation and invention. Good luck finding one in crowded Chinese metropolises though.

"China's version of the 'Maker Movement' puts the U.S. to shame," reports internet anthropologist Clay Shirky. Yet, while Chinese cities host hundreds of electronics malls filled with all types of computer parts—and soldering smoke—the casual, communal, convivial garage-type spaces that many Westerners associate with innovation are less common.

That's part of why Rockets Xia has helped develop Mushroom Cloud Maker Space in Pudong, Shanghai. Since 2013, the informal gathering place for inventors with similar interests has grown into an essential resource that's helped launch products from the OverLord 3D Printer to homegrown quadcopters to the HuskyLens AI camera, live on Kickstarter now.

Creating a community for makers

"At first, we just gathered together because our interests were the same," Xia says. "Later, we saw that, in China, because of our housing conditions, many people lacked a space like Americans' garages, so we found a way to build a space where we could share our tools and talk about our projects."

More than 10,000 visitors have attended workshops and courses hosted by experts in robots, 3D printers, CNC, electronic skateboards, laser keyboards, and more. They get technical support and supply chain analysis from DFRobot, a prolific product studio that cofounded the space with Xia and later hired him.

"We hope that we can be like a nuclear reaction, spreading the maker culture like a chain reaction," Xia says.

A hivemind raises the bar, and lowers the barriers to entry

From running the space for more than five years, Xia has seen how bringing together like-minded makers raises the quality of everyone's work.

"When you run into issues, there are other makers to help you think about various solutions," he says. "If you don't understand a certain technology, there are people to help."

The conversations are honest—sometimes painfully honest—but the open and constructive dialogue helps build stronger products. "Our members are enthusiastic testers," says Xia. "Their feedback can be harsh, but the best evaluators are sometimes the ones who criticize you the most—the worst feedback is no feedback."

Mushroom Cloud's biggest achievement might be cultivating a community that is invested in making hardware more inclusive, rather than one-upping each other. "I am most proud of the fact that we have always had the most interesting and exciting projects, dedicated to lowering the user threshold, allowing more people to access the latest technology, and making our lives better," Xia says. "We encourage our members to create projects that benefit more people."

DFRobot's HuskyLens AI camera is a stellar student

One particularly strong example of how the community supports tech for more widespread use is HuskyLens. DFRobot couldn't have developed the AI vision sensor that recognizes faces, objects, lines, movements, and colors without input from Mushroom Cloud residents.

The HuskyLens is easy to set up, so makers can get right to inventing applications for robots, face recognition, interactive art, and more.

"HuskyLens brings the most frontier machine vision to the hands of developers and even rookies, making it easier for them to develop the projects they want," Xia says. The camera is for tinkerers working with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, LattePanda, or micro:bit to create autonomous vehicles, interactive art, upgraded cameras, and more without getting into the weeds of AI algorithms.

"Ten years ago, many robot parts were very expensive. With the development of the open-source movement and maker culture, we realized that sharing hardware and technical knowledge would help us make a better future, so we are starting to offer lower-threshold robot accessories."

HuskyLens product manager Youyou Yu explains that about a year ago, the team started looking at how they could make AI vision easier for more makers to experiment with. Earlier tests with technology like OpenTLD, an algorithm based on open-source libraries, had been unsuccessful; new specialized K210 chips offered faster processing for running neural network algorithms without demanding too much specialized knowledge from users.

"HuskyLens emphasizes the process of learning," Yu says. "By learning, it adapts the user's usage scenarios better than a common model algorithm. We hope that our users can solve problems by making more meaningful applications through such sensors."

Motion tracking with the HuskyLens.

And of course, they've tested their ability to do this with their neighbors at Mushroom Cloud. "We have had extensive conversations with members of the maker space to understand their needs and problems, and we've learned about the limitations and possibilities of current machine vision technology through discussions with people doing similar projects. In fact, that was how we learned about the K210 chip," Yu says.

The team can see which features will be popular, like that the sensor can integrate with three or four functions like PixyCam or OpenMV, and which parts needed improvement, like the accuracy and ease of the set-up. Their next step is to open units up to the Kickstarter community to start building with.

HuskyLens is live on Kickstarter through September 7, 2019.

—Katheryn Thayer

I love to read about other people's design process, unless it involves a graduate-school vocabulary or it smells like a beret and Gitanes are involved.

For me, designing things is a mostly mechanical process. Sure, there is inspiration involved in the process. But that part is easy if you have done your homework. (And there is a great deal of homework.)

As Pablo Picasso put it: "Inspiration exists, but is has to find you working."

This column will lay out the typical steps I take to design a piece of furniture. I'm now in the final stages of designing a simple sitting stool for an upcoming book, so I'm going to use that stool to illustrate my process. Though this stool has only eight pieces to it, my method is the same when I design a commission that takes six months to build and involves 100 parts or more.

If there is a fire in my workshop I will try to save several of my books, including these volumes on Kaare Klint, the father of Danish modern furniture.

Build a Library

I have two libraries at my workshop, a physical one made up of books I've collected for the last 30 years and a virtual one that is images I've cribbed from websites, plus photos I have taken while at museums all over the world. I am constantly organizing both libraries. I arrange the books into meaningful categories such as "European vernacular stuff," "Chair books I love," "Victorian-era catalogs" and straight-up Danish Modern Furniture Porn.

Likewise, my Dropbox is stuffed with terabytes of images. And I cram the objects' dimensions and other descriptive information into the metadata of the photos.

This sounds boring, but acquisition and organization of images is my No. 1 job as a designer. After I visit a museum, I dump my images into Dropbox and then organize them into meaningful categories. It's a habit, and it's something I can do at the dentist's office or while I wait for my family to get ready to go out to dinner.

These big image libraries help create an overall vibe of the things I love to look at. Exactly what I love has changed through the years, but that's useful information as well. I can see where I've been and where I'm headed.

Then, when I have a specific design task at hand – the stool! – I do two things. First, I see if I've collected any stool samples (I promise that is the only stool joke in this column) in my libraries. I start scanning books and copying images into a temporary folder of ideas I like. Then I do some searching on the internet to see if I can turn up any fresh chum. I've been on a bit of an Irish kick lately so I might turn over a few rocks at the online vendors of Irish antiquities.

I haven't built any chairs that were inspired by vernacular designs from colonial Canada, but I have a folder of beautiful (and odd) examples for when that day comes.

Oh, I forgot to mention something: Even if I'm designing something contemporary, I start with historical images. I want to know what's been done and what hasn't. Ignore the past at your peril.

This is not a brief process. I try to look at everything I can get my hands on. The idea is to look for items I can build upon. Or tropes I can reject.

Know the numbers before you draw. There are published guidelines for how to make a chair comfortable or a cabinet useful. Learn them so you can disobey them when the time comes.

The Mechanical Stuff

Figuring out the gross dimensions for the object is the easy part. Those limits are imposed by the human body, the customer or the book "Human Dimension & Interior Space" (my preferred reference book). These dimensions create an imaginary three-dimensional box to work in.

Even if I've designed 100 stools (and I haven't, yet), I'll reread the sections on popliteal height, seat depth and anything else that applies to stools in the reference literature. When I skip this step I regret it.

I am not trying to win my town's art contest and get my piece displayed at the shopping mall. I'm trying to capture an idea. This is not pretty, and I don't strive to make it so. These sketches aren't for the client, they're for me.

The 45-second Sketches

After all that technical and organizational drudgery, I get my sketchbook and a pencil. Some people work in pen because you cannot erase. I love to erase. Then I start making sketches and spend no more than 45 seconds on each sketch (including any erasing time). This is a lesson I learned from my youngest daughter, an artist.

After the first sketch I force myself to try other iterations. It's too easy to fall in love with the first drawing and stop sketching. I force myself to add stretchers to the stool. Subtract them. Make the seat comically thick. Add legs and shape them differently. Try different seat shapes. Plus including anything I can remember from my library that I liked (for example, steeply beveled edges to the seat).

I shoot for seven sketches because I love alliteration.

After I get my seven sketches, I'll redraw the two or three versions that I like best. This is mostly about correcting the overall proportions and refining the details.

CAD or Prototype?

The next step depends on what I'm building. Some furniture makers would be horrified by what I'm about to say, but basically we make boxes and platforms – not much else. If I'm building a box (a cabinet, bookcase, chest or the like) it is usually fairly rectilinear. So I'll scan my sketches and import them into CAD. Then I draw over them.

Quick note on this process: I don't try to convert my sketch into whole-number units, though it is tempting. Doing so seems to suck the life right out of the design. A number such as 4-3/16" is just as valid and achievable as 4". Many times it's best to obey the pencil.

This rectilinear piece required seven pencil sketches (at least). Then I scanned it into CAD and produced a bunch more to pick from. There were at least three that were decent enough to build. I picked the riskier one with asymmetrical drawers.

From here I can usually start construction of the piece. If I lack confidence, I'll build a full-scale prototype using pink or blue insulating foam and clear packing tape from the home center. Then I draw on the door fronts and ornamentation with a Sharpie.

The other furniture form is a platform (tables, chairs, stools, settles, beds). While some of these can be rectilinear and easily drawn in CAD and easily visualized, most are more sculptural and need to be viewed from more angles than the typical plan, elevation and profile before I start building.

That's when I sneak into the closet and snitch some wire hangers. I snip these hangers to become the legs of a half-scale model. The platform (seat, tabletop etc.) is a piece of wood cut to shape. To install the legs I drill a slightly undersized hole in the wood and epoxy in the legs. Then I dab some extra epoxy around the hanger to add some strength.

I keep the models as a reference. I mark all the construction information on the model and clip the legs so I can reuse them.

After the epoxy cures it's playtime. I get my needle-nose pliers out and start bending the legs until the model looks like my sketch. I can even snip the back legs to tilt the seat. To add stretchers to a table or chair I'll use pipe cleaners or even blue tape.

If I'm making a chair, I might add the stretchers and arms above the set as well.

This is much faster than CAD (and I'm pretty good at 3D modeling). And, this is the important part, I have never been surprised by the look of the final piece when I have built a model. I cannot say that about piece I have built right from a CAD or mechanical drawing.

Having the half-scale model also helps me calculate with ease the drilling angles during construction.

This stool was made using pieces I pulled from the garbage and the scrap bin in our machine room. It's still salable – after a coat of paint.

Full-blown Prototype or No?

With a CAD drawing or half-scale model in hand I decide if I'm going to build a prototype before cutting into the good wood. When I make prototypes I use inexpensive woods, such as poplar or red oak. If the joinery needs special jigs or is something I haven't cut before, this is my chance to do it when the stakes are low.

If, however, the joinery is straightforward and just time-consuming (mitered through-dovetails, for example), I'll use the Festool Domino to join most of the pieces. In some cases I might use pocket screws. The goal is to get a piece of furniture that is good enough to paint and then sell at a discount. If the prototype takes an ugly turn, however, I'll disassemble it and use its parts for other prototypes. (I eat dinner every night while sitting on a chair prototype.)

I prefer to make a prototype because the real project always turns out much nicer – I make most of the missteps in the prototype phase.

This three-legged backstool was a failure. But after drawing out some changes over a photo of the failed piece, I ended up with a piece I was thrilled with. And I didn't have to go back to the beginning.

What if the Prototype Sucks?

There have been a few instances where the prototype was a full or partial failure. The piece simply did not look right when it was brought into the world in full size and with real joinery. When this happens, I kick myself a bit. I then take photographs of the failed prototype against a plain background. Then I print out those pictures and start drawing in the changes that I think will improve the piece.

This last-ditch strategy almost always works.

The Finish Samples

Lastly, if the customer has requested a surface finish that I haven't used before, making a sample board is critical. Winging it almost always ends in stripping it.

Sample boards should be made using wood that is ideally from the same tree (or at least the same species) as you are using for the finished piece. The sample board should be planed, scraped or sanded just like you plan to do for the finished piece.

And after you get a finish that both you and your customer like, cut the sample board in half and give one half to the customer. This tip, which I received many years ago, has saved me a couple times.

Helpful Next Steps

There are lots of different ways to design furniture. My company, Lost Art Press, has published two of them. Apologies for the advertisement, but we wouldn't have spent years working on these books if they weren't helpful. "By Hand & Eye" and "By Hound & Eye" by George Walker and Jim Tolpin explore design using whole-number ratios and historical methods. I think whole-number ratios are indeed pleasing; I simply find them in my work after the fact instead of installing them in there intentionally.

Also good: "The Intelligent Hand" by David Savage. David, a trained artist, comes at the process from a different direction that involves an imaginary friend, George. You'll love George.

If you want to start building a visual library, here are a handful of my favorite sources for images. When I am despondent about the ugliness of the built world, these online places cheer me up.

The Rijksmuseum, the museum of the Netherlands. It has a huge digital library that is open to everyone.

Colonial Williamsburg's online collection.

Victoria & Albert Museum's online collection.

Bukowski's Online Auction– great for European stuff.

1stdibs, a sprawling worldwide auction site of decorative objects.

Furnitureindex.dk takes you on a deep dive of Danish and mid-century stuff.

Christopher Schwarz is the editor at Lost Art Press and one of the founders of Crucible Tool. He works from a restored 1896 German barroom in Covington, Ky. You can see his furniture at christophermschwarz.com.

Wearables hold a lot of promise but most come in the form of uncomfortable gadgets or intrusive implants. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Morphing Matter and Soft Machines Labs have joined forces to create a new type of wearable tech that can be applied to the skin like a band-aid, and used for a variety of medical, fitness, or lifestyle purposes. "We envision a future where electronics can be temporarily attached to the body, but in functional and aesthetically pleasing ways," the team explains in a report that was presented at the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

"We took real-world inspiration from medical bandages—easy to attach, small enough to be unobtrusive, and customized to fit other parts of the body," they explain. "The ultimate objective of the ElectroDermis fabrication system is to provide a design tool and fabrication method to support a process where wearable electronics can be applied to the body from a single, peel-off step, just like a bandage. This method would allow electronics to easily access locations on the body that were previously difficult to access, time-consuming to design for, or even not possible using existing methods."

The challenge has been finding a way to make wearables—which contain a range of electronic components—flexible. The Electrodermis team made the wiring from copper sheets cut in a wavy form to make them bend more easily. "Specifically, we achieve high functionality by discretizing rigid print circuit boards into individual islands," the report explains. "The islands are then assembled on a spandex-blend fabric to increase robustness and reusability." They also devised a multilayered fabrication method—fabric over TPU film, copper trace, z-tape, electrical components, and skin adhesive—which affords the wearer full mobility and makes it possible for the piece to be reusable, as the adhesive layer can simply be replaced.

As part of their report, the researchers outlined a series of potential use cases, which they hope designers and practitioners can expand upon: a temperature-sensing mask that can be placed on the forehead; a patch you can wear on your ear that detects your pulse; a "necklace" patch that covers your neck and detects all the food you consume; a motion-tracking knee wrap; and a bandage that tracks how the wound is healing and lets you know via color-coded LED lights that change from red to yellow, to green.

Last year, temperatures of and above 40°C were recorded on the London underground tube network, which surpasses the EU limit for transporting livestock. These conditions resulted in increased levels of passenger discomfort during warm weather conditions.

Flo is a wearable product, designed to evaporate sweat and reduce body temperature to improve thermal comfort amongst London Underground commuters. The product applies localised cooling directly onto the user medial lower and upper back, using a combination of phase changing material and ventilation technology.

Thermal & Wetness Sensitivity Maps

Functional Prototype Iterations

Prototype Testing

Photoshop Visualisation

Product Render

Product Render

Aesthetic Model

As e-commerce continues to grow, it's becoming increasingly important to rethink wasteful shipping practices and come up with alternatives to bulky boxes and filler materials. Minnesota-based materials company 3M has just debuted a new type of packaging that claims to cut the time, materials, and space required to ship products by 50%.

The Flex & Seal Shipping Roll is made up of three plastics developed by 3M: a tear- and water-proof outer layer, a bubble-wrap cushioning middle layer, and an adhesive inner layer. The packaging option can be used on a variety of objects under three pounds, a category that, according to 3M, accounts for 60% of the items that are bought online. Users can simply cut what they need from the roll, fold the material over the object, and press down to seal—no need for tape. The adhesive only sticks to itself so there's no worry that it will stick to whatever you're packing.

The process is a lot easier than the multi-step process of making a cardboard box and the resulting packages save a lot of space in delivery trucks. According to Fast Company, 3M is looking into large-scale retail partnerships with companies like Walmart and Target who are competing with Amazon's Prime delivery speeds. "Some of their business is automated [with robot-powered fulfillment centers], but some is done by hand," said business director Remi Kent. "We think we're a better solution for those items done by hand."

The material can be recycled with other plastics, though 3M said it's looking into alternative materials that would make recycling even easier.

Last year, temperatures of and above 40°C were recorded on the London underground tube network, which surpasses the EU limit for transporting livestock. These conditions resulted in increased levels of passenger discomfort during warm weather conditions.

Flo is a wearable product, designed to evaporate sweat and reduce body temperature to improve thermal comfort amongst London Underground commuters. The product applies localised cooling directly onto the user medial lower and upper back, using a combination of phase changing material and ventilation technology.

Thermal & Wetness Sensitivity Maps

Functional Prototype Iterations

Prototype Testing

Photoshop Visualisation

Product Render

Product Render

Aesthetic Model

As e-commerce continues to grow, it's becoming increasingly important to rethink wasteful shipping practices and come up with alternatives to bulky boxes and filler materials. Minnesota-based materials company 3M has just debuted a new type of packaging that claims to cut the time, materials, and space required to ship products by 50%.

The Flex & Seal Shipping Roll is made up of three plastics developed by 3M: a tear- and water-proof outer layer, a bubble-wrap cushioning middle layer, and an adhesive inner layer. The packaging option can be used on a variety of objects under three pounds, a category that, according to 3M, accounts for 60% of the items that are bought online. Users can simply cut what they need from the roll, fold the material over the object, and press down to seal—no need for tape. The adhesive only sticks to itself so there's no worry that it will stick to whatever you're packing.

The process is a lot easier than the multi-step process of making a cardboard box and the resulting packages save a lot of space in delivery trucks. According to Fast Company, 3M is looking into large-scale retail partnerships with companies like Walmart and Target who are competing with Amazon's Prime delivery speeds. "Some of their business is automated [with robot-powered fulfillment centers], but some is done by hand," said business director Remi Kent. "We think we're a better solution for those items done by hand."

The material can be recycled with other plastics, though 3M said it's looking into alternative materials that would make recycling even easier.

Last year, temperatures of and above 40°C were recorded on the London underground tube network, which surpasses the EU limit for transporting livestock. These conditions resulted in increased levels of passenger discomfort during warm weather conditions.

Flo is a wearable product, designed to evaporate sweat and reduce body temperature to improve thermal comfort amongst London Underground commuters. The product applies localised cooling directly onto the user medial lower and upper back, using a combination of phase changing material and ventilation technology.

Thermal & Wetness Sensitivity Maps

Functional Prototype Iterations

Prototype Testing

Photoshop Visualisation

Product Render

Product Render

Aesthetic Model

As e-commerce continues to grow, it's becoming increasingly important to rethink wasteful shipping practices and come up with alternatives to bulky boxes and filler materials. Minnesota-based materials company 3M has just debuted a new type of packaging that claims to cut the time, materials, and space required to ship products by 50%.

The Flex & Seal Shipping Roll is made up of three plastics developed by 3M: a tear- and water-proof outer layer, a bubble-wrap cushioning middle layer, and an adhesive inner layer. The packaging option can be used on a variety of objects under three pounds, a category that, according to 3M, accounts for 60% of the items that are bought online. Users can simply cut what they need from the roll, fold the material over the object, and press down to seal—no need for tape. The adhesive only sticks to itself so there's no worry that it will stick to whatever you're packing.

The process is a lot easier than the multi-step process of making a cardboard box and the resulting packages save a lot of space in delivery trucks. According to Fast Company, 3M is looking into large-scale retail partnerships with companies like Walmart and Target who are competing with Amazon's Prime delivery speeds. "Some of their business is automated [with robot-powered fulfillment centers], but some is done by hand," said business director Remi Kent. "We think we're a better solution for those items done by hand."

The material can be recycled with other plastics, though 3M said it's looking into alternative materials that would make recycling even easier.

FLY Racing is seeking a talented, creative and motivated Product Designer to design and develop products for FLY Racing, FLY Snow, and HWY 21 brand segments. This full time position will work within the Product Design team to design and develop FLY and HWY 21 products and apparel from concept through to final production.

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

Outdoor Voices is know for being a direct to consumer activewear brand focused on connectivity. Their campaigns and designs often reflect a feeling of community with a strong mission to get the world moving. Their new online platform and zine, The Recreationalist, does just that with a similar motivational mission to just get outside and do something — mixing notions of what editorial design has been traditionally.

While the company is five years old, their branding and advertisement has often been lauded for their fresh take on activewear that can easily transition into everyday casual wear. The blurred lines of design between active time and leisure — the brand’s slogan is “doing things” — fits well with this new platform. The new site, and limited run zine separate from the Outdoor Voices site, is interactive but with a personal feeling. The content features city guides, interviews with influencers and community members who outline their day-to-day along with their active routines. The hub itself feels beta in a way, not unlike a sketchbook—even encouraging logging off for once! 

“We have a very clear mission to Get The World Moving”, says Chris Ralston, Brand Director of Outdoor Voices “and that starts with our community of recreational enthusiasts. Through The Recreationalist, we are providing a platform to inspire, educate, and connect with our community at a deeper level and ultimately celebrate the things that get us moving daily.”

The site features editorial sections like “Take Ten,” a set of 10 quick fire questions that prompt life inspiration for readers. The site also features in depth content like “Doing Things With” features artist and activist Tillet Wright, who is accompanied by many other movers and shakers people. They’ll also be featuring product recommendations, music mixes, and how to's. 

One of the more interesting facets of this platform is the forum and comment section, that in turn will have an impact of the kind of content that OV produces, creating a two-way conversation. “We activate locally and amplify digitally,” Chris Ralston says, "On The Recreationalist, you have insight into upcoming OV events right on the homepage making it just as easy to participate as it is to read one of our stories. The vision would be for someone to read about Pole Dancing, for example, and have a place where they could easily find an OV event nearby where they could try it for the first time.”

The physical cover of The Recreationalist's first issue

Between the physical zine itself and the online community that connects people digitally both in their immediate communities and far off, the editorial space of The Recreationalist feels new in that it isn’t hinged to the online world. The lines between active and other parts of life blend together, community expands, and the design of an editorial space does more than it was intended for by facilitating IRL engagement. 

When you write for an outlet like Core77, or any of our competitors, you get a lot of e-mails from people wanting publicity for their designs. Obviously we can't (and shouldn't) cover all of it, but I thought some of you might be curious to see what comes in, why we pass over most of it, and what we'd like to see more of.

I should point out here: I don't consider myself an authority on design. I have about fifteen years of experience working in industrial design, and roughly 25 years of writing about it, which has allowed me to interview a lot of designers, learn from their experiences and examine their subcategories of ID. So while I might be better informed than the average Joe about the profession of ID, I am still a product of my own tastes, desires, experiences and needs, and do not possess any universally applicable wisdom. I have opinions and I am biased.

That being said, here's what we recently received in our in-boxes:

Adieu Smalls

That's the name of a new font inspired by feline tails for a cat food subscription service. Call me a tribalist, but as a dog owner with a background in practical ID, I have a hard time getting excited by both cats and fonts.

Luxury Design for Kids

This was from a firm that works with "incredible Interior Designers in order to create the most amazing bedrooms for kids," in this case, to fulfill "the dream of a little boy who adores the sky and all the elements within." This reminds me of shuffling past a five-year-old sitting in First Class while I make my way towards my seat in Economy. It also reminds me that designing for the rich is, and will always be, lucrative.

The Bartesian

This Keurig-for-cocktails is a pod-based single-serve cocktail station. The idea is that you pour in your base rotgut of choice, and the fruity parts come in the capsules. After the market failure of the Juicero, I didn't think we'd see more entries in the prepackaged-beverage-with-countertop-appliance-intermediary space, but I was wrong. If this is what America wants, this is what America will get.

The Rhake Waxed Canvas Laptop Backpack

The Rhake : Weatherproof Laptop Backpack by Mission Workshop from Mission Workshop on Vimeo.

The Rugged Laptop Bag for Adventurous Pro Photographs Wading Through Rivers has become such a huge category that I feel like I get e-mailed one of these per week. I can't blame the designers, but the sheer amount of these I see just leads to fatigue. Plus I can't tell what's good or bad by looking at it--I've owned quite a few bags, and only discover I don't like them after several months of use and reflection.

The Omnifob

The Omnifob is designed for users to be able to wield multiple smart home and car functions from a single device. I don't have a smart home and don't trust this to replace my car's key fob, as they say it can do. But overall, I wouldn't cover this simply due to general skepticism of new domestic technologies and "smart homes" in general. To me, the trade-off in cost and hassles of smart homes does not seem worth the supposed benefits.

Back in the day tech blogs would be thrilled to have a new gizmo to cover, and would be excited to publish it first. But with something like this, I'd prefer to wait and see if it actually does make a difference in peoples' lives, and only then would I go back to get the design story. This is another category of objects where, through no fault of the designers, fatigue has set in. My in-box is crammed with technological doohickeys promising to revolutionize our lives with button presses.

The Trio and Trio Pro

These are portable additional laptop monitors. I can clearly see the utility, but as with the Omnifob I'm skeptical before anything else, and would wait to see if these are actually practical to carry around and if they do work well. If they made a splash in the marketplace, I'd then chase the designers down.

M250 Hex Drive Toolkit

Highly portable bit holders and multitools seem to kill it on Kickstarter these days. I have no idea why they're so popular, but they demonstrably are, judging by the crowdfunding numbers. If a young product designer seeking an early hit asked me what s/he should design, I'd say a multitool is a good project--the functions are pretty clear-cut, and there appears to be an enormous market for them.

The Lensta Grip

This object adds an ergonomic, SLR-like grip to smartphones and adds a shutter button. I'm a fan of ergonomics in general, but I'm not sure why this looks like a rolled-up gym sock. It doesn't look professional nor finished to me.

The Silo Golf Club Carrier

Designed for the user who needs to "carry my arsenal of wedges and putter when you are near the green but not sure which club to bring from your cart," this actually seems useful for golfers, but I'm not sure how much of our readership plays golf.

Carrying multiple pole-like objects has also been on my mind lately, as I recently returned from a martial arts training retreat where I had to bring multiple weapons (wooden sword, cane, two staves, three spears) and I've found there really is no way to easily carry all of them together. In the photo below I'm using large extension cord wraps that did not prove suitable for the task.

_________________

If you imagine this times a thousand, you have an idea of the typical design blogger's in-box on any given week. And as you can see, what gets chosen or not chosen for further coverage is a largely subjective process. Lastly I'll say, what have turned into our most-trafficked posts typically did not arrive in our in-boxes, but were stories or ojbects of interest to us that we subsequently chased down.

Publicists, you've got your work cut out for you.

The Tokyo 2020 Medal Project was launched back in 2017 as an attempt to collect old electronic devices from across Japan and use them to create the medals for the forthcoming Olympic games. Over the last two years, the campaign received a staggering amount of donations—over 6 million mobile phones alone—and, as a result, Tokyo 2020 just announced that every gold, silver, and bronze Olympic and Paralympic medal awarded next year will be made entirely from the recycled materials.

All in all the donations added up to 78,985 tons of old electronic devices from which 66.8 pounds of gold, 9,039 pounds of silver, and 5,952 pounds of bronze have been extracted. A similar strategy was used in the 2010 Vancouver games, though not on this scale.

"We hope that our project to recycle small consumer electronics and our efforts to contribute to an environmentally friendly and sustainable society will become a legacy of the Tokyo 2020 Games," the committee said.

In addition to the medals, Tokyo 2020 award ceremony podiums will be made of recycled plastic and the torchbearer uniforms will be partially made of plastic bottles, according to Mashable.

The design of the medals is being helmed by Junichi Kawanishi, who won a competition that drew over 400 entries. They will "resemble rough stones that have been repeatedly polished and now shine brightly, reflecting the athlete's journey from beginner to Olympic champion."

The TS Series is a Furniture Collection that involves folding steel origami style to make the distinctive designs.

VOLO Table

Table designed and made from folded steel by Roy Livingston

AERO Table

Table designed and made from folded steel by Roy Livingston

AERO Table

Table designed and made from folded steel by Roy Livingston

AERO Table

Table designed and made from folded steel by Roy Livingston

VOLO Table

Table designed and made from folded steel by Roy Livingston

The second time was the charm for French inventor and former jet ski champion Franky Zapata, who successfully crossed the English Channel on a jet-powered hoverboard of his own design this past Sunday, after being knocked off balance during his first attempt in July. Escorted by three helicopters, Zapata flew from Sangatte, France to St. Margaret's Bay, England in 22 minutes, reaching speeds of up to 110 miles per hour and flying up to 65 feet in the air, according to Guardian reports.

The hoverboard only had enough fuel to keep him airborne for 10 minutes, so Zapata had to stop mid-way through to refuel. During Zapata's first attempt on July 25th—intended to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the first flight between Britain and France—he fell into the sea while trying to land on a vessel to refuel. The second time around, they used a boat with a larger landing platform to boost his chances of success.

Zapata and his team worked 15-16 hours a day to prepare the broken hoverboard for his second attempt. Upon landing, Zapata said his dream had come true and noted the physical endurance required to complete the task. "Your body resists the wind, and because the board is attached to my feet, all my body has to resist to the wind. I tried to enjoy it and not think about the pain."

It's been a long road for Zapata and his Flyboard Air, the hoverboard design he introduced in 2016. (Zapata had previously developed several other versions, including an early water-propelled iteration.) According to the Guardian, Zapata ended up losing two of his fingers in an accident involving the hoverboard's turbines during his first flight in his Marseille garage.

Over the years, the French army has taken interest in Zapata's device, with the French Defense Ministry pledging nearly $1.5 million last year to develop the device further. Prior to his flight over the English Channel, Zapata last turned heads in Paris when he flew over the Champs-Élysées on Bastille Day with a rifle in hand. According to France24, Florence Parly, France's armed forces minister, said the Flyboard Air could "allow tests for different kinds of uses, for example as a flying logistical platform or, indeed, as an assault platform."

"It was very amateur, underground, but there were moments that made me feel like I was inside Star Wars," remembers Nicholas Horbaczewski. It was 2015, and he had been invited to watch his first drone race, held in an abandoned lot behind a Home Depot in Long Island.

As homemade drones raced by, competing to complete a set track as quickly as possible without getting sideswiped or wiping out, he wondered what it would take to make this hobby phenomenon into a full-force cultural movement.

"I felt like I was getting to touch and experience something that had been promised to be part of the future. It reminded me of the sports that had only existed in science fiction movies and video games," he says. And as he researched more, it became clear he wasn't the only one who felt that way. "Everywhere I looked, there was organized amateur underground drone racing, meeting up at secret fields and parking lots. There was no money behind it, no media. It was just unbelievable; there's this complete culture going on and the rest of us didn't know about. How do we bring it to the rest of the world?"

Horbaczewski thought he might be the one to do it. He had previously founded a video production company, sold drones and other consumer tech to the government, and served as Tough Mudder's Chief Revenue Officer. Months later, he was inviting top-tier pilots, potential media partners, and investors to Drone Racing League (DRL)'s first competition.

Now, after airing three seasons on ESPN and international networks, DRL is preparing for the premiere of their fourth season this Sunday, August 11 at 2pm ET. It marks their first appearance on NBC and Twitter, and their first time offering a consumer-friendly version of the drones their professionals fly, live on Kickstarter now.

The DRL Racer4 Street is a consumer drone modeled after the ones professional pilots use.

In just five years, Horbaczewski has grown an underground hobby sport into an internationally-broadcast "real-life video game" that's reached millions of viewers—but it wasn't all smooth sailing.

Unexpected horror at Gates of Hell

DRL's first race, in 2015, was staged at the Gates of Hell, a dystopic-looking locale of suburban-legend fame in New Jersey. Horbaczewski's team had been frantically coordinating drone development, video production, and promotion plans—"we were trying to bring all the pieces together at the same time, using off-the-shelf components to get the tech ready to go"—only to find that developing the tech should have been their first priority.

"When we got to the Gates of Hell, everything went wrong," Horbaczewski says. "It lived up to its namesake." The stress test of a real race put their tech to shame—the drones had to fly further than a recreational one normally would, and there were too many in the air at once. Components didn't work consistently, radio signals failed, and the LED lights that differentiate drivers weren't bright enough. Crashes abounded.

"There was sort of a growing realization of what we were getting ourselves into," Horbaczewski says.

They made the most of it. The DRL team reset expectations for the VIP crowd they invited, reframing the event as a demo instead of a race. And they recorded footage that would define their aesthetics.

The Gates of Hell race fell through, but it set the tone for DRL's visual style.

Their videographers from Culprit Creative patchworked together inspiring scenes to illustrate how exciting drone racing could be (once the drones really worked). "It was cool, slick, music video-type stuff that shaped our ethos on filming drones. It showed the speed—honestly, the sexiness—of the technology. They came up with the concept design of these bright neon lights we still use to this day. That futuristic element worked."

"There were moments of greatness," Horbaczewski says, "but the truth is that we were still trying to use off-the-shelf technology in an industrialized setting. It's not the right tool for the job."

Entertainment-grade drones demand more than off-the-shelf or homemade models

"Sexy" sci-fi shots couldn't carry DRL. "After Gates of Hell, we stepped back and said, 'All the sci-fi movie talk is irrelevant if the tech doesn't work,'" Horbaczewski says. "So we became a technology company. We focus on making the tech awesome and let that facilitate a really cool futuristic experience."

DIY races typically are BYOD (bring your own drone), but DRL thought it was important to standardize the tech. "We wanted everyone to be racing the same drone," Horbaczewski says. "We were looking to find the greatest drone racing pilot on earth, not the person who could build the fastest drone.

"We also thought that the drone you build to go race with your friends through a parking lot somewhere is not the same thing that you want to watch as a spectator. We were trying to give the sport the elements that would make people willing to watch it either in person or on television—that means the drones have to be really brightly-lit and color-differentiated, carry a camera that could film HD footage, and connect to a radio system that won't fail when there are lots of other drones and spectators on their cell phones nearby. You're not going to worry about those things on your homemade drone. But we worry about those things."

So the DRL team created a proprietary, patented suite of technology—drones that are as good at barrel rolls as they are at capturing HD footage, software flight simulators to train pilots, a custom radio system, a timing and scoring system, and a fleet-management system that can track and remotely control 600 devices at once. "We actually made the tech that made it possible to realize this, in hindsight, very ambitious vision."

They improve this system—particularly the drones—every season. Races become a product reveal moment, like Spring Training meets WWDC. They generate a similar frenzy of early-adopter excitement, too. The fans want drones.

"Through email, on social, it's like, 'Take my money,' 'Why won't you sell this to me?' 'How do I get my hands on this drone?'" Horbaczewski says. "I think it's awesome for us. It shows how passionate people are about it. It's a respectful compliment to the design that goes into it. It touches on the aspirational element of DRL, that it's this cool, new pro sport."

So, for the first time, DRL is releasing a consumer version of their drone. The DRL Racer4 Street has all the fine-tuned engineering as the models that pros fly, without some of the industrial-grade add-ons that amateurs wouldn't really need.

The DRL Racer4 Street is based on the Drone Racing League's fourth-generation racing drone.

A sport taken straight out of sci-fi movies and video games

The drones might not be as exciting—and might not have picked up airtime on ESPN, NBC, Twitter, and networks in the U.K., Germany, and China—without the professional, futuristic production values DRL established early on.

The video game inspiration has stayed central to DRL's aesthetic identity. They call their events "levels" and create themed sets like "LA Apocalypse" and "Project Manhattan." Ashley Ellison, who runs operations, has a knack for finding abandoned malls and factories to create this sense of environment. Tony Buddy, director of media, figures out shots that make the action easier to follow.

"My favorite racing video game growing up was F-Zero," Horbaczewski says. "The cars crash all the time and explode, and there's this futuristic quality to it. The tracks are on these incredible environments." He also draws inspiration from Mario Kart, "maybe the most universal racing game ever played,"—also full of elaborate environments and interaction between the players.

Many pilots literally start this sport in a video game. The first time you pick up a controller, you'll probably crash the drone you're trying to fly. So DRL made a custom training simulator for Steam. It's how Horbaczewski learned to fly drones. "It's another thing that makes the sport feel futuristic, but also demystifies it and I hope makes the sport more accessible," he says. "Like me, you can learn entirely in a video game and walk out and do it in real life." A quarter million users have now tried it, and some of the league's top pilots, with backgrounds ranging from downhill skiing to gaming, trained almost entirely online before winning DRL races.

"We are innovating our technology to keep striving towards making DRL as much as a real-life video game as possible," Horbaczewski says. "Sometimes people tell me, 'Oh no, it'll change every year.' I'm like, 'Yeah, it will change every year forever. It's not a static sport. We're going to evolve as the technology evolves. We're trying to create the complete, real life version of Mario Kart. We're trying to bring those things that have only existed as computer-generated graphics to real life. And I think that's really fun."

DRL Racer4 Street is live on Kickstarter through October 5.

—Katheryn Thayer

The mission of Engineered Design (ED) is to create technically superior athletic footwear and footwear functional features based on sound engineering design principles and using 3D modeling. The design directions and visions will be derived from consumer insights gathered in the initial phase of the Innovation Cycle and input from footwear business leaders. ED will be responsible for all aspects of design from ideation to inline adoption.

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

Seats at the 2019 Core77 Conference are going fast, but we still have some discounted tickets available for students and groups.

Student tickets for the conference will be priced at the discounted rate of only $99. Due to the limited seating capacity of the venue we will have very few tickets available for students at this price. We've had a lot of interest in the student tickets, and want to support students as much as we are able while still being as fair as possible.

We're asking anyone interested in purchasing a ticket at the student price to write a short letter explaining why you are interested in attending. Why is the topic of interest to you? What are you hoping to get out of attending this event? Have you done any work or projects that are relevant to the theme? Is there any other information that we should consider?

We are collecting these essays now, and are requesting students send their responses by August 16th, 5 PM EST. We will be selecting students who we feel are the best fit for the event on August 19 and will notify everyone at that time.

If you want to apply for the student ticket pricing, please send your response to "conference@core77.com". Our conference production team will review all applications and will respond to every student applicant one way or another after August 19.

Another way to save some money, and have a great time, is to bring a group to the event. Discounted tickets are available for groups of three or more. It's always better to have a few comrades with you at an event like this, and we want to encourage companies to send team of people to the event as much as possible.

Again, the seating is limited at the event, and there are a small number of group tickets available at the discounted rate. If you're interested in joining us as a team send a note to "conference@core77.com" and we'll get back to you with instructions on how to make the purchase.

The 2019 Core77 Conference has a great lineup and a great venue this year, and the day will be fun and inspirational. We hope to see you in October!

inMusic is a family of leading music technology and consumer electronics brands delivering the latest advancements in engineering, design, and technology in DJ, Music Production, Pro Audio, Consumer Audio, Musical Instrument, and Consumer Electronics industries. Our design studio is growing. This Industrial Designer will contribute to the aesthetic and ergonomic development of our products, which will directly reflect on look/feel and user experience of the product.

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

First, the bad news: As revealed by The New Food Economy, those beige, molded fiber "100% compostable" takeout containers used by Whole Foods, Chipotle, Sweetgreen and other chains actually contain harmful chemicals. It was only recently discovered that….

"…All molded fiber bowls contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a broad class of more than 4,000 fluorinated compounds that do not biodegrade naturally in the environment. 

"This means that the bowls used at restaurants like Chipotle and Sweetgreen aren't truly compostable, as has been claimed. Instead, they are likely making compost more toxic, adding to the chemical load of the very soil and water they were supposed to help improve.

"And rather than degrade quickly, they contain potentially hazardous ingredients that never break down. Not in five years, and not in 500."

I recommend reading TNFE's entire article, but the salient points are:

- When we eat out of fiber containers containing PFAS, those chemicals go into our body--and remain inside of us for days or weeks, as opposed to the hours that BPA stays in our body.

- When these fiber containers are thrown in landfill, the papery part rots away. But all of the PFAS chemicals remain intact and leach into the groundwater, which means that "100 percent of it you'll be drinking in two months. Because it goes right through the landfill treatment" and into our drinking water supply, says Notre Dame chemist Graham Peaslee.

- Composting these fiber bowls essentially poisons that compost pile. If you use that compost to grow food, bad news: "Research shows PFAS can easily be absorbed by fruit and vegetable crops, where compost is likely to be applied."

In our rush to escape Styrofoam and BPAs, we've run right into the arms of yet another poorly-understood series of harmful chemicals that are bad for both our bodies and the planet. We get so excited that we're not using known bad stuff, that we don't bother to look into whether the new stuff is also bad.

The problem is much bigger than these fiber containers. The key source of the trouble is the single-use mentality. And that's why I say there is a massive opportunity for designers here.

Why? Because when designers bring compelling objects or systems into the world, they can change (for better or worse) the way people live and behave. They change our very mentality. Just look at what smartphones have done; in the course of less than fifteen years, they have completely transformed how we conduct our lives. Fifteen years ago, if people saw a volcano erupt, they'd run. Now, they'd pull their phones out, eager to capture video they could hashtag with #flowinglava.

What we need are a series of useful and compelling objects that can get us off of the single-use mentality. It's already been done, at least to some extent, with personal water bottles.

I carry this handy little steel bottle with me everywhere I go, refilling it at sinks and water fountains. In the years I've owned it, I've drank from it literally thousands of times, and have avoided buying countless plastic single-use water bottles. It's changed my mentality, as twenty years ago I'd have thought nothing of paying $2 for a plastic bottle of water, and now that act seems incredibly stupid, wasteful and expensive to me.

The move away from single-use is also starting to happen with drinking straws and coffee cups. It hasn't happened yet with takeout or casual dine-in food containers, at least not on a wide scale, and this is where the opportunity for designers lies.

Designing a personal food container doesn't sound terribly sexy, but look at what the fabulously successful Yeti has done in a parallel category.

Twenty years ago a camping cooler was one of the least-sexy objects in a hardware store. Yeti's design approach made them attractive and desirable in addition to useful, and it paid off handsomely; last year their revenue was $778 million.

What would a multiple-use, personal takeout food container look like? Japanese bento boxes exist, though generally not in the sizes we Americans like to take our meals in.

Those designs can be scaled up and/or stacked. For an American take on the bento box, there is a U.S. company called Planetbox that designs awesome-looking personal food containers in stainless steel:

Planetbox's dishwasher-safe products are designed for parents who are packing their children's lunch, but it wouldn't be difficult to imagine them producing variants better-suited to, say, an office worker who likes to have lunch at the Whole Foods buffet and wants to use his or her own container.

Speaking of Whole Foods, they, along with Chipotle and the other chains currently using molded fiber containers, are going to have to switch to something else when knowledge of the PFAS problem becomes widespread. There is an opportunity there for the organizations themselves to contribute to the solution. Whole Foods already gives you a slight discount if you bring your own bag; could they not do the same if you bring your own food container?

What if Chipotle had a series of really cool-looking, well-designed permanent-use food containers? If the object itself was desirable, could they not only sell them, but somehow use them to build customer loyalty? What if they had an entire system where those who bring their own Chipotle containers get to skip the line, get free chips or receive a slight discount?

One leader in this category is Just Salad. They sell a reusable bowl for $1, and every time you bring it in, you get free toppings.

I know what you're thinking: That's an odd-sized object to ask people to carry around with them every day. Again, an opportunity for design. Collapsible silicone bowls exist and might be a great fit for this category.

In short, what's needed is a mentality shift away from single-use items. And as we've seen, things like the iPhone and Yeti coolers have become so desirable that they've changed our behavior and perception, respectively. Americans eat a lot of takeout food, and the containers it currently comes in are unsustainable. So there's a market for design here, one that's as large as American appetites.