Last week I posted the following challenge: Match up, with their trades, seven engravings of old workbench designs from the Diderot Encyclopedia. I didn't expect it to be easy, but I thought it an interesting way to allow people to look at benches critically and try to figure out what particular design features would be good for. Here are the answers:

See the double screw vise in the one below? That marks it as a type of bench used for cabinetmaking or marquetry. 18th century French cabinetmakers were far more specialized in their work than their modern counterparts, and a cabinetmaker would mostly be doing the fine part of assembly, smaller joints, and marquetry and veneering if they were capable. The double vise is perfect for clamping boards for joinery, and the uncluttered benchtop is great for assembly. In those days "go-bars," flexible sticks of wood that sprung against the work and ceiling, was a common method of clamping on a wide surface and it would have been easy to lay out your panels on the bench, and use a bunch of go-bars to put all the downward pressure you wanted on it. 

Musical instrument makers (Lutherie) use a bench that's pretty much the same as a cabinetmaker's bench, but the work is lighter overall, and the glue pot is indicative that instruments are mostly glued together rather than joined like furniture. There is a small planing stop on the bench, and of course precisely planing wood is an important part of the job.

Wood engravers don't need a fancy bench, just something that will clamp the work on the surface. Here we see a holdfast and the dogholes to put it in, nothing else.

The case maker's bench (for making briefcases/suitcases and the like) is pretty simple, as cases aren't very heavy. So this is a light-duty bench with a single leg vise.

This bench is shown several times in the Encyclopedia, once in a workshop illustration but twice as a detail, in the joinery section and in the cabinetmaking and marquetry section. The engravings are identical down to the placement of the wood in the holdfast, except for a detail of the size of a plane in the till under the bench.

This very simple bench belongs to the chest, case, and trunk maker. The support under the table is unusual; my guess is that it's a lighter bench than the others and the leg helps stiffen the top.

The box maker's bench is the one drawn the most accurately. The top doesn't cast a shadow on the legs, indicating the top is mounted flush to the legs, and we see a hook on the left which serves as a support for wood mounted in the crochet. Unlike the benches drawn in Moxon and other places, the crochet seems more like a simple stop, and the wood would be held in place by holdfasts stuck in the legs rather than a wedged clamp. Considering that the crochet dies out and disappears from benches in this period (the 18th Century), the smaller crochet/stop might be an interim design. Of course it could also be just a drawing error, like the shadow of the benchtop shown on so many other benches.

Trades that were listed in the original entry but whose benches aren't shown:

Sawyers and carpenters of the era didn't use workbenches - they worked on-site. To clarify, carpenters traditionally didn't do trim, mouldings, or any of that stuff--joiners did. Carpenters only did the main timber construction and framing. There were very extensive guild and union rules on who did what. Joiners of various levels of competency did all the finish work, stairs, windows, etc.

Clogmakers use a narrow mini-bench that is designed to allow you to easily clamp two clogs at a fairly low height for working.

There is no illustration of a carriage-maker's bench, and picture framing isn't separated out in the book as a distinct trade.

I wrote this all up because I think it's very instructive to look at a consistent group of benches all from the same time and place. By reverse-engineering what we knew of their work and seeing what tried-and-true devices and methods they used to execute it, we can gain insights into how to make our own modern-day workflow better, faster and more efficient.

I still can't believe 2016 is over. I thought you all might like to see every fun "free time" sketch I did in 2016. There are about 250 sketches here. I put this together to show you just how many rapid visualization exercises I do in a year. Remember, these are just my "fun sketches." This doesn't include all of the sketches I do for new product development projects I'm working on at Sound United for our Polk, Definitive Technology and BOOM brands, or the work I do for freelance clients. Obviously I can't show you those until after those products launch. 

I think it is important to sketch at a high volume so my skills are sharp and I can freely express my ideas without hesitation. A great sketch is about three things; developing an idea, communicating the idea, and inspiring others to believe in that idea. A great sketch can be incredibly persuasive.

I think of these practice sketches like training for a marathon. if you run every day, the marathon becomes just another race. If you sketch a concept everyday, the day you get that big project is just another day you generate concepts. So set yourself a goal to do just one fun sketch a day in the next year, and you will see your skills dramatically improve. Happy 2017 everyone, now get sketching!

Yo! C77 Sketch is a monthly video series from Core77 forum moderator and prolific designer, Michael DiTullo. In these tutorials, DiTullo walks you through step by step rapid visualization and ideation techniques to improve your everyday skills. Tired of that guy in the studio who always gets his ideas picked because of his hot sketches? Learn how to beat him at his own game, because the only thing worse than a bad idea sketched well is a great idea sketched poorly.

Alireza Nemati lives in Moscow, where he and his wife live in a tiny apartment—just 35 square meters (about 375 square feet). Fortunately Nemati is a product designer, so, design to the rescue! "[My] main task," Nemati writes, "was to create a comfortable open space plan with enough area for storage with access to natural light."

The apartment was originally subdivided. It looked like this:

So Nemati had the walls ripped out, leaving only the bathroom, and planned this:

"I decided to design a furniture system," he writes, "that would make the most of the existing space." Here's how the system fit within the newly empty apartment:

And here's what it looks like in photos. If we orient ourselves according to the blueprints above, here is the view looking north. To the left is the bathroom door; at center is plenty of storage; behind the curtain is the front door. To the right we see an elevated sleeping nook and a staircase.

Both the area beneath the sleeping nook and the staircase itself contain plenty of storage. (You'll notice the staircase is reversed in the GIF below, am not sure why.)

Here's the sleeping nook, paneled in pine.

I like the idea of having a storage area for reading material on only one side of the bed. That way whomever's on that side can regulate what the other reads, granting or denying access to particular books at whim. I find most relationships are held together the same way as suspension bridges: Through tension.

Looking east, we see this large white wall…

…which also contains plenty of storage.

Looking southeast we see aforementioned daylight.

Pivoting towards the west we see a dining table, a desk for working and a small efficiency kitchen.

The bathroom makes nice use of color to give it a little pop.

There is only one major problem with the apartment—and I don't know that you can blame this 100% on the design—which is that the apartment is haunted. Here you can see an incorporeal phantom creepily ascending to the sleeping nook.

Finding no victims there, the fiendish ghoul then descends the staircase, its murderous rage left unsatisfied.

I spotted the ghastly wraith again in the reflection of the bottom-most framed piece of artwork here. It might be hard for you to see but I have an expert eye.

He appears to be hoisting a camera in a grotesque mockery of life. I'm told ghosts often carry objects they died with, so most likely this ghost was a camera salesman.

Anyways, cool apartment! If it wasn't for the ghost I'd move in in a heartbeat.

Bring your dog to work! Outward Hound, a world leader in the pet products industry, is searching for an industrial designer to join our "woof pack". As a member of our multidisciplinary team, you will be charged with designing world-class dog and cat products that delight and enhance the lives

Like all vehicles, F-16s require regular maintenance, and like all vehicles it wasn't designed with external tool holders. Air Force mechanic Tom Burden got sick of tools sliding off of the plane while he was fixing it—"Heck, I nearly fell off the jet once. I could have broken my neck!" he writes—and then spent two years prototyping the Grypmat:

It's an intelligent use of materials and will reportedly stay put on angles up to 70 degrees…and in some cases more:

I also like that it's bright orange, allowing you to easily spot it and making the tools visually stand out on it so you can grab the right one.

It's already been successfully Kickstarted, and the three sizes cost $30, $35 and $60. Burden expects to ship by June.

It's amazing how accidents and coincidences can lead to careers. Hank Gilpin was a photography major at RISD who needed to choose an elective: Glass, Clay, Wood. He wanted Glass but the course was already full. Lacking interest in the others, he flipped a coin and got stuck with Wood. "I was thinking I'd make a box and get my three credits," Gilpin told the Providence Journal.

Well, the teacher turned out to be legendary Danish Modern designer/builder Tage Frid. Frid's reputation as an influential educator held, Gilpin was hooked and "the deal was sealed."

That was fortysomething years ago and Gilpin, who's now famous in his own right, has amassed an impressive portfolio of truly unique furniture and object designs, all in wood and primarily crafted with hand tools. His work is bewilderingly diverse, unabashedly experimental, beautifully crafted and impossible to categorize within a single style. I've picked out some of my favorites here so you can see some of his inventive forms and details:

Even one of his few steel pieces is for, and references, wood:

And who makes a "tree crutch?!?"

Intriguingly, Gilpin started out by going to lumber suppliers and buying only the wood that they were having trouble selling—i.e. the most unpopular, gnarliest, most difficult woods to work with. He then forced himself to work around their constraints. I believe that this approach, where you are forced to solve problems imposed by nature (as opposed to projecting your own will onto uniform sheet goods) is what has helped develop Gilpin's unusual style; in a sense, nature is his collaborator. In the video below, where he explains his approach, you'll see some truly unique objects and details that could only have come from having such a powerful and capricious partner.

See more of Gilpin's work here.

I was turned on to Gilpin's work by reader Stan VanDruff, who took the time to add some helpful feedback over at our post on Daniel Moyer's workshop tables. Thanks Stan!

Kikka Digga is a universal retro fitting digging gadget attachment for all digging forks and spades, it was designed to make digging easy by attaching a pivoted footplate to help with insertion and leverage, therefore sparing the user from any physical strains. Digging is a hazard and a pain in the back—it's the number one injury for landscapers and gardeners alike. Kikka Digga is not just for people with back pain, but for all who wish to prevent it. Manufactured in Britain, it's a high quality tool that won't break or bend easily.

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

How do you get to work each morning? According to the United Nations and World Bank, there's a 54% chance that you live in or near an urban center—and it follows that you likely work in that city as well. It's possible that your home is within walking distance of your workplace, but there's a better chance that you commute either by mass transit or in your own personal transportation device.

Perhaps you're lucky enough to work in a city with an extensive mass transit system that offers a direct route between home and work. For many commuters, however, rush hour often involves navigating a complicated transportation network that includes multiple transfers and long walks to destination points. A 20 minute-as-the-crow-flies journey could translate to an hour-long ordeal when route transfers and walk time are factored in. Then there's that pesky car, the scourge of urban infrastructure. The single-user vehicle that congests roadways in and around cities, making it harder for buses, cyclists, and pedestrians—not to mention emergency vehicles—to safely navigate ever-denser urban streets.

Typical road congestion

Floatility founder and CEO Oliver Risse has traveled the world's cities to discover what they have in common, and what design can do to help, because unfortunately, the problem is only getting worse. Globally, cities are struggling to update outdated transportation infrastructure in order to accommodate vastly growing commuter populations. The percentage of the worldwide population living in urban centers is up 14% from a generation ago, and has reached nearly 4 billion people. As Risse notes, change is needed, as those numbers are only set to increase.

"Transportation is one of the core issues inside cities: how to get from A to B in the most efficient and sustainable way. It's obvious that the traditional way of thinking, how cities have been planned in the past, is not going to survive in the future when more than 50% of the world's population already lives in cities—and it's going to be 60% or 70% in the coming years," says Risse.

Many cities have responded with expanded mass transit routes, dedicated bike lanes, and bike sharing programs. Others continue to search for urban mobility options that address the needs of their particular citizens and cityscapes.

The solution Risse hopes will answer the call is Floatility—a ride-sharing, urban mobility service with a super sleek design and smart back-end intelligence. Floatility first generation e-floaters are designed to encourage optimal resource allocation by utilizing a sustainable, clean energy model.

Floatility in all its glory

Service and Sustainability

As a life-long clean tech entrepreneur, Risse wanted to build a solution at the intersection of product, service and sustainability. Floatility's e-floater is light, flexible, and electric, which minimizes noise pollution, air pollution and traffic congestion. Renowned, German automotive designer Sebastian Hess led the design team, creating a design whose form factor and engineering transformed the ordinary scooter into an object of desire.

Operated like a bike sharing program, Floatility contracts with businesses and uses residential and commercial buildings as host sites. Resident members can acquire an e-floater on demand for their commute—or anytime they want to zip through the city quickly and safely.

These beautifully designed scooters are particularly convenient in cities where climate, topography, and urban design make cycling less than optimal for commuters. In Singapore, for example, the tropical heat makes cycling to work a bit, well, messy. "In the tropics people are not cycling a lot because it's literally too hot. At 85% humidity and almost 30 degrees (Celsius), it doesn't matter how slowly you cycle, you sweat. No one wants to arrive at work sweaty," Risse explains.

E-floaters have a telematic system inside, communicating the rider's position in real time to a back-end system. Says Risse, "I can put this together on a platform and optimize my network. Since I know where people are using it, I can predict where they will use it tomorrow and discover patterns of mobility inside my city so I can deploy my vehicles exactly at those locations where people need them. The core of Floatility is demand-response management."

Floatility driver taking a ride around a city

That said, Risse recognizes the obstacles to all sharing services: the social-emotional component that, for many, places a high value on the accumulation of goods over resource sharing. In order for Floatility to find success, there needs to be a continual societal shift from the value of ownership to the overarching good of social systems and resource allocation. For Risse that shift feels wholly positive and possible.

"Floatility is a backwards shift from individual car ownership. That's what we see already in many cities of the world. Sharing economy solutions are getting more and more attractive. Electric mobility solutions are getting more and more attractive," says Risse.

Partnering for Success

Floatility first partnered with Autodesk through the Autodesk Entrepreneur Impact Program, which provided the company with software licenses as a grant as they developed their concept.

Autodesk's initial support allowed Floatility the flexibility to take risks, push boundaries and find the underlying integrity of the Floatility system. What made it possible was the ability to design both the physical form and the service experience simultaneously. So as they thought about launching in 3 uniquely challenging cities —Singapore, a modern, tropical mega-city, and Hamburg and Vienna, two older, colder, Northern cities - they could project how divergent conditions would impact the e-floater ride and how to optimally integrate and promote the service to partners and end-users.

As Risse explains, "We partnered with Autodesk because to design a product with a new procedure, new methods of manufacturing, working with an international team, we needed software that allowed us to explore a completely new solution. Not only on the hardware side and on the product side, but also on the solutions side."

Floatility charging station in use

"We are a pretty different startup company, because we are operating from two different continents at the same time. We have offices in Hamburg, operations in Singapore, manufacturing in Indonesia, batteries in Poland, our key designer in southern Germany—all in distant, remote areas. We can only develop solutions together on one platform simultaneously that works on a Cloud base, and that's exactly what Autodesk's Fusion 360 is doing. The cooperation with them couldn't be any better," says Risse.

Imagining the City of the Future

For Risse, transforming our current cities is just the beginning. Ultimately, he harbors visions of a future city that takes its cues from the more human-centered scale of the pre-industrial past.

"The mistakes of the past are not going to be duplicated in the future. That's what we can see literally in all the major cities. People understand now that designing a city for people is much better than designing a city for cars," says Risse.

He's been witness to that change around the world, in cities like New York, Guangzhou, Seoul, Dubai and Amsterdam—where city centers have been re-populated by pedestrians, cyclists and nature. Newer, smarter cities are developing their infrastructure with a philosophy bent away from cars and geared toward walking, cycling and, hopefully, alternative devices like the Floatility e-floater.

Newer cities are prioritizing cleaner, more sustainable transportation options

"In Europe there are already discussions that entire cities are going to ban gasoline cars within the next 10 years. Hamburg and Copenhagen are discussing it. In Norway people are discussing the same: to be completely gasoline-free within the next 10 years. This is a massive change," says Risse.

Go For It

Risse will initially claim that he is not a designer. "I can't draw," he says. He admits, however, that his mind works much like a designer's—namely, he's able to perceive the potential and possibilities in everything. Where others see things as they are, Risse sees opportunities for positive change, and then works to learn more, discover new paths, and transform those ideas from concept to reality.

Oliver Risse enjoying a trip around the city with his Floatility e-floater

It is this methodology that has allowed him to develop a business and product that are both successful and sustainable. In this way, Risse can simultaneously do well while also doing good, as well as offer the consumer the reward of making a positive change and having fun while doing it. There's no sacrifice on either side.

"I want to do good with my business. We want to be a positive-impact business, but we also want to have a lifestyle product," says Risse.

When asked how one can achieve those lofty goals, Risse simply advises to take risks and not overthink it. "Don't talk too much. Do it. Just try it out. If it fails, then analyze why it fails and take the next step."

Artist Nadja Buttendorf snagged my attention with an invention that is simultaneously intriguing and skin crawling: soft fingernails. Anyone who's grown long nails can attest that they come with a host of structural and environmental issues. Typing, opening lids, and navigating anything with push buttons can be tricky or even painful as you avoid missing the target or stressing your delicate keratin extrusions. Add professional upkeep or DIY manicures, and damaging long nails can get costly. 

Eugh

So… here's this idea that solves those issues but makes me break out in a cold sweat. What if instead of acrylic or gel, fake nails were made from a more malleable material like silicone? The thickness is similar, at rest your hands look dang near normal, and under load the nail crumples safely and rebounds. 

Silicone is body safe, easy to clean and would likely be about as damaging as traditional glued processes. Aside from lowering the quality of back scratches and making finger tapping less annoying for your coworkers, I'm not seeing many negatives. So why do I hate this with my entire being? 

Here are a few short clips of the eerie things in action:

Enjoy Nadja's other quasi-creepy work (including realistic ear earrings) here.

Last time we covered the brilliant cartoonist/inventor Steven M. Johnson, he'd just released a book of his transportation designs. Now he's got a new book out and it spans every design field under the sun.

Johnson has graciously allowed us to show you some of the images from "Patent Depending: Armbrella, Sofa Shower, Unzipped Fly Alarm and Other Essential Products." Here are just a fraction of the literally hundreds of concepts he's got in the book. (Note that we added the headings; he's got a different chapter titling convention in the book.)

Architecture

Fashion Design

Flatware Design

Footwear Design

Furniture Design

Interface Design

Landscape Design

Multi-Tool Design

Office Furniture Design

Product Design

Sporting Goods Design

Transportation Design

Then there's the random stuff that just cracks us up:

You can order the book here. What we've shown you here is just a fraction of the hundreds of concepts it contains. Having seen an advance copy, I can say that you won't be disappointed!

Scholastic seeks an energetic, curious, and talented designer to join a design department in its education division. The designer’s primary job responsibilities are to design best-in-class book covers, interiors, packaging, product-branding and digital-experiences. They must collaborate with the art director, editorial, and production to meet deadlines and exceed expectations.

When we announced Ikea's chainless bicycle last year, there was no word on a U.S. release date. But the company has just announced that the Sladda is now available here--at a lower price point than expected--and we've finally gotten a closer look at some of the features.

First off, to refresh your memory the SLADDA is not a replacement for your carbon fiber racing bike; instead they've created a basic, utilitarian and unisex bicycle designed to encourage non-cyclists to use it for commuting or running errands. 

To make it low-maintenance, the chain has been replaced by a cogged silicone belt, obviating the need to oil it. The belt comes with a 10-year warranty.

The frame, which comes with a 25-year warranty, is made from aluminum, with the aim being to make the bike light enough to easily carry up and down stairs.

The bike's utility comes by way of accessories that can be mounted and demounted by the user, allowing a measure of customizability. They currently offer the following:

Front Basket

Cargo Trailer

Rear Rack

Saddlebag That Doubles as a Backpack

While the aft-mounted accessories appear to be attached by (of course) an Allen key, up front we see the basket has a bracket with two keyholes in it, which hangs onto two bosses:

At first I thought this was a tool-less connection--a bad idea in New York City at least, where anything that isn't nailed down has a tendency to walk--but if we examine the photos closely, we can see that there's at least one hex bolt securing the basket to the frame.

In our write-up from last year, the U.S. price, converted from the projected price in Euros, was a pricey $797; but Ikea's now announced that the SLADDA costs $499, or $399 for Ikea Family members.

Here's Ikea designer Oskar Juhlin on what motivated them to design a bicycle:

The SLADDA is available for order now on Ikea's U.S. website, and you'll start seeing it in their stores next month. Lastly, yes, the bike arrives flatpack and is user-assembled.

Renfrew Group, in partnership with the NHS unveiled the innovative modular children’s wheelchair ‘Chair 4 Life’ system designed to address the unmet needs of disabled children and young adults at NHS Expo in April 2013. The Chair4Life (C4L) initiative was developed by the NHS National Innovation Centre (NIC) in response to clear statements of clinical need from users, carers and health experts.

Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.

The Understandable World of Japanese Train Fanatics

Considering my often delayed F train commute from Queens to Soho, I can see why Japanese people are in love with their train system. Trains are always on time, they serve adorable boxes of food and they sometimes feature animated characters on the outside. Maybe if each NYC train line featured a different set of characters (Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Spirited Away, etc.) and served, I don't know, pizza or something, New Yorkers would be a little less angsty in the mornings.

—Emily Engle, editorial assistant

The Building Blocks of Pain

This amusing "Today I Found Out" video examines, from biological, scientific and even anthropological perspectives, why stepping on Lego bricks hurts so much. 

—Rain Noe, senior editor

Come Up With 20 New Ideas a Day

An interesting creative exercise—challenge yourself to come up with new ideas every day. Don't put it in your phone, write it down. Don't limit yourself, let ideas for all kinds of different projects flow freely. The author Rodd Chant, a creative director, does up to 20 a day to keep his mind fresh and ideas flowing. A helpful reminder, as Chant mentions, that "the simple fact is if you want to be good at something you have to practice." And who knows, maybe one of those ideas will make you rich someday...

—Allison Fonder, community manager

Bed Build

Jimmy DiResta builds a steel and sapele bed designed by Taylor:

A Discount Tool Purchasing Program

Pretty cool: Izzy Swan has used his clout to negotiate with tool manufacturers, and has created the Tool Masters Association, a discount tool purchasing program that will also offer educational courses and other perks:

Sled for DeWalt FlexVolt Table Saw

When it comes to going over tools Matthias Wandel pulls no punches, even in a sponsored post. Here he highlights, and fixes, a glaring flaw in DeWalt's battery-operated table saw while making a sled for it:

Building a Freestanding Pantry with Pull Out Drawers

April Wilkerson builds a storage unit for her pantry. I'm digging the can rack rotators:

Maple Cake Knife

A wooden knife isn't much good, is it? Well it is if it's a cake knife. Bob Clagett makes one out of maple:

The Fat Boy Pencil

Ron Paulk does a quickie review of FastCap's Fat Boy mechanical pencil, which uses enormous leads. Also neat to see that you can sharpen them using a FastCap tape measure.

Gearing Up for a Live Build

Shannon Rogers describes the project, drawn from Christopher Schwarz's "The Anarchist's Design Book," he's going to build this weekend--and he's going to livestream it, so you can watch it being built in real time:

DIY Leather Bag with Interior Lighting

Fantastic idea: La Fabrique DIY creates a leather bag with an interior that automatically self-illuminates when the zipper is opened.

Modern Wardrobe Project

Jimmy builds a large wardrobe out of five sheets of plywood, with a little help from Rockler:

Jack and Jill Bathroom, Part 2

One-woman construction crew Sandra Powell frames out the bathroom she ripped out last week:

10 Favorite Tools

Linn from Darbin Orvar rounds up her ten favorite, most useful tools from 2016:

Hexagon Lamp

Laura Kampf creates a handsome hexagonal lamp out of oak and brass:

Wooden Camera Gantry

John Heisz finally gives us a good look at his amazing camera gantry crane, which we previously only caught a glimpse of:

Designing and Building A Modern Credenza

Chris Salomone creates a Mid-Century-Modern-looking credenza, having to work out some complicated angles along the way:

How to Make a Contemporary Dining Table

Amidst California's recent Stormageddon, Steve Ramsey builds a simple dining table:

POSITION SUMMARY Flexjet, a luxury private jet travel provider, is currently seeking a Graphic Designer to assist with the execution of creative marketing and communication design needs within their in-house creative team, Studio One. The ideal candidate will be a motivated, innovative individual with 2-3 years of professional in-house

Compared with last year's CES and Detroit Auto Show, this year has seen a lot less odd concept vehicles and last mile design. One neat 2017 standout has been the mysterious but fun Ioniq scooter teased by Hyundai at CES. The company's line of Ioniq electric vehicles is plugging along without too much disruption or distinction, but their Project Ioniq scooter aims to add some fun lateral thinking back into the sustainability conversation. 

As suggested, the Ioniq scooter would work as a last mile accompaniment for commuters, mitigate parking bullshit, and offer an alternative to driving medium distances. It would integrate into the side panel of its compatriot Ioniq car to charge and store, like a blocky co-evolved parasite. It appears to fold and unfold into a smoothly moving adult-friendly tool. And it would ostensibly be easy and light enough to make daily carry not a hassle. The current design looks a tad unwieldy without a handle or shoulder strap, but if anything that makes me suppose this concept is farther along than sexy CAD.

Adding electric assist and data to the scooter might make it a more versatile option than its lo-fi counterparts, but the pitch is vague enough that we can't really tell. What we do know is that (as pitched) it folds, it displays mileage and charge stats, users control speed using the right hand thumb dial, and it recharges in an in-car docking station. 

Please note high tech thumb-speed shifter

What its speed, range, weight, price or alternate charging mechanisms might be are all a ??? cloud for now. A bit frustrating, but if "mobility" is as much of a theme as major manufacturers have been hammering for the last couple years, I'd like to see more thinking like this from them.

The greatest technological challenge of the 20th Century was not the moon landing; it was how to get fresh, delicious beer from a brewery into a customer's belly. Prior to the 1930s if you wanted beer, you and a guy named Amos rolled a barrel from the brewery back to your village, tapped it, and distributed it into jugs. (One benefit of this method was that in a financial pinch, the barrel could be worn in lieu of clothing, but it was otherwise inconvenient.)

Glass-bottled beer also existed, but you try transporting a crate of it over a bumpy wagon trail without breaking any of the bottles, especially while you're drinking from one.

In the 1930s manufacturing technology made a huge leap forward: It become possible to seal beer inside of steel cans. 

Cans were easier to stack, ship and carry, weighed less than glass bottles and were less prone to breakage. One drawback was that you could not break a can over a counter and brandish it during a saloon brawl, but this was offset by the fact that you could crush one against your forehead, which never failed to impress the ladies and establish you as "a real character."

But they key problem with cans was how to get the beer out of them. The tops of these cans were flat...

...so either you or Amos had to make sure you had one of these on hand at all times:

That "church key," as it's called, was used to lever two triangular piercings into a can, one for your mouth, the other for airflow.

Seeking a better way, innovative package designers of the time then developed the cone-top can in 1935:

If you ask me, this is kind of a lateral move. You still needed to carry an implement around, in this case a bottle opener rather than a church key. But one benefit was that you gained a bottlecap with each can. (During the Great Depression, bottlecaps were basically your kids' Xbox.)

Both the flat-top can and the cone-top persisted into the 1950s and '60s. But in 1959 an engineer named Ermal Fraze was on a family picnic and forgot to bring a church key. Fraze was forced to open his beer cans using his car bumper, like some kind of alcoholic MacGyver. He subsequently invented the pull-tab:

Fraze patented it in the 1960s and sold the rights to Alcoa, and it became the standard can aperture.

As convenient as the pull-tab was, it became a bit of a public nuisance and a hazard. Some folks ripped the tab off and threw it on the ground, creating litter; others simply dropped the tab inside the can, betting that it wouldn't work its way back out. As you can imagine, emergency rooms started seeing people who had accidentally swallowed these tabs.

Seeking a way to not have a loose tab, in the 1970s Coors experimented with this cockamamie "push tab" can:

The smaller hole was for drainage, the larger hole was for drinking out of. But the problem with this design is that folks would often cut their fingers on the sharp edges of the apertures while trying to open them. Coors doesn't taste great to begin with and it tastes even worse when mixed with blood.

Finally, in 1975 inventor Daniel F. Cudzik created the pop-top can we all know today:

This created no waste. But again there was, of course, a downside. (For chrissakes why is drinking beer so hard?!? It's like the gods are against us.) The aperture was relatively small…

…and with no means of airflow, pouring the stuff into your mouth can be turbulent. While it creates an amusing glug-glug-glug noise, that loses its charm pretty quickly.

In the 1990s can manufacturers finally began widening the mouth…

…which ameliorates, but does not completely solve, the glugging issue. In my own experience I've found that it's very difficult not to spill beer on your shirt after having just ten or eleven of these.

In more recent years we've seen a newer method: The full aperture end. Companies like Australia's BentSpoke Brewing Co. are using these huge pull-tab lids:

I like the look of these, and I'm assuming the can's lip is far back enough from the edge that you won't cut your lips on the sharp edges. But Australian beer judge Chris Shanahan isn't a fan, calling the cans "a retrograde step in my opinion, reminiscent of the first detachable rip-tops [which led to] discarded tabs from beer and soft drinks [littering] the ground everywhere."

I suppose that disposing of a wide lid, especially on a camping trip, is a bit more of a hassle than storing bottlecaps, since the lids are larger and sharper. What do you think a good design solution would be? Perhaps create some way that the lid can somehow be shoved into a cavity in the bottom of the can?

I invite Core77 readers to come down to our offices, with a six-pack under each arm, and we can throw some of these back and brainstorm a bit. Also bring some chips, maybe some dip, and I wouldn't say no to cold cuts either.

Pulse worked with Drager on their Thermal Imaging camera for firefighters. The camera was developed with new innovative solutions for protecting the internal camera technology. This project also focused on ergonomic features crucial to rescuers during search and rescue applications. Our design and engineering team evolved the design to meet strict drop tests, heat resistance, flame resistance and functionality to pass regulatory requirements including IP 67.