Simple Tweak on Time

At first glance, an elegant, minimal wall clock. But things are not so simple. A subtle effect is taking place, the Extra Normal Wall Clock features a die-cut opening that revolves around the center, revealing numbers that signify the hours. As it turns, the “hand” reveals a portion of the number marking each hour.
Design by Ross McBride AKA Normal.

Ross McBride was born in the Northeastern United States in 1962. He earned his bachelor’s degree in graphic design from the California Institute of the Arts, and upon graduation in 1985, promptly moved to Tokyo where he has lived ever since.

Upon arriving in Japan, Ross furthered his graphic design studies as a research student at Japan University (Nippon Daigaku). He later worked in several design offices, including Igarashi Studio under the auspices of Takenobu Igarashi. In 1991, Ross establish his own graphic design practice.

Gradually, Ross became more interested in product, and furniture design. In 1997 he initiated a move in this direction with his first public exhibition, “12 Timepieces”, at the Ozone Gallery in Shinjuku, Tokyo. In January 2000, K.K. Normal was established in order to manage Ross’ product, furniture, and interior projects.

Ross has exhibited at 100% Design London, Salone Satellite in Milan, ICFF New York, and Tokyo Designers Block where he won the Frame TDB Award 2003 for best installation design. He has worked on projects for Duende, E&Y, Max Ray, Starbucks Japan, Water Studio, Sharp, Sony, World Co. Ltd., and currently serves as a panel member of 100% Design Tokyo.
Check out more of his work at Normal.

And yes I would like an EXTRA NORMAL WATCH for christmas.

Thanks

Congratulations Martin Gibson who won a 12 Month Prime subscription from Ponoko

Design Droplets is an online Industrial Design Magazine that is focused on the Australasian Design community. Their aim is to publish articles that are informative, take a critical look at design and help you grow as a designer. Through a range of content including reviews, interviews, critical writing and industry news we peel back the layers of fluff that surround design.
Whether you are a student, a professional or just a design enthusiast, we hope you find Design Droplets a great read to get some tips from designers around the region.

They recently hosted a group writing project, calling on submissions from readers to submit their own articles relating to the subject of industrial design or product design.

Martin Gibson’s article entitled Maxwell Render – Be a Show Off was the winner of the draw and scored a 12 Month Prime subscription from Ponoko.

You can also read the rest of the entries such as Life as a Freelancer by Nathan Partington and Think Different? No. Work Hard by Brandon Leedy, here on the Design Droplets site.

Thanks to Raph Goldsworthy

in rhyme and riddle—our latest user story

Ponoko is honored to be the subject of a recent piece by bard of the internet, the Web Laureate. Visit web-poet.com for more poetic compositions on life with cyberspace.

[ Ponoko ] interlock

the entire network of joints,
stretched and strained and withstood being
terribly jolted. constructed
of felt and bamboo, disappoints,
it so does not –

— int’net composed,
in manner of web digital ||

// making made many || more mirthful

// with pieces online in design
interlocking real – virtual

Modular and Expandable Screen System

MODULARI is a wide array of lacy cascading panels that can be used as room dividers, curtains, or anywhere you need a bit of a screen.
Kiril Kirov of RazortoothDesign created a system of interlocking tiles that form expandable screens. A box of 18 Modulari Architect tiles makes a 31-by-62-inch partition that can be hung from the wall or the ceiling. The swirl, leaf and drop motifs are available in white, peach, avocado and black.
MODULARI screens are made from EVA; Ethyl Vinyl Acetate mixed with a Calcium Carbonate filler. This material is widely used in the sports, toy and car industry. It is a non-toxic, lightweight, UV stable material, which is easy to clean, by using soap and warm water. The material has a temperature range of -2.2°F to 320°F. No acid or chemical will affect the material and it will only burn at approximately 752°F.
The EVA used in MODULARI is custom made, to accomplish the requirements for the screen. The material has a memory and when bent or crunched it will go back to its original shape. It is tough and yet lightweight, in order to create the perfect balance of strength and weight for the screen. Due to the modular nature of our designs MODULARI is easy to store if not in use.

MODULARI was designed in Brooklyn New York. All aspects of production including packaging are made in South Africa.

Available from several stores in the US or via there online stores here (and here for Japanese)

two internet communities that are democratizing the travel industry

Maker fairs, design conferences, trade shows… Whether for business or leisure, travel is an essential part of many people’s lives. And like most other essentials of modern life, it is dominated by big industry. Often the greatest expense when it comes to traveling is the accommodation. Even if you have the money for that plane/train/bus ticket, the cost of a hotel can make a trip simply unfeasible.

This fall, I had the opportunity to see a huge chunk of the American West. I recently returned from an epic seven-week road trip (the half-way point of which was meeting Ponoko CEO David ten Have at the studio in San Francisco), and along the way took advantage of a couple of resources that are making it easier to travel for less, thanks to people just like you.

CouchSurfing.org is a global network of people who have signed up to offer travelers a free place to stay. The CS spirit is nothing short of utopian,  ”Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time”. There are over one-million available places to stay in 231 countries, and member experience is over 99% positive.

My first couple nights of the road trip, I stayed with a host in Rapid City, South Dakota. Not only was it a free place to stay, but my host had been a youth leader and taken many groups through the Black Hills. He took me on a beautiful hike through the National Forest and even taught me about geocaching. Staying with a host through CouchSurfing was an enriching experience that I never could have gotten through a hotel chain.

While the CS ethos is committed to making new friends and helping people out free of charge, there is another website that allows members to make a profit.

AirBnb.com is a newer resource which lets people rent out an available room in their home/apartment or their entire property for whatever rate they set. Covering over 1500 cities in 93 countries, these “listings include vacation rentals, private rooms, entire apartments, bed and breakfasts, boutique hotels, castles, treehouses, and many other traditional and non-traditional accommodations.”

The site uses PayPal for transactions, has a built in calendar for each member, and users can search available places in a specific city just like booking a hotel. AirBnb has the potential to be a huge benefit to hosts and visitors alike. While hunting for a place to stay in San Francisco, I came across a beautiful Victorian apartment in the Mission District; the entire 2br apartment was renting at just $100 a night. It wasn’t surprising to see that this place was booked through November—that’s $3000 a month from a quick listing.

Big hotel chains will survive as long as business expense accounts do. But when the trip is on your dime, that dime might go farther with someone just trying to make a little extra money or on a thank-you gift for someone kind enough to offer no-charge accommodations. As with all internet communities, going from the virtual to the physical involves a very real risk; but taken with caution, I think it’s worth the reward.

by Duncan Fitszimmons of VITAMINS Design Collective

Monster Monster is the “evil arachnoid pedestal your laptop deserves” and apparently “More awesome than any other notebook stand you have ever seen”

Available in red or clear, each stand is ‘hand crafted’ from laser cut acrylic. Does that mean they are using a hand held laser
Rubber feet to grip and protect your desk, each stand arrives in a poster tube and assembles in seconds.

Available from their online store for about U$ 47…

This would be a perfect product for the Ponoko store.

Found via Core77

Gets Kickstarted with 179% Funding….

MakerBeam is a toy and tool for the open source imagination. Build a fire-breathing robot dinosaur, a miniature CNC machine, a remote control car, whatever your overclocked brain can produce! Or build a castle, or that perfect enclosure to hold the circuitry for your custom electronics project.

Mini-T is a miniature version of larger T-slot building systems. It consists of extruded aluminum beams, 10 mm on a side, and various connectors and panels that slot into the sides of the beam, making up the full MakerBeam system.

As interesting as the product is in itself, even more exciting is the thinking behind releasing the system as an open source building kit…

MakerBeam is an open source project, and the first open source construction set we’re aware of. MakerBeam part models and standards will be released under Creative Commons licenses, allowing makers and tinkerers to modify and build off our platform. When boxes ship, MakerBeam will be atoms, not bits, and atoms are protected by patent rather than copyright. Makerbeam believe the Mini-T standard could have been patented, but are giving it into the public domain, because they have a larger vision for it.

The team behind MakerBeam believe in open source licensing, and the power and potential of the open source hardware movement. They also believe in the Constitutional impetus behind intellectual property law, namely, “To promote the progress of science and useful arts”. Balancing this is a complex and ongoing affair.

This choice was made carefully, cognizant of the reality of intellectual property and industrial production in the world today. Patents, not copyright, control production of parts and goods; even with a patent on our connector system, it is likely that significant success would result in our kits being cloned by manufacturers in other countries where patent lawsuits are pointless.

Also, desktop manufacturing of connector parts is not quite ready for prime time. The tolerances needed simply do not support rapid fabrication as an option at this time. This will change soon, however, and when it does, it hardly matters what license we choose for our 3-d models. If people want them, they will print them.

Read more here and although they are now funded through Kickstarter, I am sure that Sam Putman, Glenn Powers and James Coddington could always do with some additional love..

18 Ways to Get your Creative Juices and Cash Flows Going

That’s a pretty cool graphic, don’t you think?

• Vaughan Benz Furniture Competition — 15 November
Ever check into a room and wish you could overhaul the entire hotel? Put your pencil to the test! Design furnishings for the hospitality industry, all or part of a hotel room, suite, or hotel lobby. #1 gets $750.

• Black Friday — 15 November
A utopian gallery would be one that doesn’t take commission on the art. That artists’ utopia is Savannah based gallery Desotorow, and they are accepting art/design in any media for a juried holiday art show.

• Haute Handbags — 15 November
Got a handle on fashion and design? Artistic and innovative handbag designs are the subject of an upcoming publication from craft magazine publishers Stampington and Company. Bags can be made from absolutely any material and any process.

• Operation Void Deck Design — 16 November
Sponsored by the Singapore Institute of Architects, this design competition aims to re-envision the empty decks of public housing estates. Entries should demonstrate the power of architecture and design to elevate community spirit and quality of life. First prize is $3000. via FiveFootWay.com

• ReVision Design Awards — 17 November
There’s an all-star jury and a hefty $10,000 prize for this one! Develop a concept that answers the question “How can design make the way we live in our homes more efficient, sustainable, enjoyable and/or beautiful?” . via Dexigner

• Mark of Dreams — 17 November
Go iconic for the kids. Design the logo for the DREAM Center, a children’s arts education program under UNESCO/Tribute21. Winner will receive $3000.

• Bike Share System for Copenhagen — 18 November
Designing a product is one thing, but designing a successful system takes brilliance. Grant Denmark some of your genius, and develop a new bicycle exchange program for Copenhagen. First place earns €33,000. via Dexigner

• San Pellegrino Terme Identity — 18 November
“design a brand for the touristic complex of San Pellegrino Terme, that in a few years will become an international attractor by levering on the resources linked to the spas, to the luxury shopping, to the casino, to the quality foodservice.” I didn’t know Italian water had a ‘touristic complex’, but I know this is a graphic design contest. via Dexigner

• EcoTopia — 20 November
Any sustainable product designs are eligible for a group exhibition sponsored by design consultancy Nectar. And if you’ve made anything on Ponoko, it’s probably sustainable enough. Selected designs will be on view at the Nectar gallery in Long Beach, California in early 2010. via Dexigner

• Parkitecture — 20 November
Dwell magazine wants to see a new take on the garage. Designs must be executed in Google SketchUp and “illustrate the technological possibilities and sustainable potential of the garage of the future.” Winner gets a grand.

• Islington Housing Design — 20 November
Shape the future ground of London. Check out this architecture competition for affordable family housing in the London borough of Islington.

• The Postcard Show — 20 November
The Lab, a non-profits arts organization in San Francisco, is calling for entries for its twelfth annual art sale. Put your spin on the postcard, whether handmade or machine cut.

• Art Prize Arte Laguna — 26 November
Its not all about design on this list. Artists working in painting, photography, or sculpture can compete for €5,000 and a chance to exhibit at one of several Italian galleries. via Dexigner

• Artech Conference — 27 November
Do you take an academic approach to future of design, technology, and art? Think about presenting a paper at Artech 2010 at the University of Minho, Portugal. The topic is “Envisioning Digital Spaces.” via Dexigner

• Beautiful Brooches — 27 November
LivingCreatively is looking for unique and beautiful, handmade brooches. The winner will receive a $100 (Austrailian) gift voucher. via WhipUp Looking for inspiration? The Ponoko showroom carries 48 beautiful brooches.

• Bottega Veneta Furniture Competition — late November
Chances are you are not a student at the University of Tokyo’s graduate school of engineering. But if you are, you’ve got a chance to design a piece of furniture to compliment the BV fashion line and have that design exhibited at the 2010 Salone de Mobile.  via StyleList

Heads Up!

• 2010 Australian International Design Awards — 1 December
Products available in the Australian market or designed by Australians for the global market can enter their designs in 9 categories: Consumer, Business, and Technology; Medical and Scientific; Automotive and Transport; Sport and Leisure; Housing and Building; Heavy Machinery; Architectural and Interior Products; Student. via Dexigner

• What Next? — 5 January 2010
Social Designer is looking for the next product subscription. Design an affordable, useful item than can be easily manufactured and delivered, and takes our social and natural environment into consideration. The winner can choose between $1500 cash or, in the event their idea is put into production, a 5% royalty contract. Ignore this one. The fewer of you that enter means the better chances I have of winning.

Sell your Wares, Maybe Even With a Ponoko Makers Grant?????

The Melbourne Design Market is accepting applications for their December market. The market is held twice a year in July and December and features the latest in fashion, homewares, furniture, lighting and product.

The event regularly attracts over 10,000 visitors to its carpark location at
Level 3
Federation Square Carpark
Cnr Flinders Street & Swanston Street
Melbourne, Australia
As well as featuring established designers it operates as a launching pad for new enterprises.

There is a selection procedure for prospective stallholders to ensure the quality and diversity of the products on offer. Given that it’s track record as a successful forum to launch new products, the market receives many more applications than can possibly be accepted.

Apply now, and if your application is successful prepare yourself for a big day of sales, orders, and most of all, meeting new clients and receiving valuable feedback on your business.

The next Melbourne Design Market will be held Sunday 6 December from 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Stallholder applications are due 30 October 2009.

Also check out Bowerbird Bazaar in Adelaide, last one was so successful you better hurry to secure a space

Some advice from the Shapeways blog

There is a great entry on the Shapeways blog for anyone interested in getting some parts printed in 3D. It goes through some things to consider about the shape and wall thickness of the part in relation to the size. Really helpful stuff..

I recently used Shapeways to print some furniture hardware out of stainless steel and am very happy with the results. I will write more on this in a future post, with my personal successes and failures.. of which there were a few..

but the shapeways post is worth reading before you start modeling..

Dutch designer gets protective

This stand alone Armour sideboard is designed to offer shelter for ones valuables. Revealing its insides by sliding open its doors in a flowing move it is fully dedicated to its content. The oak wood parts show clear respect to the tradition of ancient wooden chests, enclosing and protecting precious items. The angular shapes refer to the modern way of protection and defendance.

The design of Dave Keune targets both esthetical as functional values. While developing his design, either products or environments, Keune operates through layers of research, development and production. By applying skilled craftsmanship within the production process, he aims for high-qualified results, in usability and durability.

Armor is designed and produced in a limited edition of 8 items for
Privee Kollektie..

by Rochus Jacob

A fantastic concept, beautifully executed with refined aesthetics and winner of the Incheon International Design Awards (iida 2009) green life. The chair uses the rocking motion of the sitter to generate power to run a reading lamp. I do hope Rochus Jacob intends the reader to delve into my favorite author Haruki Murakami the master of post modern, magical realism.

I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do. The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way. An abstract process becomes tangible and eventually cultivates natural awareness. Complexity is covered by simplicity. Advanced nano-dynamo technology which is built in to the skids of the chair and more efficient light sources such as the newly developed OLED generation makes it possible to build a rocking chair with a reading lamp running on electricity generated from the rocking motion. During daylight the energy gets stored in a battery pack. The construction of the flat and bendable organic light emitting diodes allows new form factors such as using the traditional shape of a lamp but instead of having a light bulb the lampshade himself turns out to be the light source. To have a drastic reduction of consumption the big challenge will be to make consuming less feel like getting more.

Congratulations on a fantastic concept

“This is the extent of his knowledge of the sea: it was very big, it was salty, and fish lived there.”
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

indie trunk show in Savannah

Junk in the Trunk is an independent maker and musician fair being held on Halloween in one of my favorite cities: Savannah, Georgia. The trunk show is sponsored by local gallery Desotorow.

Vendor applications must be received by 24 October. There are no application fees, and selected vendors only have to pay $25 for a 10 foot selling space. Best of all, vendors keep what they earn! The gallery is not taking commission.

SCAD students and Savannah community designers don’t forget, there’s plenty of time to apply for a Ponoko Maker Grant. And be sure to check out the recent post on the success of grant recipient Isette.

Saturday workshops at the Science Museum of Minnesota

Midwestern fans of fashion and technology can learn to integrate LED lights into fabric. The Textile Center and Science Museum of Minnesota are holding three workshops to create your own techno-textile. The $125 fee includes a “Lillypad” computer/battery pack, computer programming instruction, and guidance in constructing a conductive cloth. For more information, hop over to the class catalog.

Saturdays October 31, November 7, 14 & 21
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

And if you like this kind of thing, defnitely check out fashioningtech.com—a blog devoted to the crossroads of fashion and technology.

Exploring mechanical movement, elastic tension and CNC/Laser cutting technology.

Currently part of the One Off undergraduate show at Kingston University in London is Pedro Mealha’s Rhizome Task Lamp.

The project emerged from his interest in wooden dinosaur kits and the way in which the various components are pieced together to gain a three-dimensional shape from a flat wooden panel.
made from two A3 aeroply boards, rhizome uses an LED ring as a source of light. The lamp was initially intended to be for self-assembly for DIY enthusiasts, however, the project has now evolved into a ready assembled product made from 3mm bamboo ply and is fully extendible and can rotate.

To see more of his work check out his portfolio on Coroflot.

via Bre’s Tweet via Designboom

Sweet outdoor seating concept by Teun Fleskens

Waiting in public spaces always could be more fun with CHITCHAT.
A swinging seat from multiplex or polyester for one to seven people. If you take a seat, you bring the furniture and everyone who is sitting on it in motion. This almost always leads to interaction. It has something surprising and you get to talk about it to your neighbour. Strangers are searching together for the best balance. The ice breaks, the atmosphere improves and the waiting is less boring. The ‘rocking trees’ in the middle provide a playful effect, especially with more CHITCHATS in one space.

via

Energy Aware Architecture Plug-in fro SketchUp

OpenStudio is a free plugin for the Google SketchUp 3D drawing program. The plugin makes it easy to create and edit the building geometry in your EnergyPlus input files. The plugin also allows you to launch EnergyPlus simulations and view the results without leaving SketchUp.

Download OpenStudio here, created by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Designed to integrate seamlessly with the SketchUp environment, the plugin allows you to use the standard SketchUp tools to create and edit EnergyPlus zones and surfaces. You can explore your EnergyPlus input files by using all of the native SketchUp 3D capabilities to view the geometry from any vantage point, apply different rendering styles, and perform accurate shadowing studies. The plugin allows you to mix EnergyPlus simulation content with decorative content such as background images, landscaping, people, and architectural finish details—all within the same SketchUp model.

The plugin adds the building energy simulation capabilities of EnergyPlus to the SketchUp environment. You can launch an EnergyPlus simulation of the model you are working on and view the results without leaving SketchUp.

The OpenStudio plug-in for SketchUp is now compatible with Windows 7, Linux and Snow Leopard.

via monogocoro

FreeCAD is a a general purpose 3D parametric CAD modeler. The development is completely Open Source (GPL & LGPL License). FreeCAD is aimed directly at mechanical engineering and product design but also fits in a wider range of uses around engineering, such as architecture or other engineering specialties.

FreeCAD features tools similar to Catia, SolidWorks or Solid Edge, and therefore also falls into the category of MCAD, PLM, CAx and CAE. It is a feature based parametric modeler with a modular software architecture which makes it easy to provide additional functionality without modifying the core system.

As with many modern 3D CAD modelers it will have a 2D component in order to extract design detail from the 3D model to create 2D production drawings. This is the output essential to convert your designs to profile drawings suitable for Ponoko.

Although you can Download FreeCAD now it is still in ALPHA state and not ready for end user usage. Also although it will be multi=platform and run on Mac and Linux the current version is for windows only…

Check out the impressive feature list to see the planned development

grey- a-re-a: [grey air-ee-uh] an intermediate area; a topic that is not clearly one thing or the other. A grey area is a term for a border in-between two or more things that is unclearly defined, a border that is hard to define or even impossible to define, or a definition where the distinction border tends to move; something that is open to interpretation…

Gray Area Symposium will be held in Mexico in 2010. This five day symposium aims to promote understanding and appreciation of the diverse ways to view, experience, and create jewellery, to encourage cultural exchange among jewellery makers.

At the inaugural event, the program will be focused on practice in two continents – Latin America and Europe. However, participants from all over the world are welcomed to attend.

The symposium will focus on artistic and scholastic encounters between Europe and Latin America, as well as on intra-Latin American exchanges, addressing and reformulating the ideological and practical construction of contemporary jewellery, examining its current state of development in both continents, and respectively exploring and proposing the present and future exchange between Latin American and European individuals and networks.

The symposium is calling for registrations from emerging and established jewellery makers and artists, students from the design, art and jewellery academies, art historians and critics, scholars from the arts, craft and design disciplines, museum and gallery members, art and jewellery collectors, public interested in the subject. Panel and audience will interact through a series of lectures, dialogues and round tables.

The event aims to create a platform that will stimulate friendly, creative, and engaging discussions, to be able to create an interdisciplinary frame of reference for contemporary jewellery and its practices within a truly multinational discourse.

Gray Area will be held 12 to 16 April 2010, and will take place in Mexico City’s Historic Center. Registrations are due 31 December 2009.

For more information and to register your attendance visit here.

Hand Held Gallery in Melbourne, Australia is calling for exhibition proposals from artists and designers for exhibitions to be held between January and June 2010.

Exhibitions should be predominantly object based and may include hand held objects, jewellery, metals, ceramics, glass, minature sculpture, installation, textiles, books, paper arts or found objects. The work may also reflect object as image or text.

Hand Held is available to student, emerging and established artists. Proposals for solo or small group shows are welcome. Proposals should be in the form of a short description of the proposed work with a few accompanying images delivered by post, email or by hand.

The gallery fee is $500.00 for a one month show. This fee includes a minimum three week exhibition, opening night and mid exhibition afternoon tea with the artist session (if artist is available), invitation design and 250 printed invitations, line listing in Art Almanac, listing on crawl ARI update, Only Melbourne, That’s Melbourne, inclusion in our Imprint magazine advertisement if appropriate and email invites to the Hand Held mailing list.

For more information and to apply visit here.

May be a nice excuse to visit Melbourne….

awwwwwww, sweet success.

I printed it with black ABS, and then printed a small white cube and set it with some magic glue eagleapex left at Hive.
I drew the 2d shape in gimp, then had a friend render it in 3d using sketchup (I fail at 3D). I made some adjustments using Blender for the final print.
She said yes! Now to get our MakerBot to print with white gold.

Congratulations Fynflood, here we see the perfect application of 3D printing for good instead of evil, compared to 3D printing handcuff keys….

Although, should the bucks night get out of hand it may be worth printing up a key as well. Fynflood has also been generous enough to share the file for the ring on Thingiverse.

Love spread via RepRap & MakerBot Blogs

Print your way out of police handcuffs

German SSDeV (Sportenthusiasts of Lockpicking Europe) member Ray used a 3D printer to print keys official handcuff of the Dutch police. The key was produced with a RepRap machine from a photograph of a key hanging off of a police officers belt.

Oh, and if you are heading to the Amsterdam and are thinking you may be in for a wild time, why not download the STL file and print your own?

So here is where things get interesting. What are the implications here, is 3D printing this object an illegal act? Is sharing the key ethically sound? What would the liability be if this key was traced back to being used in committing a serious offense?

Big thanks to Erik’s Blog and Blackbag

With help from a handy-dandy UPS map…

I just wanted to share with you this map we’ve been provided from UPS:

If you’re a USA-based Ponoko user uncertain of the usual shipping time for your orders, this is probably the easiest reference to help.

We’ve certainly been referring to it – now you can too. =)

See full details of our making and delivery timeframes.

Dimension 3D student competition, Entries will be accepted starting September 8, 2009 through February 1, 2010

The 2009-10 Extreme Redesign Challenge consists of three categories:

Middle / high school level engineering challenge (In Europe: School/College Engineering, 16-18 years old)
College level engineering challenge (In Europe: University Engineering, 18+ years old)
Art & architectural challenge open to students of all grade levels
“Green” bonus category – one entry from all submitted will be chosen as the best environmentally friendly design

Winners in each of the categories will receive a $2,500 (approx €1,715) scholarship and runner-ups will receive $1,000 (approx €684) scholarships. Semi-finalists from each category will be printed on a Dimension 3D Printer and the models will be sent back to the students along with a $50 gift card (approx €35). Everyone who enters the contest will receive an official Extreme Redesign T-shirt, courtesy of Dimension 3D Printers.

An Extreme Redesign entry must be submitted as a STL file along with a completed online submission form, including a 200-word or less description and/or a 30-second video describing the value and benefit of the Extreme Redesign model. An independent panel of judges will review all entries and the top entries in each category will be printed on a Dimension 3D Printer and the models will be sent back to those students.

The student/team must submit only one part as the final entry in the Extreme Redesign competition.

entry form here

Check out last years winners to see what tickles their fancy

via Fabaloo

wow…….

Evolver is a wooden construction built by 2nd year students from the ALICE Studio at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Like a timber Guggenheim, when you walk through it, you’ll make a 720° turn and have an amazing panorama on the surroundings of Zermatt.


Check out their blog documenting the entire process from maquette to site measure to videos of the panoramic experience..

Who are these people doing this amazing work in second year????

The atelier is focusing on the relations between language and object of language that exist in the process of making in architecture: for example treating the construction of a drawing before drafting.
If architectural space is conceived as a primary property of architecture and as prior to two or three dimensional representation, as well as prior to structural enclosure or object serving functional needs, what will be the essence of that space and how can we explore its depths with the tools that can be employed by the architect? ALICE offers critical approaches to the questions that rise when we look at architecture both as a cultural praxis and as a profession in the socio-political context.
We will examine specific conditions imminent in representational tools and techniques. Representational tools, such as architectural models and plans, or digital constructs like Google-Earth, possess their specific qualities. At the same time they both have their hidden and apparent limitations. To give an example: While simulating time and space, Google-Earth is also a constructed (virtual) interaction, a collage of disparate, strongly manipulated, frozen moments.

The Spring Semester 2009 is a continuation of our investigations on altitude. We will develop a project in a mountainous, alpine condition in several resolutions at different scales. First, a series of mountain passes will be looked at and transformed into panoramic site models. Subsequently the program of Entrée Alpine will be introduced as a first step towards a project proposal: the design of an Alpine Motel. After the Entrée Alpine phase 16 proposals will be evaluated in a jury with external experts in a public review. One or several proposals will serve as the basis for a ‘one to one’ structure to be erected on location in one of the mountain passes or at an art festival of our choice.

To realize a construction of a pavilion or an installation with a second year design class is an experiment. The basic idea behind it is to expose students to processes in architectural production, from conception, to planning, to realization, to the ultimate removal of the architectural artifact—thus, the full life cycle of an object.

At the same time, such a project calls into question the position and the viewpoint of the designer. Here, the architect is not just a creator, he is also a craftsman, a producer, an engineer, a manager, etc. Thus the designer is not only acting from without or above—from a top-view position or a bird’s eye perspective so to speak—but also from within. The employment of digital and physical tools, in combination with the actual building of a one-to-one structure, presents a framework of multiple reference frames for the maker of the design, while at the same time transgressing these frames. This altered position of the designer-architect implies understanding architectural design as an emergent process.

Truly amazing student work that sets an extremely high benchmark for design education..

‘evolver photographs © Joël Tettamanti / ALICE Studio EPFL

all other pictures by meredith adrian llewelny and nicolas feihl

via Today & Tomorrow

ShopBot need your input to let them know what you need to get your designs made..

ShopBot announces Project: Tyro, an initiative to jump-start the development process and solicit ideas on how to build its next CNC machine. A questionnaire has been posted on the company’s website, where anyone – current ShopBot owners, potential ShopBotters, tinkerers, engineers, and anyone else with an interest in the future of digital fabrication – is invited to participate. Submissions will be accepted through November.

fill out the questionnaire here to help them help you.

ShopBot and Ponoko have teamed up for 100kGarages.com, using the world’s easiest making system along with the distributed manufacturing network of ShopBot owners to fabricate your designs.

Upload with the assurance you’ve got it right.

I’ve put together this video tutorial of a process you can use to self-check your design files before uploading them using Illustrator – as well as covering all the common mistakes to look out for.

This is ideal if your design file won’t upload to Ponoko, or you want to be sure you’ve formatted everything correctly before getting us to make it…

I hope you find this helpful.

Let me know if you have any further tips for future versions, or other tutorials you would like to see us record!

How long before we see ‘illegal’ product design files to download? And what should we do about it?

New release movies are available for download from various file sharing networks before they even hit the cinemas. Despite DRM and any other copyright protection put into music files they are instantly and widely spread across the net for free download seemingly as soon as the recordings are complete. Software applications and games are exactly the same, years of development are quickly absorbed and distributed in peer to peer networks without a dollar changing hands.

We can assume the same is going to happen with physical product design in the not too distant future, as the digital design process becomes ubiquitous, and the means of manufacture become distributed and democratized.

What will we do when product design files start hitting these peer to peer networks of sharing. The equivalent of ripping a CD and burning it for a friend?

Or when a disgruntled Industrial Designer leaks the CAD files for the latest gizmo onto Demonoid or Pirate Bay, and suddenly anyone with access to a Makerbot can print one themselves?

Can or will Shapeways analyse a design and refuse to 3D print it if it is seen to infringe a design copyright, or have an encryption denoting it a pirate ‘illegal’ 3D file?

Will Marc Newson pull a Metallica and try and sue one of his fans if they 3D print one of his doorstoppers because it deprives him from income?

How long till we see the likes of Ikea hacks take on the form of musical mash-ups when two digital files are combined? Like Deiter Rams Radio vs Jonathan Ive’s iPod in a mutant device. Will we see The Grey Album with an Artist/designer taking claim (and responsibility/liability) for a product mash-up or will we see anonymous designers posting ‘white label’ designs so as to avoid prosecution.

Would or could Tatty Devine sue Ponoko if they sell a designers jewelry if it is a copy, that has been changed ever so slightly, and is this a form of illegal mass-customization?

I would love to hear any feedback to these questions, and what direction, action or acceptance we will take?

Read the INC. Magazine article online now

For those of you who are curious as to who exactly are behind Ponoko, how they started out, and what it takes to get your laser cut packages from your desktop, into production, and delivered back to you (or your customers), you must read the recent article in INC. magazine by Max Chafkin.

Read of Ponoko’s U.S. office, “Actually, ‘office’ is probably stretching the truth. Ten Have was working in a windowless closet inside a large warehouse. Most of the space was taken up by a laser cutter. The rest of the tiny room was occupied by sheets of plastic and plywood in every imaginable color and thickness and a 7-foot-tall stack of cardboard boxes. The room smelled like burnt plastic from the fumes that are produced when the machine cuts acrylic.”

Read how the Ponoko CEO spent 12-hour days cutting and packaging Ponoko orders and had dropped nearly 15 pounds in a 3 month period in the US, returning to New Zealand gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes and a pale face.

The article really does give great insight into the Ponoko vision and the work required to make it happen

I personally have been on the periphery of Ponoko’s developments for over a year and in true distributed network style have never met anyone from Ponoko the whole time, so the article was of great interest to me. To read of the hard work and dedication it takes to make an ambitious venture stand up and be viable, in what are some of the most difficult economic times has been truly inspiring.

Congratulations again to Dave, Derek and the rest of the very small Ponoko crew.

Oh, and next time you receive your Yippee! packaging of your completed Ponoko project, it just may be Derek or Dave’s sweat staining the cardboard….

CloudFab is a new online marketplace that provides engineers, designers, and hobbyists access to a network of job shops who provide fabrication and prototyping services (currently 3D printing).

The latest player on the scene of distributed manufacturing networks is CloudFab by GearHeadz. Currently in Beta testing stage they seek to democratize access to 3D printing with a fairly broad range of processes seemingly at their disposal ranging from Fused Deposition Modeling, through Selective Laser Sintering to Direct Metal Printing. Their site also has a concise run down and comparison of the processes available. Their terms of service are transparent with no commission taken for orders under $100, which to me indicates they are pitching less towards the prosumer/maker market and more towards the engineering side of things? but maybe not, check out their manifesto..

In the beginning, humans fashioned all their possessions with their own skills – ones they learned from their community. Over time certain members specialized in the art of making things – thus began the age of the artisan. Trade specialization increased to the point where each trade became a science. These tradesmen began to develop all kinds of tricks to make their tasks easier – the industrial revolution began. As they further automated their tasks they vastly increased the efficiency of production – thus began the age of mass production.

This trend toward automation continues in our time, however there is a storm gathering in the distance. A storm that will wash away many of the paradigms of the past and bring us back to some of the roots of our humanity. Techniques that were once only available to a select few are coming within the reach of all of us. As technology becomes more ubiquitous, the ability to shape your own reality increases. This democratization of innovation allows nearly anyone with an idea to solve their own problems and realize their own dreams – thus begins the age of mass customization.

These trends are all culminating to form the perfect storm of achieving these ends. A vast reservoir of spare capacity exists waiting to be tapped by latent demand. Digital fabrication techniques now allow us the standardization and consistency to remotely produce unique, high quality parts and devices. The internet allows us all to share files, tools, and techniques that foster innovation without requiring vast sums of money. All of this – and at the same time the population is growing tired of mass produced goods that only superficially connect with them and their lives.

At CloudFab, we believe strongly in this movement, and so we’ve developed this platform to enable those with the fabrication equipment to share their machines with the greater public. We hope our service will be one step towards the goal of truly personal fabrication. Now the journey begins.

It will be interesting to see CloudFab’s part in the personal fabrication and mass customization storm along with the likes of Ponoko, 100kGarages, Thingiverse, the list grows..

Thanks to SolidSmack