Core77

Reader Submitted: Lara's Multimedia Playground:A New Playground for Sound and Music Experiences

Lara Ozansoy

What if music could be more than something you hear? What if you could see its patterns, shape its visual language and interact with sound in entirely new ways?

Created by Basel-based designer Lara Ozansoy, Lara's Multimedia Playground explores new ways of experiencing music through real-time sound visualisation and tactile interaction. Inspired by the physical principles of Chladni figures, it translates sound into dynamic particle patterns that users can explore, manipulate and record.

At its centre is an interactive interface connected to a family of five audio products: a microphone, tape recorder, MIDI controller, speaker and compact round controller. Together, they form an experimental ecosystem that brings sound, visual expression and physical interaction into one playful experience.

Bridging scientific principles with creative exploration, the project imagines new possibilities for music creation, audio technology, artist identity, visual performance and immersive experiences.

View the full project here

The Symbiotic 3026: An Indoor Beehive

Rain Noe

Beekeeping requires both space and gear. You'd want to keep the hives a good distance away from your house, and you of course need a beekeeping suit to avoid getting stung.

The Symbiotic 3026, an invention from Serbian company Futuristic Beehive, aims to eliminate those constraints. It's an indoor beehive—sealed, obviously—with a 20mm hose serving as an entrance tube.

Yes, you'd have to drill a hole in your wall (or rig something up at a window), but you've now got an in-house honey machine, thanks to a funnel.

And assuming you like bees, you get to watch the little guys work.

The company has shipped these to over 70 countries worldwide, and sells them for $600.

Kit Davey's Nifty Expanding and Collapsing Cube Books

Rain Noe

Here's a twist, literally, on the pop-up book. California-based paper artist Kit Davey makes these Expanding and Collapsing Cube Books:

Davey is teaching a class, over Zoom, to show you how to make the books. It will be held this Saturday, November 14th, from 10:30am to 1:30pm Pacific time. It runs $45 and you can sign up here.

Sony Brings Back 1979 Wired Walkman Headphones Design

Rain Noe

In 2016, Apple released the first AirPods. This seemed to be the futuristic pinnacle of headphone evolution.

Surprisingly, in the subsequent ten years, things have started sliding the other way. A subset of consumers don't like having to deal with an additional thing to charge. Small earbuds are easy to drop and lose. Bluetooth pairing is occasionally an issue. And there has been an influencer-driven craving for retro items that recall a simpler time. Hence Sony's "new" headphones, the MDR-3R:

These are the resurrection of Sony's MDR-3 headphones, launched with the original Walkman in 1979. The drivers have been updated to put out more base, and an inline controller has been added to the cable, which is now USB-C rather than minijack. Other than that, these look like what you saw on people's heads in the 1980s.

They come with both orange and blue earpads, which the company says you'd swap "to suit your mood and attire."

And lest you think these are aimed at nostalgic Gen-X'ers, Sony's launch video makes clear which demographic they're targeting:

The MDR-3Rs run $60.

Chris Bly's Plotter-Based Art

Rain Noe

Portland-based Chris Bly started drawing in middle school. In college he began studying architecture, then switched to mathematics and computer science. Eventually, however, he came back to drawing—albeit not in the way he was drawing in his youth:

During Covid, I lost my job and rediscovered my love of art in the form of a pen plotter I bought to help fill some of my down time. I immediately became obsessed, and soon after discovered the creative coding community. It was a perfect marriage of my passion for mathematics, art, design, and coding.

Since that time, my work has developed into more complex systems. My programs often contain elements of noise and randomness, that allow the computer to make a certain amount of decisions. I call it a collaborative effort.

I continually try to challenge myself in my work, while curating the outputs of my programs in compositions I find most compelling. And the pen plotter itself offers its own set of challenges. Surface and tool choice are always a consideration, and while most of my work so far has been monochromatic and paper-based in nature, I'm excited to explore different palettes and materials in the future.

Bly points out that his work isn't AI-based; using his math skills, he writes the code that allows the plotter to bring his sketches and patterns to life.

You can see more of his work here.

An Industrial Designer's Brilliant Invention for Dim Restaurants

Rain Noe

"I was out for dinner with my mom, and she was struggling to read the menu in the dark," says Canadian industrial designer Andrew Ferrier, of MK-11 Studio. She pulled out her phone to use the flashlight feature, as many of us have had to do; Ferrier then observed another table using the Magnifier app to read their bill. "That bright light can disrupt the atmosphere for everyone around you."

So I designed Loupe Light, a table lamp of stacked magnetic light rings.

Lift any ring off and it becomes a lit magnifier, so guests can read the menu or bill discreetly and phones stay off the table.

- A raised lens glides across the menu without scratching it and maintains focus.

- Add or remove rings to suit different table sizes.

- Cordless, sealed, and inductively charged, making it easy for staff to wipe down between seatings.

Loupe Light is an MK-II Studio concept. Brands and restaurant groups, let's bring it to life.

Home & Yard Maintenance

Winner: Snail Farm Pod Designer: Oleg Vereshchagin

The winning entry in the Home & Yard Maintenance category is the EscarGrow Bio-Hub, is an automated, closed-loop snail farming module built for regenerative agriculture and community food security. The fully enclosed unit handles the whole cycle in one compact package: organic waste processing, a snail habitat, automated collection, and production of nutrient-rich compost and protein. Its sealed design supports biosecurity and regulatory compliance, and its modular format lets it deploy anywhere from rural farms and degraded land to urban educational gardens.

Award-winning Industrial Designer, Oleg Vereshchagin was retained for the 3d development of EscarGrow™.

It is the first heliciculture system designed from the ground up to meet USDA APHIS biosecurity and regulatory compliance. APHIS compliance has been the structural barrier keeping domestic snail farming inaccessible to small and mid-scale producers. EscarGrow™ removes that barrier by building containment, traceability, and regulatory documentation into the architecture itself.

Where conventional livestock systems produce one product at significant energy, water, and land cost, EscarGrow™; closed-loop model produces three from a single input stream: escargot, snail mucin, and biofertilizer leachate.
The modular format means the system deploys across radically different contexts without redesign: rural farms and degraded land for a low-infrastructure protein; urban educational gardens for hands-on STEM programming around living systems; food security operations where compact footprint and low energy requirements are non-negotiable constraints.

Oleg modeled the project in Fusion using its Solid Modeling and T-Spline tools. "Although I haven't been using Fusion for very long, I've had a very positive experience with it," he says.

EscarGrow™ (patent pending) was invented by Ozi (Mama Kuku) Manning.

Runner-up: NIDO Designer: Manuel Ovalle

NIDO is a 3D-printed birdhouse for backyards and balconies, intended to create more nesting refuges for birds in urban and suburban areas. Ovalle designed it for FDM printing from the start, so the body prints without support structures, which cuts material waste and post-processing. He developed it in a 24-hour design sprint, including about eight hours of printing. The files are free to download in both 3MF and STL from Ovalle's website , so anyone with a desktop printer can make one.

In Fusion, Ovalle started with a 150 mm sphere and switched to Direct Modeling, using the Edit Face tool to scale groups of vertices into NIDO's organic form. The sphere's curvature also gave him overhang angles near 45 degrees in the critical printing regions. He finished with Extrude and Fillet for the hanging feature, Shell for the hollow body, and Combine (Cut) for the openings.

Runner-up: Low-Cost Apartment Hydroponic Tower Garden Designer: John Phillips

A vertical hydroponic garden for people without garden space, built from common household materials for less than $20. According to Phillips, the system fits in a 12-inch footprint and can grow more than 40 vegetables, running on a low-cost aquarium pump or manually. He used Fusion to practice parametric design and assembly modeling, including working out what pump size would be needed to reach five feet. Phillips runs a farm in the Philippines where he gives free seminars on food self-sufficiency. Learn more at kitakitz.com and on his YouTube channel.

Personal Fitness & Wellness

Winner: Everwarm Designer: Anika Srivastava

Anika Srivastava started Everwarm with a simple observation: people would rather put up with the cold than use the heating products on the market, which are inconvenient to carry and uncomfortable to hold. Her answer is a soft, rechargeable set of handwarmers designed for daily, long-term use.

The product is shaped like a piece of fruit that splits into two warming halves and a center core slice. The halves attach to the core with magnets and connect through pogo pins, so the whole set charges as one unit. A ring light flashes each time the halves attach to show which one needs power. If you only need one hand warm, a low-battery half can go back on the core to charge while you carry the other.

The stem that lets Everwarm hang from a bag handle, ski pack, or camping gear also serves as a built-in USB-C charging cable, so it can be topped up from a laptop or outlet at work or a coffee shop. Srivastava prototyped the halves to be soft and squishy, a deliberate contrast to the hard plastic of typical electric handwarmers, so they're pleasant to hold and fidget with.

She designed Everwarm in Fusion, which she describes as "a nice blend between Solidworks and Rhino." That let her iterate quickly: "easily making changes to existing elements, and being able to create solid shapes without having to manually define every plane or sketch."

Runner-up: PHAS: Eye-Gaze Mobility System Designers: Aivin Thankachan K, Parthiv Keloth, Hanock Issac, and Stanley Raphel

A modular retrofit that turns an existing manual wheelchair into a powered one for people with severe motor impairments, combining a motorized mobility module, an eye-gaze module for hands-free navigation, and a manual control module for caregivers. The team's research was published on IEEE Xplore following MLHMI 2026 in Tokyo. Aivin led the product design in Fusion, where his first prototype full assembly exposed two problems before any hardware was built: the mobility module wasn't contacting the wheelchair tires properly, and the grab handle was awkward to use. He narrowed the mobility module and redesigned the battery compartment for top access.

Runner-up: Curved Plywood Fitness Bench
Designers: Nicole Leal Flores and Isabella Córdoba Inzunza

A multipurpose fitness bench made with bent plywood, treating exercise equipment as furniture. Built for small apartments, it has an adjustable backrest and integrated wheels for easy moving and storage. The designers built the model with parameters from the start, which let them test proportions and variations without rebuilding parts.

Smart Home Devices

Winner: HaloDock: Hands-Free Head Mouse with Self-Donning Dock
Designer: DONGWOOK LEE

For people with high-level spinal cord injuries, a head mouse can mean independence at the computer, but only after a caregiver puts it on, takes it off, and charges it. HaloDock is a gyro head mouse paired with an overhead dock on the wheelchair headrest that does all three. The dock lowers the headset onto the user's head, and a 5 mm push opens a mechanical latch to release it. The next push lifts the headset off and returns it to charge. The latch holds its state without power, the halo sits above the widest part of the head so it needs no opening mechanism, and the open back leaves room for the headrest. The design also skips a magnetometer so steel wheelchair frames don't disturb the cursor.

In Fusion, the designer used T-Spline modeling for the form, ran stress checks, and developed a generative bracket with CAM toolpaths. A real gyro test cut cursor jitter by 39 percent.

Runner-up: i.n.o: Interactive Note Obliterator
Designers: Olivia Chan, Rez Lin, Sue Nhan, and Megan Truong

A desktop sticky note shredder designed to bring a little joy to a cluttered desk. Hold a note up to the sensor, and a tongue-like platform extends to take it in. The team used Fusion's Joint function to validate the mechanism, and it also drove the shredding turbine and shredder with a single motor, saving space and power.

Runner-up: Truss Designers: Lauren Johnson, Daniel Imbert, Chiara Peluzzo, and Malena Vila

Truss is a speaker that brings back the tactility of records and mixtapes. It has an exaggerated volume dial, a playful skip switch, and cassette-style buttons, each assigned to a different person's playlist. Users load a playlist by tapping their phone against an embedded NFC chip, and up to four people can have playlists on the device at once. The team pitched the skip switch as neutral ground for the age-old argument over what plays next. The body pairs an anodized aluminum skeleton with a thermoformed acrylic shell.

The team used Fusion's sheet metal tools to unfold the acrylic shell's three bends into a flat pattern, which they exported to laser cut the sheet. They also modeled the speaker grille with circular patterns, imported McMaster-Carr fasteners directly into the model, and used joints to test how far the skip switch should travel. Four people modeled separate components, and Fusion's assembly constraints pulled them together.

Congratulations to all nine designers and thank you to everyone who entered. Each category winner receives $2,500 and the runners up each receive $250 in Autodesk merchandise. All the winning projects are shown in the Fusion Forward Gallery at Coroflot .

Inspired by what you saw here? Learn more about Autodesk Fusion, and build your skills with Autodesk's free self-paced Fusion tutorials .

The Lehners Seeder: A Manually-Operated Automatic Seed Sowing Contraption

Rain Noe

This Matrix-looking contraption was invented by German nursery business Lehner.

Planting seeds in neat rows had become a production bottleneck for the company. Mechanical seed planters exist, but they rely on electricity or compressed air, and thus require maintenance. Seeking a fast, low-tech and manual way, the company came up with the Lehners Seeder.

If it's not obvious how it works, here's a demo by gardener Viktor Lisovyi:

The company invented it roughly 30 years ago, and now sells their invention worldwide. The units are custom-built, matched to customers' tray layouts and seed calibers.

Core77 Design Awards Trophies Are On Their Way

Core Jr

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards season has come to a close, and as always, it ends with trophies heading out to our winners. Congratulations once more to all the winners of the 2026 Core77 Design Awards, and our thanks to this year's Jury Teams for their time and insight.

This year we're also pleased to welcome a new trophy manufacturing partner, Mastars . The Mastars team fabricated and finished each trophy from solid aluminum billet using their CNC machining capabilities, and the results speak for themselves. Beyond CNC work, Mastars offers a full range of services that will be familiar to anyone who has taken a product from concept to production, including 3D printing , injection molding , sheet metal fabrication , metal casting and vacuum casting .

The polished surfaces on this year's trophies came out so clean and reflective that photographing them was a challenge in itself, but we managed to grab a few shots, which you can see below.

And here's a few pics of the production process, in case you're wondering how these are made:

We've really enjoyed working with Mastars on this year's trophy production. If you're looking for a manufacturing partner that can take your project from prototype through production, they're well worth a look.

And mark your calendars for the 2027 Core77 Design Awards, opening for entries on January 5, 2027!

A Chemical-Free Anti-Mosquito Solution: Wearing Fake Dragonflies

Rain Noe

In the English county of Cornwall, a contracting firm called Cormac handles construction, road maintenance and environmental services. On a job last summer, a Cormac crew had to clear riverside vegetation, and were getting eaten alive by biting insects.

As a test, Cormac worker Harry Blake purchased some plastic dragonflies. (Dragonflies are natural predators of mosquitoes and horseflies.) He rigged them up on the worker's helmets:

Over four days of on-the-job testing, the workers found the fake dragonflies were effective—when mounted to springy, rather than rigid, wires; apparently their motion convinced biting insects that they were real. The crew also reported not needing to use bug spray. So if you're looking for a chemical-free mosquito solution next barbecue season, and don't mind looking a little silly, pick up a few of these.

These Ascender Gadgets Let You Walk Up a Vertical Rope

Rain Noe

This peculiar-looking object…

…is a Quick Step Foot Ascender that you wear around your feet. The contraption contains a movable, ratcheting jaw that bites onto rope. Paired with a Chest Ascender…

…worn against your sternum, it allows you to essentially walk up a vertical rope:

While your legs do the work, the chest ascender is what keeps the rope against your body, and you vertical.

These are used by arborists, wind turbine technicians, high-rise cleaners, bridge inspectors, recreational climbers and search-and-rescue personnel.

A Food-Safe, Residue-Free Fire Extinguisher for the Kitchen

Rain Noe

This Firemill object, by Swedish industrial design firm Propellor, is a food-safe fire extinguisher that leaves no residue.

"The majority of home fires begin in the kitchen," Propellor writes. And if something catches fire on your stove, and you then douse it with a conventional fire extinguisher, you've got a huge mess on your hands—not to mention the food has been rendered inedible. Conventional fire extinguishers are loaded with monoammonium phosphate, a chemical salt that you don't want inside your body.

In contrast, the Firemill is loaded with conventional C02 canisters, the kind you use in a Sodastream machine. The object douses fire with pure C02, leaving no mess—if, say, your laptop also happened to be on the kitchen counter and you sprayed that too, it would suffer no damage.

Here's how it works, and how you load it:

These run about $120, and don't include the C02 canister.

Core77 Weekly Roundup (11-2-26 to 11-6-26)

Rain Noe

Here's what we looked at this week:

Automatic drop down seals for doors.

The unique fairings on Bandit9's RED 800 motorcycle.

PureSelfMade's build-your-own wind turbine workshops.

The AwesomePre, designed by ID firm Bebop, is an alternate take on booklights.

The (partially) hide-away Urban Desk.

A modern take on the split-rail fence, by Norwegian architecture firm Rever & Drage.

Aegis Rider fixes a major UX problem for HUDs for motorcyclists.

Hell in a handbasket: Realbotix's robotic humanoid torsos for companionship.

A magnetic-footed spider-bot that can climb and weld.

Redneck & designey ways to stop vandals from smashing your mailbox.

A table that goes from round to square.

Kate Schroder's illuminated LED "Chandeliearrings".

Made in Search's Midcentury-esque Hearth Lamp.

Can you guess how this Hollow Clock with floating hands works? (No, there's no transparent pane.)

Made in Search's Midcentury-esque Hearth Lamp

Rain Noe

This simple, elegant Hearth Lamp looks like a Midcentury Modern design that's turned up in some Danish thrift shop. But in fact it's a new object, by British homeware brand Made in Search.

The shade is set back from the Walnut base just enough to provide access to the perfectly chosen switch.

A stainless steel base plate conceals the lamp's wiring.

You supply the bulb; it comes with an E27 socket and can handle up to 60W.

These run £345 (USD $465).

Can You Guess How This Hollow Clock with Floating Hands Works?

Rain Noe

This Hollow Clock was designed by Shinsaku Hiura, an engineering professor at the University of Hyogo. It was then 3D printed and assembled by content creator MechDesign98.

As the clock's name suggests, there is no pane of transparent material filling the circle. How, then, does the hour hand maintain its position as the minute hand rotates? Any guesses?

The answer:

Core77

Reader Submitted: Lara's Multimedia Playground:A New Playground for Sound and Music Experiences

The Symbiotic 3026: An Indoor Beehive

Kit Davey's Nifty Expanding and Collapsing Cube Books

Sony Brings Back 1979 Wired Walkman Headphones Design

Chris Bly's Plotter-Based Art

An Industrial Designer's Brilliant Invention for Dim Restaurants

Sponsored: Announcing the Winners of Fusion Forward: Design for Home

Home & Yard Maintenance

Personal Fitness & Wellness

Smart Home Devices

The Lehners Seeder: A Manually-Operated Automatic Seed Sowing Contraption

Core77 Design Awards Trophies Are On Their Way

A Chemical-Free Anti-Mosquito Solution: Wearing Fake Dragonflies

These Ascender Gadgets Let You Walk Up a Vertical Rope

A Food-Safe, Residue-Free Fire Extinguisher for the Kitchen

Core77 Weekly Roundup (11-2-26 to 11-6-26)

Automatic drop down seals for doors.

The unique fairings on Bandit9's RED 800 motorcycle.

PureSelfMade's build-your-own wind turbine workshops.

The AwesomePre, designed by ID firm Bebop, is an alternate take on booklights.

The (partially) hide-away Urban Desk.

A modern take on the split-rail fence, by Norwegian architecture firm Rever & Drage.

Aegis Rider fixes a major UX problem for HUDs for motorcyclists.

Hell in a handbasket: Realbotix's robotic humanoid torsos for companionship.

A magnetic-footed spider-bot that can climb and weld.

Redneck & designey ways to stop vandals from smashing your mailbox.

A table that goes from round to square.

Kate Schroder's illuminated LED "Chandeliearrings".

Made in Search's Midcentury-esque Hearth Lamp.

Can you guess how this Hollow Clock with floating hands works? (No, there's no transparent pane.)

Made in Search's Midcentury-esque Hearth Lamp

Can You Guess How This Hollow Clock with Floating Hands Works?