The lesson here is that some high performance tasks are easier than others and understanding the physics of the problem tells you which ones are easy and which are hard.

-Raffaello D’Andrea

Wired cover story this month:
In the Programmable World, All Our Objects Will Act as One

Just announced:
Arduino Yún with on-board WiFi

Vittorio Cuculo took an Arduino, an RGB LED, and an IKEA lamp and programmed the system to recognize your facial expression and change the color of the light based on how it thinks you’re feeling. I’ll say that again. How it thinks you’re feeling. Sure, it’s a simple interaction and it may be easy to argue the utility of such a system, but projects like this represent significant steps into the future of our interactions with the physical objects we own even though the steps may appear, at first blush, to be small.

via Arduino Blog

It costs absolutely the same amount of money to make a car look ugly as it does to make it look beautiful.

Regarding the McLaren design language:

…it’s not coming from just aesthetics. It’s very easy to design a sexy car; a dramatic looking car. That’s not what design, for me, is all about. It’s more about doing efficient design that has a reason for being.

(emphasis mine)

–Frank Stephenson, automotive designer and Director of Styling at McLaren Automotive

While it can be interesting to hear the designer wax poetic about design philosophy it’s even more interesting seeing how the design comes to life:

Even better to see the product perform as designed:

Explaining Diagrams: a short introduction from Virtual Beauty on Vimeo.

Via the always inspiring Flowing Data

Interested in learning more? Start with Edward Tufte:

Rotite Technologies from Rotite Technologies on Vimeo.

Licensing:
Rotite is a potentially diverse technology, with a multitude of applications, in a range of industries. Therein there are “Industry Specific” and “Application Specific” and “Geometrically Specific” Licenses available.We can assist you both in the right choice of license and the ideal geometric solution for your application.

Rotite Technologies offer a comprehensive support package to all our licensees , ensuring you stay up to date with all “Geometric, Technical and Intellectual Developments “.
We offer a range complimentary support services such as prototyping and detailed structural analysis.This ensures that together, we can optimise your intended application and get your products to market – quicker.

It isn’t often I see something so interesting applied to something as mundane as fasteners. If you’re using this technology in a specific application let me know at design (at) formlovesfunction.com

A beautiful 10 minute film produced in 1930 by Ralph Steiner showing the internal workings of gear mechanisms, cams, indexers, counters, and many others.

It’s interesting to see not only the parts, their geometry and how they fit together, but also the materials used. Not surprising to see copper, nickel, and gold on the list. The lead surprised me for the moment before I realized the product was designed in the 1930’s. Wax, leather, linen, cotton? Yes.

Seeing all the pieces of such an iconic, ubiquitous product come together reinforces the great respect I have for early industrial designers.

It might not be as exciting as watching a 5-axis machine cut a motocross helmet from a block of aluminum, but at about 90 seconds in you can see one of the cam shafts driving some movement. There is a good overview shot at about 2:01 and an interesting close-up on about 5 axes of movement at about the 2:30 mark. There are 7:15 minutes altogether with footage of a few machines.

And while we’re on the topic, why not check out some of the Deus creations rippin’ at Harold Park Paceway:

Deus Ex Machina – Harold Park Paceway Revisited from Deus Customs on Vimeo.