Tag Archives: design
Finally, an iPhone Case That Does Something Useful (Opens Beers)
iPhone cases have always been designed to protect the iPhone, but now there is one that does something very useful: carries cash and opens beers.
A designer on 3D printing marketplace Shapeways named Mstyle183 has created the Macgyver of iPhone cases. With a money clip, credit card holder and bottle opener built into the case, this design is sure to be a crowd pleaser.
In the video below, Mstyle183 shows off his ingenious 3D printed product.
Via Shapeways blog.
Team Great Britain Olympic Cyclists Fitted with 3D Printed Helmets
Team Great Britain has an edge above other teams, at least in cycling, thanks to 3D printing. UK Sport and British Cycling commissioned the design and production of custom cycling helmets, bespoke to each Olympic cyclist. Using laser scanning and 3D printing technology, the helmets were designed and prototyped in no time.
According to the company, the prototypes were physically used as part of the helmet fitting process; giving the athletes confidence that their helmet fit would be flawless.
Extensive testing found that aluminium honeycomb, often used within the aerospace industry, worked well as a material for the helmet core. When combined with the unique dual shell, it was said to outperform previous designs in terms of absorbing impact energy efficiently and ensuring deceleration forces weren’t transferred to the wearer.
Dr Scott Drawer, head of research and innovation at UK Sport, said: “Our job is to ensure our athletes make it to the start line among the best prepared and most feared in the world. Britain has a wealth of expertise in science, engineering and technology and by working with companies like Crux Product Design we can tap into a much wider network of skills and abilities from other industries to ensure we are leaving no stone unturned in our pursuit of sporting excellence.”
Via Eureka Magazine.
3D Printed Fractal Art Turned Into Beautiful Jewelry and Sculptures
We are always on the hunt for designers who are using 3D printing to make things more that are more beautiful or exquisite than can be made by traditional means, and wow did we find one.
Designer unellenu has an innovative approach to creating 3D printed designs. 3D fractal art is used as the source for models, sculptures, homewares and jewellery. The result is truly unique.
unellenu has shops on Shapeways, i.materialise, and Etsy. Designs ready to 3D print are priced at less than $15 while others are priced up to $1000. We are impressed by the blend of mathematics and aesthetics in these products.
Video: MIT’s Neri Oxman and Biologically-Inspired 3D Printed Systems
MIT Media Lab researchers Neri Oxman and Steven Keating are creating biologically-inspired 3D printing systems.
Oxman explains the mission of their lab, “Our goal here is to explore processes for digital fabrication like 3D printing that are inspired by nature with the belief that we are going to emerge on the other side generating and making things that are more efficient and more effective.”
An MIT news piece covering their work describes how nature can inspire better industrial design:
To illustrate this, Keating uses the example of a palm tree compared to a typical structural column. In a concrete column, the properties of the material are constant, resulting in a very heavy structure. But a palm tree’s trunk varies: denser at the outside and lighter toward the center. As part of his thesis research, he has already made sections of concrete with the same kind of variations of density.
The video below includes interviews with both Oxman and Keating.
Neri Oxman photo by poptech used under Creative Commons license.
Bringing Woolly Mammoths and Dinosaurs Back to Life With 3D Printing
Marguerite Humeau is using 3D printing to give a voice to creatures from long ago, specifically from the prehistoric era.
Thanks to the heaps of dinosaur bones scattered across the globe, paleontologists have a vague idea of what dinosaurs looked like when they roamed the earth millions of years ago. But what they sounded like is a tougher nut to crack. Vocal chords are made of soft tissue and cartilage, which means they don’t fossilize. The roars and squawks we hear in movies aren’t exactly made up, but they certainly aren’t based on scientific fact. Marguerite Humeau has spent the last two years working with paleontologists, zoologists, engineers, and doctors to recreate the noises our scaly forebears might have made.
Humeau has chosen to reimagine creatures from three vastly different prehistoric eras: There’s Ambulocetus, or the “walking whale,” a Cetacean that could swim and walk over 50 million years before our time. Entelodont (also known as *shiver* Hell Pig) was a massive omnivore that roamed more than 20 million years ago. The youngest is Mammoth Imperator, the species of giant mammoth that Humeau recreated for her graduation show in 2011.
Using a combination of her artistic intuition and scientific data, Humeau is creating the voice boxes of these creatures, and subsequently building a new library of animal sounds never before heard in the modern era.
The video below, entitled “Proposal for resuscitating prehistoric creatures,” sets up the rebirth of cloned creatures, their wandering and their sound epic.
Via Co.Design.
