Back in May, Maker Faire creator Dale Dougherty made a brief reference to an Anton Willis project in an article he wrote for us, "A New Wave of Hardware Innovation." Now we've got the full skinny: Willis, a designer based in San-Francisco, is shoring up final production for his folding kayak.
Called the Oru, Willis' design is a great example of the intelligent use of humble materials. It's made from corrugated plastic—think of those folded bins the U.S. Postal Service uses—and in its folded state, looks like the large portfolios you see people carrying around on art school campuses. But after five minutes of assembly, you've got a 12-foot-long, watertight craft waiting for you to break out the paddle.
The innovative design means you can hike out to remote regions, no car necessary, to get your kayak on. It's expected to retail for a manageable $500.
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2012-10-01 06:11:44 UTC
The controversial debate over the sustainability of biofuels has been reignited by new research from Swiss-based research institute Empa. While the study maintains that biofuels can be sustainable depending on certain conditions and the technology involved, the findings suggest that only a few are more environmentally friendly than gasoline... Continue Reading New study distils the eco footprint of biofuels
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2012-10-01 20:12:14 UTC
For anyone who has a ton of stuff in their house that they just cannot find a place for, this new Eastpak sofa might be right up their alley. It's sort of like a backpack and couch combined into one piece of furniture. It has pockets for your tablet, laptop, remote and almost anything else you could want to store in your couch. .. Continue Reading Eastpak Sofa has more storage than you'll know what to do with
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2012-10-02 17:02:03 UTC
Developer Abelardo Gonzalez has created an open-source font designed to help people with dyslexia read more easily. Dubbed OpenDyslexic, the font is currently available as a free download, in the form of a Safari and Chrome extension, a bookmarklet, and a free iOS web-browsing app. OpenDyslexic has also been incorporated into several third-party apps, including popular read-it-later service Instapaper. .. Continue Reading New font designed to help dyslexic people read
If you are involved in the creative community, you will have noticed the slowly-but-surely growing preponderance of cork as a material used in design. Just in the past few months, my boyfriend bought a cork iPhone case, I was coveting a beautiful cork totebag I saw at Brooklyn Flea, and just a week ago, in consideration of replacing my (very old and crummy) vinyl kitchen flooring from the 80′s, I came across cork as an eco-friendly option. I had seen cork floors used in commercial applications, but hadn’t thought about it before for my own home. Cork is everywhere, and, as I’ve quickly figured out – for good reason!
Grow Anthology crafts these flexible, waterproof and eco-friendly longboards from recycled paper. With designs that reference nature and that are inspired by the lines of vintage surfboards, each skateboard is manufactured in the US. Not only does the company utilize recycled materials in their boards—which are FSC certified by the Rainforest Alliance—but Grow Anthology also promises to plant a tree for each longboard sold.
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Field Guide is a loose collective of designers, artists, technologists, musicians and journalists engaged with projects that focus on "the materiality of things that are immaterial, such as electricity, sound, light, emotions and the Internet." Often times these projects are ongoing works in progress or open-ended experiments that are, admittedly, sometimes a bit too conceptual to fully understand. Still, their showroom at Brompton Design District during London Design Festival was set up a like science fair with exciting, interactive gadgetry and liquid-filled glass vials that invited visitors to engage with the different projects and try them out for themselves to get a better sense of their intentions.
The most accessible project is The Happiness Machine, a device that randomly collects happy or sad Tweets and blog posts and prints them out on a thermal paper feed that runs like a ticker tape machine. Created by Brendan Dawes, a digital artist and maker, the paper printed by The Happiness Machine is designed to remind us that behind every Twitter name or Tumblr account is a real person whom we've never met, and that the Internet "isn't a network of machines but a network of people."
The Happiness Machine is connected to the web via an Arduino compatible micro controller called a Nanode, which has a built-in Ethernet connection so it can connect to the Internet without any other accessories. Two capacitive touch buttons created using Bare Conductive's Bare Paint trigger the Nanode to retrieve either happy or sad thoughts from Jonathan Harris's crowd sourced emotional collection website, wefeelfine.org.
"The future of connected objects isn't just about screens," Dawes said. "In many ways paper is actually less of a throwaway than the display of pixels. Combine paper with a network such as the Internet and you have a lightweight, flexible, connected 'display' that you can carry anywhere, share, keep, scribble or even reuse."
See more of the Field Guide projects or submit your own.
The final day of Better World by Design began with the Education for Social Innovation Panel. Consisting of Lisa Cicario, Adam Thompson, Tim Zak and Adriana Pentz, the panel delved into social innovation on the forefront of education. "You don't have to decide what to do, you just have to decide what to do next," said Lisa DiCarlo, an anthropologist at the Field School for Social Innovation. "Failure is a great way to figure out if you're supposed to do it, or do it another way."
Emily Goldman and Pierre Arreola teaching Hip Hop for Social Change.
Discussing various learning styles and approaches segued perfectly to the afternoon's lineup of workshops, particularly HipHopFor Social Change. HipHopFor Social Change looked at how dance could transcend socioeconomic, language, and other barriers existing in communities—a problem that was looked at during the Education for Social Innovation Panel.
The workshop was led by two HipHop enthusiasts from Brown, Emily Goldman ('14) and Pierre Arreola ('13). Coming from very different backgrounds, Goldman and Arreola spoke about their personal experiences with HipHop and how they were using it to change the lives of others in their communities. The duo looked to "Make something out of nothing" said Arreola, "which is the premise of HipHop. Hip-hop is a powerful tool for us to express ourselves and put some positivity into the world."
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-12 17:57:28 UTC
Raindrop is a rain barrel that makes saving water really easy by providing a watering can that fills up automatically when it rains. This way, the ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-11 06:16:38 UTC
You like the acceleration of an electric car but you love the design of a car that doesn't come in an electric version or you drive a classic then ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-11 06:16:29 UTC
Machines are designed for easy disassembly and contain fewer parts. Parts are durable – designed for multiple product life cycles. Coded with instructions ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-11 06:15:59 UTC
Machines are designed for easy disassembly and contain fewer parts. Parts are durable – designed for multiple product life cycles. Coded with instructions ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-09 16:34:25 UTC
Despite its groundbreaking premise, the Sugar & Spice hasn’t been the roaring success that Patagonia had hoped it would be. The first—and so far, only—shoe ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-08 17:12:04 UTC
Lush sells vintage fabric to Knot-Wrapping their products, which are sold, in most cases, unpacked.
Knot-wrap scarves can then be re-used again and ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-04 15:55:51 UTC
Ekobe coconut tiles are made from Bahia coconut endocarp (hard coconut shell) using a patented process. There is no environmental impact. The fact ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-03 07:11:56 UTC
Help Remedies goals was to do what you expect of a healthcare company, be people as well as earth friendly. Not confusing or scaring people but make ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-10-01 18:25:09 UTC
h1. Magical; didn't we always think we need energy to amplify music?
AirCurve Play is based on some very advanced technology, indeed; and when you ...
This is so logical, it's a wonder nobody did it before.
Emily Goldman and Pierre Arreola teaching Hip Hop for Social Change.
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