Materials Blog by Inventables

Lamp Design Project: Day 13 - Final Assembly

2012-02-09T01:21:00.012-06:00

Hello Again,

This will be the final installment for the lamp project, save for some nice studio glamour pictures. Its been a while but we had some parts in the mail and had to wait our turn on the laser cutter, so here it is, the final assembly and use of our finished lamp. Enjoy!

A package came in the mail from LED shoppe. All the way from Hong Kong!

In an effort to make LED technology accessible in a kit form, we selected this bulb for our lamp. 60 LEDs attached to a E27 socket. Out of the box ready to go on 110v, no soldering required.

This picture shows two prototype lamp heads that broke during assembly. The one on the left broke near the spiral cut for the lamp shade, we thickened that section up on the head on the right but the mounting points are still weak. Lets see if we can improve the design.

Some gussets on the head, and redesigned side brackets should help to strengthen things up.

This is all of the parts for the final lamp, laid out and ready for assembly. A collection of laser cut acrylic, machined wood members, a laser cut wood veneer shade, and a few, widely available purchased hardware parts.

This is the glue that we will use to assemble the acrylic side bracket pieces that need bonded together.

Using the spring pin to help with alignment, some acrylic cement is dropped in between the pieces, which are then aligned and held together for 5 min to ensure a secure bond.

Two wood screws hold a stamped steel table clamp bracket to the lower wooden member. A table mounted lamp offers secure positioning while avoiding shipping/moving a heavy weighted base.

The lower member is attached to the lower acrylic side brackets. The 5lb spring is slipped over the pin before attaching the second side plate.

In the next step we will attach the two upper wooden members to the lower half with a 1/4 inch bolt and thumb screw. Available at any hardware store, when done right, these screws can be nice simple detail.

The upper acrylic side brackets are attached to the other end of the spring. Then we stretch the spring to reach the brackets to the end of the wooden members.

And assemble the wooden member, the lamp head arm. Now to assemble the head.

The side brackets fit into place on the main head piece. They are then bonded with acrylic cement.

We attach bare wire leads to a purchased E27 socket. Again we didn't make these parts, but a little searching will turn up economical and aesthetically pleasing parts.

Heres what the head will look like with the socket and bulb installed. Functional, but a little naked.

We laser cut a half-tone pattern into the bottom edge of this wood veneer piece. It will be slipped into the spiral cut into the head.

Gently insert one end and gradually roll up the shade. It takes a little patience, but will slip right in when done right.

The switch pin secures the potion of the shade in relation to the socket.

Add the bulb and...

Test to make sure we have power. Good to go!

Another 1/4 inch bolt and 6 washers will attach the head to the end of the wooden arm.

This last step will be easiest with the lamp attached to the table.

Adding washers in the appropriate spots will allow the head to articulate smoothly and hold its position.

Done! How about some contextual shots.

The lamp shade creates a beautiful pattern, both at point and in the light emitted on the table.

Lights on. Fits well with our IKEA desk. The lamp moves smoothly, holds its position, and can cover nearly every inch of this table with light.

Lights off, Fed puts the lamp to use! On to the next project.

Look for this lamp in kit form on your favorite DIY online hardware store soon. I hope you have enjoyed seeing our design process, it has been a pleasure to share. Let us know what you think. Keep on making!

Regards,

Dan + Fed

Lamp Design Project: Day 12

2012-01-17T23:36:00.007-06:00

Day 12:

We assemble the prototype. It gives us a good idea with what we have modled and where we need to make improvements.

Pulling the parts out of the laser cutter.

A modified halftone pattern laser cut into wood veneer to make the lamp shade, it should catch the light just right.

Side View. Seeing what the general proportions of this thing look like. We used green acrylic to prototype with because we had the scrap. The final will be all white maybe.

With the help of some springs and cord, this this stands buy itself, light stays put where you leave it.

Even fully extended, need to work out the base for this thing.

Thats it for today

-Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 11

2012-01-16T23:31:00.005-06:00

Day 11:

Much of our recent discussion and sketching has begun to focus on the E27 based lamps. In an effort to create a seamless DIY process that we should stick to a standard. It allows for a range of bulb choices (incandescent, CFL, LED) , relatively simple wiring, and a wide selection of available componentry that will allow for modification and exploration.

We have spent time talking about what is need to construct a lamp and why some of the most practical and iconic lamps look the way they do. In able to create a predictable and adaptable lighting environment, the light source must be properly supported and controlled. The 4 bar mechanisms facilitates movement in the Z-axis while a swivel base allows rotation in the XY plane. The arm reaches out from the elbow holding the head; when the system is tensioned with the proper spring rates the lamp will firmly hold the bulb in place, until repositioned by the user.

Some refinement sketches done with some Prismacolor pencils. They are scanned and brought into SketchbookPro.

We start with a side view. The 4 bar linkage becomes implied with 1 rigid wooden member parallel to 1 spring, linked to 2 circular acrylic brackets through wooden dowels. The lamp cord call-out is in reference to a sample we have found in our research

Alternative side view. Beginning to see what the lighting scenarios might look like. Cool blue LED bulb?

A perspective view. What will this thing look like on a table? We are envisioning a spiral of wood veneer as a lamp shade

As well as doing some sketching, we also made a trip to PS1, and fired up the laser cutter!

We are going to make a prototype of the lamp in the rendering. Fed and I have worked through some more rough CAD in Rhino and are starting to experiment with scrap acrylic material. We need to figure out the tolerances of this machine and how they effect the fitment of our parts. If we do it right, everything will snap, bolt, and screw together nicely. Ease of assembly!

From Rhino we export vector line work of our parts to be cut and arrange them in Illustrator. We make a canvas as big as our piece of material and then its a bit like Tetris getting them all on.

Once arranged we send the file over to the laser and hit Go! Check back again to see how we made out once the acrylic fumes settled.

-Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 10

2012-01-08T22:32:00.004-06:00

Day 10:

At this point in the concepting phase we have two main contenders for the final lamp design. The first is based around the Dioder LED strips and the second is based around a conventional E27 light socket.

For the LED stick design, Fed whipped up some basic geometries in Rhino, an easy to use NURBS based modeling package.

Then brought the models into Keyshot for some rendering. In this way, we can quickly realize a design, down to the details of wood grain or material finish, in a matter of minutes. Seeing these renderings communicates a design intent that would take much longer than if done by hand; marker rendering or prototype.

How about a red acrylic base and black walnut frame? Looks pretty sweet! nice and clean.

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At the same time we further refined the E27 socket concepts

The design is highly influenced by the traditional LEKO lamp. We look to bring a modern approach to a classic design. A flexible membrane wraps around the bulb creating a shade.

Exploring the details of the lamp head and other necessary components. Can't forget about

routing the lamp cord, we should celebrate it!

Playing around with proportions and geometries. These sketches look solid but I think we need to prototype this guy in order to fully understand the mechanisms going on here. We are basically creating a sprung four-bar mechanism, this is where remembering what I was taught in Statics and Dynamics class could really come in handy. Oh well there's always trial and error. We shall see how it works out tomorrow.

I leave you with an unrelated, but quintessential, designer's sketchbook page, often scribed out of boredom on a lazy Sunday afternoon: the concept car spread!

Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 9

2012-01-07T19:19:00.007-06:00

Day 9:

As we continue the concepting phase of their project, Fed and I have spent a lot of time talking and sketching. Surrounding our selves with our distilled research and reference documents, as well as physical samples of lamp parts and available lighting materials, we are able to quickly generate and critiq ideas between ourselves. Laying out previous sketches and ideas, allows us to see areas we have explored and areas for development. Having the physical lamp component samples allows us to readily mockup realistic size and geometries that we could expect for our lamp.

This was our only purchase from the IKEA trip we made last week. It is an LED based lighting system intended for under counter installation called Dioder.

Fed and I were attracted to the kit because of the slender, modular LED PCB boards, each with 9 diodes, the individual lighsources for the kit. With slight modifications, these could make for a really clean, slender lamp.

And bright!

These next three pages explore possibilities for using the Dioder LED sticks:

Dioder 1/3 - Single stick on a frame, exposed jointery, very straightforward pivoting arm with handle and LEDs on opposite ends.

Dioder 2/3 Other simple ways to hold a single Dioder stick, maybe more!?

Dioder 3/3: The form of the LED stick lends itself to allot of different "embedding" scenarios, think the Sword in the Stone. The act of inserting the stick becomes a physical switch, a new type of lighting experience

Some of the sketches posted on Day 8: will also work with the Dioder sticks, the idea of little modular LED components has allot of appeal.

Fed just started playing with some paper, inspired by a previous "flexible membrane" sketch, toying with different possible lamp shade shapes.

Add a bulb, some cardboard, a stick and voila... a lamp!

Until you knock it off the ping pong table! Score: Floor 1, CFL 0. Remember to handle with care, there's Mercury in there! You can see the light diffusing film we got at Inventables behind the net there too.

After we broke the bulb, Fed and I discussed the direction we wanted to take with this lamp. We looked back to the previously defined requirements; we want a simple lamp, easy to assemble and aesthetically pleasing, a DIY kit-form, product. At this point we have done some exploring in this realm but we need to start moving with a more defined direction. Check back soon to see the steps we take.

-Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 8

2012-01-04T22:14:00.008-06:00

Day 8:

Fed and Dan are back in 2012! with another lamp design update. We have been ideating and resource collecting for a while now and are starting to lay down some more directed thoughts. At this point we started to develop individual concepts, wether driven by a desired function or form language, ideas are put to paper. Each of these concept pages is a miniature story for a given lamp captured in the moment, through a sketch.

This concept is examining the possibility of a expandable head. The three arms of the lamp head would articulate much in the way that a tripod's legs would. This would allow for the light to be focused or dispersed based on the users needs.

This concept takes a playful approach to the presentation of light, the unzipping of a skin reveals the lamp and ramps up the light.

This study examines possible construction methods, plates of steel or aluminum hold together wooden arms, reflecting back to our "embrace the nature" theme board. Also a few Ideas around LED strips, sticks, and arrays. Very fun and modular feel. May run into wiring issues?

More around LED strips, a flip out, swiss army array. Fold Flat design, reminds me of the old flip out carpenters rulers.

A collection of more loose ideas around the traditional bookkeeper's lamp, with green glass lens and brass hardware. Maybe this could be given a modern approach.

This messy page was done quickly with a sharpie, it shows thoughts around a flexible membrane used as a lamp shade, passed through a weighted base, the slot profile dictating shape.

How can we use simple construction techniques? Geometric shapes that are easy to manufacture, employ simple jointery methods, and provide clean lines are examined here.

We will continue to explore more specific concepts and begin prototyping soon.

Fed and I also recently paid a visit to our friends over at Inventables to check out some possible materials to start prototyping with.

A huge selection of acrylics, we may find our selves looking here to execute some laser cutting ideas we have.

More selections of LEDs, switches and other electrical componentry. The materials on the rolls to the right are very interesting.

We ended up getting a piece of a the light diffusing film to play with.It could add just the right soft touch and organic element to a light shade.

Thats it for today, more concepting, sketching, and prototyping tomorrow.

-Dan

Hex Goods - A site for designers to sell unique products

2012-01-04T15:23:00.000-06:00

At Inventables we believe the world is at the beginning of a new renaissance. We see power in product development shifting from major corporations to individual designers and entrepreneurs. The availability of low cost manufacturing tools and low cost distribution on internet sites are leveling the playing field. Small teams can now make unique high value products that major corporations can’t justify because they aren’t for the masses. At Inventables we understand it is harder for these smaller teams to source materials in smaller sizes and quantities for their new micro-production runs. We get very excited when we see new companies popping up in this ecosystem and today we found one that we'd like to share.

Zach Supalla, the founder of Hex Goods, an online boutique that features unique products from independent designers. They seek out the best designers they can find, online and in person, and give them an avenue to feature and sell their products.

Zach Supalla

Inventables: How did Hex Goods Start?

ZS: The idea I started with was different, I was building a brand for high quality goods. Trader Joes has this ability to have really high quality goods, it's not a brand name per se, but they created high quality generic brands. I thought there might be an opportunity to do this with hard goods. The big brands are making marginal decisions to lower the quality but I thought there would be room for someone to take a high quality high value stance. We're going to build this brand of trust.

Inventables: What made you think about that?

ZS: I started thinking about where does quality come from? This made me think about all the great hand made stuff that is out there. The ability to make a great product and market a great product are different skills. I realized that true craftsmen focus all their energy on making a great product not selling it.

Inventables: Why the name Hex Goods?

ZS: I like having a simple brand with a simple geometric shape so we're sticking with the hexagon.

Inventables: Where will you take it from here?

ZS: In the short run I see it growing in terms of the breadth of the categories we have available. It's a pretty limited assortment and I focus on uniqueness. The products on the site are pretty different from anything you find in a mass retailer. In the long run we'll do special collections like Valentines Day collections and such. In the long term we plan to work with designers on our site to explore larger scale opportunities for their products.

Heritage iPad/Kindle Fire Case made of felt

Inventables: How does it work if I'm a designer and I want to sell my product on Hex Goods?

ZS: Send an email to hello@hexgoods.com and tell us about yourself and your product. If we like your product and we think it is something special we'll work out what are the terms of buying the product and we'll get information from you and we'll put you online.

Inventables: Do you take inventory?

ZS: If it's something that takes a couple of weeks they would need to be made in advance, if it's something that can be made in advance then on the fly would work. Moving forward we are taking goods on consignment or drop shipping depending on what works best for the designer.

Inventables: What kind of products are you looking for?

ZS: We're looking for unique products. We started out with home decor and jewlery and accessories but we will be moving towards more functional products. We're staying away from apparel but we're focusing on products. Products that are everywhere aren't a good fit.

The Brigitte Crystal Headband

For Hex Goods the whole business is all about the designer and making them successful in the way they define success. This can mean selling small quanitites on the weekends or scaling it up to larger quantities we want to help.

Lamp Design Project: Day 7

2011-12-28T23:11:00.003-06:00

Day 7:

Hello, So we had a great time yesterday at Pumping Station 1, we ended up enrolling in hackerspace with their $40/month "starving artist" membership. It gives us full access to the shop and space 24hrs a day and most importantly exposure to its highly creative members. This place will be a huge resource for us in the future.

Today we did some more hunting, we are still at the stage where we are really trying to wrap our heads around what and how makes a great lamp. We are understand the few necessary components and know need to find places to source them.

So on the Home Depot! One might not think HD would be the greatest place to source lamp parts but I think it will be a good start, plus they are pretty much everywhere. We would like to use parts that are fairly common and off the shelf. Piggybacking off of existing technology and products is good way to test the waters when designing something new for the first time. This approach will allow us to adapt and expand on top of, while ensuring we have a product that is safe and reliable

Home Depot actually has a dedicated lamp section within the Lighting department. Every type of wire, connector, or fiting the average "handy" dad might need to handle some mundane residential lighting. We aren't going to find the nicest components here but it will be a start.

Check it! Our work is done here. Just get a ceramic vase and an old lamp shade and slap this baby together! Haha just joking. We are going to get a little more involved than this, but it just goes to show you, this is not rocket science, people have been making their own lamps for years. But what does distinguish the task lamps we saw at Lightology from a highschoolers hodgepodge ceramic project, is the details. We will be trying to hone in on these details so that we can deliver a product that is simultaneously simple, reliable, easy to make and most importantly a pleasure to display and use.

We also made a trip out the 'burbs to hit up IKEA tonight. The furniture outlet has a fairly large lighting section and I had made a mental note of it last time I had been there.

So I took this picture and then my camera died. Boo, we drove all the way out there and have nothing to show., well not nothing. We ended up looking around for a while and found they had a lot of really approachable LED based lamps. We ended up picking up their DIODER under shelf lighting kit. It is a pretty cool modular system. The camera battery is on charge for the night I will post pictures of the kit tomorrow along with more ideation season notes/sketches.

Cheers,

Dan

Top 10 products from 2011 sold at Inventables

2011-12-28T14:13:00.009-06:00

2011 was an exciting year for Inventables. We grew our selection to over 30,000 products. With that much choice we thought it would be fun to take a look back and see what were the most popular products for desktop fabrication for the year. Drum roll please...

10. Powerless Illuminating Polymer Ribbon

Glow in the dark, thin, and tear resistant ribbon that can be sewn into garments

9. Opaque Black Acrylic Sheets

Cast sheets good for use in laser cutters

8. Shape Memory Polymer

Learns and remembers any shape you give it

7. Suction Cup Tape

Uses tiny micro suction cups instead of adhesive

6. Super Elastic Plastic

Stretches to eight times its size without ripping

5. Light Diffuser Films

Optical diffuser film designed to distribute light evenly

4. Modeling Silicone - Sugru

Modeling clay that cures to a tough flexible silicone when exposed to the air

3. LED Light Diffusing Plastic Compounds

Evenly disperse and transmit light from LEDs without visible hot spots

2. Powerless Illuminating Tubing

Illuminates without electricty

1. Hand Moldable Plastic

Low melting point plastic useful for hand molding prototypes

See you next year!

Lamp Design Project: Day 6

2011-12-27T23:21:00.009-06:00

Day6:

Hello again,

I hope you had a nice holiday and are ready for the new year!

Today Fed and I take a field trip and visit the hackerspace, Pumping Station 1!

We were thinking about resources to prototype and build and a friend recommended this place to us. Located just north of us @ Sacremento and Elston, Pumping Station 1 (PS1) is a " collaborative environment wherein people can explore and create intersections between technology, science, art, and culture". It sounded exactly like what we were looking for and heard they had a laser cutter so we were in!

But first, Tacos! from La Finca, a small mexican restaurant across the street.

The PS1 logo, vinyl cut applied to the hallway as you walk in.

The main room is pretty big. We were checking out some soft goods supplies while the officers of PS1 held a meeting.

A classroom for anyone who has something to teach. Here someone is building some sort of CNC

The beginning of the electronics cave

A reprap, a low budget rapid prototyping 3d printer capable of printing its own components. Pretty sweet, complete with day-glow resin on the spool!

We took the time to get trained on the little epilog laser cutter they have.

It works!

More about the trip to PS1 and some ideation we did while were there tomorrow!

-Dan

2011-12-20T23:11:00.002-06:00

Day 5: Ideation

So today we began some actual design work. The iconic post-it-note thumbnail sketch ideation session. The crucial first step is a verbal and visual conversation between Fed and I, documented on these colorful squares. It started in the kitchen while making dinner, we just started talking, and then we grabbed some note pads and pens. The brainstorming process allows us to throw out ideas, anything at all, and bounce it off each other. No matter how wacky or obscure an idea, at this point just get it out, get it down, move on. The more ideas you can generate the better chance one or two of them will be good!

Started on the island

Moved to the ping pong table. Myself, pen in hand.

Fed, putting one down. We used our inspiration mood boards from yesterday to begin to organize our thoughts.

Confetti aftermath. A good ideation session but there will be more!

More thoughts soon,

Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 4

2011-12-19T22:22:00.004-06:00

Hello Again,

I apologize for the delay, sometimes the life of a designer can be a little crazy. I work in Garfield Park for the design consultancy, Streng design and Federico is a designer at Radio Flyer in Elmwood Park. At the end of last week and all through weekend I was extremely busy in the office and I haven't had the chance to document any of our process.

At this point in the process we have visited a couple of retail stores, and specialty lighting shops. We've done online research, looking for innovative lamps and peaking trends. At this point we can start to further define the direction we are going to take with this lamp.

I do want to take a moment and define the parameters for this project. We are designing a lamp that is intended for the DIY beginner; that is, a kit that an end user can use to assemble a finished lamp. It will be based on a system that is fairly open sourced, simple in construction and design. We want to create a kit that functions as a lamp but also inspires the user to explore its form, making alterations or hacks fairly easily. We may use cutting edge technology but only if it can be easily approached and grasped.

That being said, some visuals for the night:

Fed and I have assembled 4 theme boards to guide our concept ideation process. We drew key inspiration points together, forming the themes to function as lose aesthetic or stylistic guidelines. The true function and concept for the lamp is yet to be determined but these will serve as our launch pads for now.

white space really embodies purity and simplicity. these forms need not hide behind any hue. simple, timeless

embrace the natural was really based around the integration of materials. take for example, the stool from CB2, beautiful walnut lumber held together with simple steel hardware. use the materials for what they are good for. be true to the materials.

celebrate the mechanism is very similar to the last mood board but it is all about function. breaking down a complicated task into simple mechanisms and really showing them off. show the process and celebrate the thinking that went into it.

pop of color was a visual trend that we find everywhere. Too often design trys to do too many things at once. the things we notice are those which are deliberate and confident. one color, used where needed, highlighting playfulness and a full spirit.

Lamp Design Project: Day 3

2011-12-15T00:06:00.003-06:00

Day 3:

Hello Again,

welcome to day 3, the second day of onsite research. Today we are going to a dedicated lighting shop up in River North. A friend recommended Lightology to me for its huge selection, great staff, and museum-like displays

Really nice anodized aluminium task lamps

A very museum-like display showing the range of color temperatures. They had allot of this type of display, very informative and very clear in illustration.

Probably the coolest thing I have seen all year: This bowl and LED's are coated in phosphorus glass, as your hand enters the bath of LED's your body makes the connections lighting up the LED's. Soo cool. This display is worth a trip to this store!

Very fancy, silk chandelier

Rugged Cast aluminum task lamps

Very organic LED array under neath this task lamp.

The ribbon like form this lamp takes is inspiring

A metal mesh chandilier

Check out the Al heat sinks on the head of this lamp, and the wood veneer shade, very awesome look.

Ok, Im headed to IKEA and Home Depot later to look at some hardware.

I will post again soon with some more concise thoughts on all our findings, and our next steps. For now everything new we see is just another reference point.

Adios!

Lamp Design Project: Day 2

2011-12-14T10:09:00.006-06:00

Day 2:

Fed + Dan go to CB2 + Hortons

welcome Today and Tomorrow are going to be devoted to showing some onsite research we are doing to complement the online stuff we are doing. It is the perfect way to re-affirm and discover new ideas, get our hands on some real products, and further develop the landscape we are exploring. When we find inspiration or places on confusion we make notes, to come back to later on in the design process. So sit back and enjoy some pictures and commentary from todays outing.

CB2 near North & Clyborn

A nice little task lamp

Fed in front of a great wall of color, CB2 was a great place to gauge current color trends.

Cool pulley chandelier mechanism

Nice junction of painted steel and wood on this stool

Fun Acrylic flowers!

On to Horton's Lighting across the street!

Interesting task lamps

Awesome light saber-ish hanging lights

This place had allot of ceiling fans and vanities. Not really what we were looking for but still gave a bunch of reference points.

Nice wall mount unit.

These images capture some of the more interesting things we saw on our trip and will help direct use towards a final design that is both on the cusp of current trends and functionally relevant.

So thats it for today! Come back tomorrow, we will be going to a dedicated lighting store and maybe a few others along the way.

Peace,

Dan

Lamp Design Project: Day 1

2011-12-12T22:23:00.005-06:00

Hello,

I would like to introduce a small design project to the inventables blog. A documentation of the collaboration between two young designers; myself, Daniel Schaumann, and my roommate, Federico Rios. Fed and I are coming together to tackle one of the most iconic and tested product categories, the lamp. We will be blogging every day for a few weeks to document or progress through our design process. From research, to ideation, through concept creation, prototyping and delivering a finished product; we will be sharing our every step. We hope to make this as exciting for you, our viewers, as it is for us as designers. Let us know what you think. Enjoy!

Day 1:

Today, Federico and I wanted to gain a perspective on the current product landscape. We searched popular blogs, online retailers, forums, etc.. for lamps that peeked our interest, noting material and construction choices as well as function and overall form. We found inspiration in everything from high tech, premium market products to simple DIY one-offs that re-purposed materials to add function or experience. We distilled our findings into quantified criteria, laying the frame work for the available product landscape. Researching online, is a simple, quick first step to understanding whats out there, and what sparks our imagination. It allows us to take the necessary next steps and get our hands and eyes on some select, available lamps and surrounding materials and technologies that we would like to further investigate. This early research will allow us to deliver a concept and product that is at the apex of innovation and on target with current trends.

Below is a landscape we populated w/ selections from the nearly 50 lamps we found.

A personal goal of ours is to include as many nice photos of of process as well so here is a quick pick of where allot of the magic will happen. Fed and I’s desks.

See you Back here tomorrow!

-Dan

Thin Film Electronics announces printed rewritable memory

2011-11-16T10:34:00.001-06:00

Thinfilm is a leading provider of roll-to-roll printed, rewritable non-volatile memory products. That was a mouthful so your probably wondering what exactly does that mean. The company is headquartered in Sweden but spun out of the infamous PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and have invented a technology that marries transistors with memory. This means it is a low cost way to print memory like you have in your computer. This printed memory can be read, written, and small amounts of data can be proccessed.

Below is a picture of the memory printed on a thin film. The black dots are the memory and the copper colored traces are conductive material connecting them. As you can see in the picture since the memory is printed on a thin film it is highly flexible.

Flexible Thin Film

Today Thinfilm announced they will be selling development kits for the technology at Inventables. The developers’ kit provides designers with the tools they need to experiment with the printed memory stickers. Each Thinfilm Memory™ sticker costs about 5-cents apiece in volume and each sticker contains 20 bits of data, corresponding to a lookup table that can store more than a million entries.

The development kit

The OBA game below demonstrates Thinfilm’s rewriteable memories for interactive toys and games and is used to access the Thinfilm printed and rewritable memory cards. It acts as a bridge or connector between the online game and a downloadable version that can be played on the hand-held device when you are not online. Through the game levels you evolve the Oba inhabitants and mature their capabilities and powers. The goal is to save the dying Oba Solar Systems.

Printed Memory OBA Game

Thinfilm CEO Davor Sutija is interested in integrating this technology with sensors and other printed electronics. To understand how this could work he explains: "You can see if a sensor has hit a particular threshold and record the number of times in memory."

HCII at Carnegie Mellon

2011-11-11T07:53:00.001-06:00

The Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is an interdisciplinary community of students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). This community is dedicated to research and education in topics related to computer technology in support of human activity and society. Although the HCII is headquartered within the School of Computer Science, members of the community represent a broad spectrum of the CMU campus including the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tepper School of Business, College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, as well as the School of Computer Science.

Justine Cassell is the Director of the HCII. Her research interests originated in the study of human-human conversation and storytelling. Progressively she became interested in allowing computational systems to participate in these activities. This new technological focus led her to deconstruct the linguistic elements of conversation and storytelling in such a way as to embody machines with conversational, social and narrative intelligence so that they could interact with humans in human-like ways. Increasingly, however, her research has come to address the impact and benefits of technologies such as these on learning and communication.

Inventables is a big fan of groups like this becuase they are working to push forward the state of the art when it comes to how humans use technology. Defering judgement and thinking beyond the traditional keyboard and mouse.

Chris Harrison, a third year HCII PhD student, has developed what he calls the the OmniTouch. The project was done in collaboration with Microsoft Research and Scott Hudson, professor of HCII. Here's a quick video demo:

A bunch of students have recently started ordering products from Inventables. We can't wait to see what other cool projects they are working on!

The very flexible iLamp

2011-11-10T19:46:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you come across things that are just ridiculously cool. A customer emailed in a link to this Curbly post. The folks over at System Design Studio come up with lots of cool concepts and products and this is one of their new ones. They call it the iLamp and it uses silicone and an EL lamp. I wonder how the lamp holds it shape when bent. Maybe it uses some shape retaining plastic.

The designers of the lamp are named Helbert S. Ferreira and Remi A. Melander and they live in Spain. The manufacturer is System Design Studio. I can't wait to see one in person.

Unique properties of wood

2011-10-19T14:39:00.000-05:00

I was surfing Core77 today and found a remarkable demonstration of the properties of wood. Check out this photo of a nail that has been inserted into a piece of wood.

At first glance this looks like it must be a trick nail. I can assure you it is not a trick nail. Take a look at this video that demonstrates how they did it.

Sugru for your new iPhone

2011-10-14T09:56:00.017-05:00

What is more exciting than waiting in line for 2 days to get the new iPhone 4S? Answer: Waiting in line to get a new iPhone 4S and Sugru together!

The wait is over and this morning the Inventables team greeted the cold and tired iPhone fans with a gift of free Sugru for their new phone.

Apple Store on Michigan Ave. - First people in line loving their new Sugru as they await the opening.

Inventables team talking about Sugru and how to apply it to the new iPhone.

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

2011-10-05T20:43:00.002-05:00

Will o' the wispahedron

2011-09-29T12:07:00.000-05:00

Textured Transluscent Plastic is a very curious material. With a light behind it, the material seems to glow as a smoky monsoon of diffuse radiance. A laser through it will diffract into chaos, but a laser through two layered sheets will instead spread into constellations.

But how to build a lamp of it?

I wanted a sphere, but all I got was this stupid icosahedron.

Originally, I wanted to see if I could get the lamp to float, perhaps held aloft in a fan, or somehow using magnets. Ultimately, the imperfections in construction made these plans impossible; a fan will not hold it up much better than it would hold up a cheesecloth.

That said, the construction is hours away from a semi-permanent home above my bed.

Behold, a 3-photo tour-de-force of its construction:

What remained of the light once it hatched

The light, clamp, and grate, without the diffusing shade

Late construction, hanging on an assembly of flag poles, floor lamps, and wall masks

Parts used:

1 yard of textured transluscent plastic
Clear tape
Garage lamp (deconstructed)
Grate from a kitchen strainer
Clamp to hold the lamp parts, and rest the strainer atop it

Ideas for improvement:

Stronger tape and more precisely cut parts would help it keep its shape better
A metal frame would give the object some solidity, though it would make fan-floating plans nearly impossible
A helium balloon within it might still be capable of making the lamp weightless
Rather than using a light bulb, a laser mounted to a small fan on the inside would create a really interesting strobe-like effect. Unfortunately, there were issues with all fans I tested this idea on, but I'm sure it's possible. Even better if you could get a laser rotating through multiple spatial dimensions.
There are far more interesting 3-D geometric shapes one could build.

Can someone say "rhomboidodecahedron"? Because I can't...

Glen Liberman from Kinekt Design

2011-09-03T19:25:00.010-05:00

Last week, we spoke to Glen Liberman from Kinekt Design (http://www.kinektdesign.com). Glen launched his company with the patented Gear Ring, which features six micro-precision gears that turn in unison when the outer rims are spun. The Gear Ring currently has over 1 million views on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI2N6fsPjjg).

Glen has been designing since his 3rd year in college where he became interested in making prototypes of objects and products. Please find three examples of his work below:

One of his most recent design objects, inspired by Toshio Iwai’s Electroplankton game, is a square object designed to convey a sound wave. For fabrication, Glen intends to make each limited edition object out of glass and create a “new kind of snow globe” by filling the object with water and tiny plastic “square wave” fish.

Glen describes another design, Bauhouse Blocks, as a play on the German art movement, Bauhaus. To help convey the concept, Glen added in doors and chimneys to the circle, square, and triangle shapes.

A third design is called Vector Weapons. He designed pop-out/punch parts from which the weapons could be made. Using a laser cutter, the Weapons were fabricated.

If you would like to see more of Glenʼs personal work, please visit Kinektron (http://www.kinektron.com). A huge thanks goes out to Glen for sharing his work and incredible design with the world!

2011-08-30T12:09:00.000-05:00

This is a glow-in-the-dark polymer ribbon. With 5-30 minute exposure to bright light or sunshine, this material will emit a visible glow for over 8 hours.

This material is available in 4 colors, Artic Blue, Midnight Blue, Lime Light, and Spring Green.

Do you have a creative idea for using Sugru?

2011-08-24T20:55:00.000-05:00

Sugru is modeling clay that cures to a tough flexible silicone

Email a picture of how you used the material along with a brief description to help@inventables.com by September 30th. The top 3 ideas will win $100 gift certificates to Inventables and get posted on our blog and website.

The material is silicone, so it is completely waterproof and durable outdoors. It is easy to clean with soap and water and stable when exposed to salt water. When cured, the material is flexible rather than rigid. This means it may be used to repair things that need to be able to move like textiles, cables, or shoes.

Beautiful Products made with Laser Cutting

2011-07-29T11:36:00.001-05:00

Laser cutting and engraving machines are becoming less expensive every year. This year Full Spectrum Laser has started selling a 40w machine that costs $2350 + shipping. We are seeing a shift in the marketplace. Because of these lower cost manufacturing technologies, we are seeing some really beautiful products starting to become available through sites like etsy and ideacious, and at tradeshows like the One of a Kind Show.

Today we'd like to highlight one designer named Maiko Kuzunishi. She is the owner and designer at Decoylab in Kansas City, Missouri. Her designs are quite impressive. I've selected a few below that really stood out to me. This first one is a clock laser, "Fawn", cut from 3-ply bamboo. I love the soft edges and think it would be a nice addition to a children's room.

This next one, "It's My Forest", struck me because of all the intricate detail. The material is not listed, but I assume it is acrylic. The clock is available in black, ivory, orange, and aqua (pictured below).

The last two clocks use two different materials in layers. The first uses ivory acrylic layered on top of bamboo. Since laser cutting is primarily a 2D cutting technology, using layers is a good way to give the product depth. In my opinion, the juxtaposition of the acrylic and bamboo gives the product a bit of character. The name of this piece is "Kirie". On the Decoylab website, they explain, "Kerie is a Japanese word for paper cutting and the design is inspired from it, since all images have to be connected in order for laser cutting to curve out the image in once piece."

Finally, this "Twinkle" clock makes use of two layers of bamboo that have been laser cut and mounted at an offset on top of each other.

A big Inventables hat tip goes out to Maiko Kuzunishi. She is doing some remarkable work with laser cutting and is an inspiration to us all.

Fab Labs and low cost manufacturing

2011-06-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

Professor Neil Gershenfeld is the Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. In his TED Talk in 2006 he makes the following thought provoking statement:

"Computer Science is one of the worst things that happened to either computers or to science"

Out of context this is a very polarizing arguably confusing statement coming from a professor at MIT. If you think about the last 61 years there have been some tremendous advancements because of companies that built computers like Dell, HP, Apple, Compaq, Acer, and IBM. Then in the last 17 years companies and organizations including Google, AOL, Wikipedia and Yahoo brought information to anyone with an internet connection. It is pretty remarkable that every student in grade school currently has access to more information than is stored in the library of congress for the cost of an internet connection, a computer, and the time to find it. So how could he make such a statement?

He goes on to say:
"because the cannon of computer science prematurely froze the model of computation based on technology that was available in 1950 and nature is a much more powerful computer than that."

Nature designs using an evolutionary process. So far humans have designed software and computers using a top down approach. By top down he means a few smart people design a solution and throw it out into the world. The opposite would be to take a grass roots approach where solutions are grown organically on the local level, think micro-finance, Kickstarter, etc.

He goes on to say:
(in 1977) "Ken Olsen the co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) famously said you don't need a computer in the home"

In 2011 it might be confusing as to why the founder of a computer company would say that. It turned out that computers became so inexpensive that the majority of Americans have them in their homes and increasingly in the palm of their hands with smart phones. This democratization made it possible for consumers to become creators. Big companies started calling customers consumers because they were consuming products and TV. Today all of that is changing. The shift from consumers to creators in a meaningful way is obvious when you look at projects like Wikiepdia, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, Face Book, and Makerbot.

As Neal says "The message from the Fab Labs is the other 5 billion people on the planet aren't just technical sinks they are sources. The real opportunity is to harness the inventive part of the world."

At Inventables we agree so our goal is to put an R&D lab on every desktop.

Watch the whole TED Talk here and then go make something at the Fab Lab near you.

How to make your own flip flops

2011-06-19T16:50:00.001-05:00

The folks over at Thread Banger put together this quick video on how to make Flip Flops from an old yoga mat. Pretty cool

Has anyone found other good videos of useful things you can make from standard materials?

2011-06-11T15:02:00.001-05:00

Last week I had dinner with Michael Evans a filmmaker, writer, and illustrator. He recently made this short "FROM STEEL: The Making of a Soulcraft" - Pretty cool, watch below:

FROM STEEL: The Making of a Soulcraft from michael evans on Vimeo.

Alli Dryer demonstrates super elastic plastic for Materials in Motion

2011-06-08T20:28:00.003-05:00

Alli Dryer is an architect at the Dallas firm Good Fulton & Farrell (GFF). You might know GFF from their work in places like the Equinox location in Dallas. On this project they transformed a former luxury automobile showroom into a showcase for a branded lifestyle focused on fitness.

Getting back to Alli, she writes about cutting-edge technologies and materials on www.architecturals.com. She uses the Chinese philosophy of Wu Xing—the idea that everything can be considered wood, fire, earth, metal, or water—as an informal framework.

She ordered the super elastic plastic from Inventables and did some experimentation with it in this video.

Materials in Motion: Super Elastic Plastic from ARCHITERIALS on Vimeo.

Brainstorming Contest - Gel Magnets

2011-05-31T22:09:00.000-05:00

Got ideas for gel magnets? Post ideas on the Inventables Facebook page the comments and the most "likes" will win the magnets! Deadline: 6/7/11

Make a prototype that has a soft touch material

2011-05-27T09:12:00.002-05:00

We are excited to announce that we have added a new material to our store. It's a soft and flexible material that can be used to make a prototype or repair a part.

We think this could be a cool material to use in conjunction with our hand moldable plastic.

If you make something with it send us some pictures!

Powerless Illuminating Tubing - Giveaway

2011-05-24T12:04:00.009-05:00

Wonder How To provides more than 170,000 how-to videos and articles from over 17,000 creators, spanning 35 vertical categories and 424 sub-categories. If you take a step back and think about it that's a lot of how to videos!

Last week Rachel Mansur over at Wonder How To decided she wanted to run a special Inventables fueled Giveaway Tuesday.

The premise is simple.

1. Follow @WonderHowTo on Twitter -OR- Like them on Facebook.

2. Leave a comment describing what you would make with the material on this page:

Good luck! We'll be announcing the winner.

Forbes Covers Inventables

2011-05-20T16:57:00.001-05:00

Caroline Howard of Forbes did a nice piece on Inventables today. The write up was part of an ongoing effort to identify the people, places, ideas, products and companies that are poised to become central to the global conversation over the next six to nine months. Kenny Gutierrez nominated Inventables. If you'd like to nominate your own “name” click here to nominate . We are told the best will be featured in an upcoming issue of Forbes magazine.

Material of the Day - Soft Conductive Foam

2011-05-18T16:10:00.003-05:00

This is a material that has electrically conductive
silver-plated fibers integrated into a low density
urethane foam.

Innovative food, drink, and utensils

2011-05-15T16:15:00.001-05:00

Chicago is home to a lot of innovative restaurants. Moto, and Alinea have turned traditional fine dining into an interactive and scientific experience. Recently Grant Achatz has launched a new bar called Aviary. Working with Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail they have designed the food and drink and the glassware and utensils.

Food has become a commodity and getting a great meal is becoming more commonplace than it used to be. Fine dining restaurants like these are adding more value by making eating with them an experience that goes well beyond nice decor. In many regards this is becoming dinner theater. Rather than grabbing a bite to eat and watching actors have some amazing experiences in a movie why not get a bite to eat and have those amazing experiences yourself.

In this video Grant and Craig Schoettler create a drink served "in the rocks," using a blast chiller to form hollow ice shapes. An old fashioned made with Buffalo Trace bourbon, demerara syrup and housemade orange bitters is injected into the hollow ice using a syringe. The customer uses a utensil to crack the ice and release the cocktail contained within.

Mobile Garden Project Chicago

2011-05-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

The mobile garden is an art installation that is a garden installed on a fully operational flat bed Chicago Transit Authority “L” system train car. The CTA has approved the project but noiseivelvet the 501(c)(3) is required to find a corporate partner to carry the contract with the CTA.

If this corporate partner is found the the proposed installation time is for 1 month. Here is an artist rendering of what the installation would look like.

‘Rebuildables’ Design Challenge - Inventables/IDSA Chicago

2011-05-08T14:17:00.000-05:00

Inventables and IDSA Chicago are partnering to offer a unique design challenge opportunity. The challenge is to create a product that utilizes one of Inventables’s newest materials: hand-moldable plastic. This design competition is open to all IDSA professional and student members.

Every participant will have a unique opportunity to work with this popular new material (hand-moldable plastic) while having an opportunity to create a bunch of sleek, open products; to discover some novel uses for hand-moldable plastic; to inspire building among students; and to provide a gateway into selling a product. Inventables will work with participants to source materials from Inventables’s online resources as well as source materials that can grow the Inventables library.

Please join us on May 12 at Inventables, 600 W. Van Buren #602, Chicago, Illinois 60607.

Design Goal
Create a product that utilizes hand-moldable plastic while being:
Beautiful: the product should look professional.
Functional: the final product cannot be merely ornamental. It has to do something.
Easily recreatable: instructions for building your product must be posted online.
Appealing to a high school or college student: We hope to inspire building among the age group.

Teams: Open to IDSA Professional/Student members.

Final Deliverables/Rewards
Anyone entering the challenge will be required to post their product on Kickstarter. At the end of a 4 week period, the participant/team with the highest Kickstart pledges for the completed project will receive a cash prize.

Clear process presentation
- Bill of Materials
- Tools Required
- Assembly instructions for building your own at home
Beautiful Renderings
2D Drawings/Orthographic containing basic dimensions
3D Model/Prototype using hand-moldable plastic

Timeline
May 12 = Kick-off Presentation at Inventables, 600 W. Van Buren #602, Chicago, Illinois 60607.

May 19 = Check-in with Inventables. (Participants can email Inventables with questions) Teams pick up kick-off goodies (Hand Moldable Plastic)

May 26 = Participants continue posting process online

June 2 = Final deliverable due to Inventables for judging (Prizes Awarded to winner as well as winner of Kickstart pledges)

Prizes
1. First place gets $500 cash
2. Second place gets $250 gift certificate to Inventables

Glow in the dark ribbon

2011-05-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

This material provides light without electricity. Since it is super thin and tear resistant it can be sewn into garments.

The material activates within 5 minutes exposure to ambient or sunlight light sources.
The brightness is directly proportional to light intensity and exposure, however maximum brightness is achieved with exposure to 30 minutes of direct light.

The brightest light is evident in darkened conditions during the first 3 to 4 hours after
exposure. Brightness will diminish slowly until recharged in ambient or sunlight. Total
perceptible glow can be visible up to a maximum of 12 hours.

What would you make with it?

A Paintbrush for Touch Screens

2011-05-05T17:43:00.000-05:00

The guys over at Joystickers are about to do it again. They are launching their new digital paint brush called "The Flow" on Kickstarter. With 8 days to go they have 297 backers and have raised $9212. The goal they need to hit to go into production of the product is $10,000. Check out this video that demos's the brush.

Excelerate Labs selects 10 startups for class of 2011

2011-05-03T08:19:00.000-05:00

Excelerate Labs, is a Chicago based early stage startup accelerator. The program is run by two successful entrepreneurs Sam Yagan founder of OKCupid and Sparknotes and Troy Henikoff founder SurePayroll.

Each year they receive hundreds of applications to participate in the program. After intensive review of applications and in person interviews with more than 50 companies, Excelerate Labs is pleased to announce the ten companies that make up Excelerate Labs' Summer Class of 2011:

A Space Apart: A new breed of social media. We connect people and businesses in context wherever they come together. http://www.aspaceapart.net

BabbaCo: A lifestyle brand creating parenting solutions via "simple. functional. super cute." products and video content. http://www.babbaco.com
Beyond Credentials: We give young professionals the tools to create an online presence, stand out, and connect with great companies. http://www.beyondcredentials.com

Buzz Referrals: With a single line of code, BuzzReferrals turns your best customers into your brand advocates. Eliminate the hassle and track the results of your own custom referral program. http://www.buzzreferrals.com

CookItFor.Us: We get recipes made by connecting Cravers & Makers in a social fresh-food marketplace. Crave. Make. Share. http://www.CookItFor.Us

Exchangery: An exchange platform as a service that allows you to create an online marketplace to buy and sell commodity goods. http://www.theExchangery.com

Food Genius: Suggests dishes based on individualized taste profiles and tracks what you eat in a game to establish expertise. http://www.getfoodgenius.com

Joystickers: We give people a fun way to physically interact with their touch screen phones and tablets with products like removable gaming buttons and paintbrushes.http://www.joystickers.com

MapDing: A completely mobile, hyper-local, location-based marketplace. We make community commerce simple, safe, and fun. http://www.mapding.com

Power2Switch: An electricity cost reduction and energy use monitoring/management portal for residential and small business customers. http://www.power2switch.com

Congrats to the companies, we look forward to an exciting summer!

University of Illinois ID Senior Show

2011-05-02T19:21:00.000-05:00

On Friday April 29th I attended the University of Illinois Industrial Design Senior Show hosted by Beyond Design in Chicago.

Thirty Five students of the 2011 senior class showcased their projects on boards hung up around the perimeter of the studio.

A few of the projects that stood out to me were the Axis spray paint gun, the D5R professional concept camera and the Lay Line.

The Lay Line is a hospital tube and cord organizer. In my opinion it's value goes beyond that because it attempts to humanize the hospitalization process by making the wrist band fun. In addition to organizing the cords a doctor or patent can customize what the band says with stickers. For kids this adds a little bit of fun to a traditionally medicinal process.

The designer responsible for this project was Brian Moy (pictured above). I was impressed that Brian took the extra step of creating a functional prototype using Sugru. Sugru is a modeling clay that one exposed to air it cures into a touch flexible silicone overnight. You can work and shape it for about 30 minutes and it will cure 3-5mm deep in 24 hours. Below is a picture of his prototype.

From my seat each year the projects are getting better and better. Thanks a ton to Beyond Design for hosting the event!

Molding a plastic part with hand moldable plastic

2011-04-25T16:49:00.002-05:00

One of our most exciting materials is hand moldable plastic. It is so exciting because customers use it to build prototypes and make parts quickly. In addition to speed, our customers do not need expensive tooling to make plastic parts.

We are starting to see quite a few interesting projects and different techniques for hand moldable plastic. We plan to share the techniques and have plans to carry some of the tools and components that make it easier to work with.

Today we interviewed Ryan Pinto from Toronto about how he designed and built the swivel joint pictured below for a baby gate.

It took Ryan 3 attempts to get the part just right. He used his hands to form the part and the first two times ended up melting the part down and starting over.

We asked Ryan to explain his process and he sent over this explanation:

1) I quickly get the hand moldable plastic into a simple 3D shape that best approximates the final model, in my case it was a cylinder.

2) While the block is still very soft, I got it roughly into the shape I wanted, in my case I had to slightly pinch one half ( lengthwise ) and elongate the other half. Also I did this on a metallic surface, so the wall facing surface of the pivot would be perfectly flat. I found that cold metal does not stick to the hot plastic mass easily. This made it a great surface for shaping.

3) I pressed the plastic spoke of the baby gate into mold to create a good fitting joint. At this point the plastic is still quite warm and transparent. Since it is transparent it makes it possible to see the spoke and adjust how far down you want the impression to go. It's important to remember that the parts of the end product that will take the load/stress, need to be sufficiently thick. In my case the plastic around the pivot impression needed to be at least 4 mm thick. I removed the spoke and checked the hole for any deformities. I reinserted and reshaped it a few times.

caution: The spoke of the baby gate was made of plastic, so I had to cover that spoke in wax paper (baking paper) before I used it to make the impression. This is very important because the hot hand moldable plastic bonds very strongly with other plastic surfaces and it's nearly impossible to fix the resulting mess. I used a common latex based glue to attach the wax paper to the plastic spoke.

4) I used a thin metal screw driver to impress suitable holes into where the wall screws should go. Again the cold metal makes good dents and holes while the hand moldable plastic is hot. The region around the screw holes had to be at least 1 cm thick to withstand the pressure of a tight screw fitting.

5) With my fingers I gave it the finishing touches as the plastic cooled. I carefully watched to make sure I did not deform the spoke impression. Remember you can always reinsert the spoke to correct it if needed. The cooling period is the best for finishing touches. At the temperature comes down the material becomes more rigid, so major features cannot be added, but a little extra pressure here and there will certainly smooth out the uneven sections.

I let it cool to room temperature - it took about 10 minutes, I could have done it faster by immersing in cold water, but I didn't bother. When cool the unit felt very solid and strong. It's been nearly two weeks now and it's working perfectly - a very solid joint.

Infrared Controller

2011-04-25T05:59:00.000-05:00

Smart Infrared Transmitter

2011-04-24T05:58:00.000-05:00

Technology of the day - Smart LED

2011-04-23T04:15:00.002-05:00

This is a smart LED that lets designers express their ideas in multicolor light without any knowledge of electronics. Its onboard firmware sets the ultrabright, wide-angle RGB LED to virtually any color and can make it blink in almost any sequence. It is programmable with simple color sequencing software or a programming interface. Once programmed, it can be treated like a standard LED in every other way.

Here's a video of someone that used it in a project:

Maximize efficiency from an LED

2011-04-21T10:29:00.003-05:00

Because we sell so many different kinds of materials on Inventables we are starting to observe trends in the buying behavior of our customers. One trend we recently noticed has to do with the increasing use of LED's in product development.

Most lighting in consumer products is moving towards LED because it does not burn hot and uses less power than traditional incandescent bulbs. There are two problems that designers run into with this transition and one of them is that the LED lights can appear dull or not as bright as traditional light bulbs. The other problem we've heard about is LED's tend to create a point light source rather than a smooth glow of light that is easy on the eyes.

We've been adding materials Inventables that can help solve these problems. Here are three to consider:

Light Reflective Film is a highly reflective plastic material. The material distributes light evenly while not introducing a big glare. The material can be die cut or thermoformed. It is typically used to make light fixtures highly efficient. The material does not yellow with exposure to ultraviolet light.

These Light Diffuser Films are one or two side diffuser film products designed to break up and distribute light evenly. There are two main grades, a one sided matte clear film and a one or two sided translucent, matte finish film. They are designed to be used for different back lighting applications and come in a variety of thicknesses and widths.

These Light Diffusing Compounds are useful when you need a three dimensional or irregular shaped light diffuser. The compounds can be customized to your specific requirements and injection molded into the shape and size you need for your product.

If you come across similar materials that will help lighting designers work with LED's toss us an email to help { at } inventables dot com.

iPad newspaper "The Daily" covers Inventables

2011-04-20T17:52:00.005-05:00

This afternoon we were working on a new feature and all of a sudden we noticed our traffic spiked. Typically when this happens we investigate to determine the source and discovered that the article Bryan Gardiner wrote about Inventables for the new iPad newspaper "The Daily" was just published.

These days when a newspaper does an article about a company it is rare that the company would see a spike in their traffic because obviously you can't click on a traditional print newspaper and fewer young people subscribe to the newspaper.

The article looked like a traditional newspaper article:

But had the added benefits of being interactive so they had a slideshow of our materials and could link out to our site and videos.

The Daily cost is 99 cents a week or $39 a year. There is so much free content on the web so it will be interesting to see how they differentiate and earn that 99 cents each week. Maybe this model will be the foundation that funds a new generation of journalists or maybe it will be an iteration that leads to a new model. Only time will tell but it feels like we are living in the future now that newspapers are delivered to electronic screens. Maybe instead of getting a paper route as a kid you'll become a programmer and hack together an iPad app.

Temperature Sensitive Polyester Fabric - Orange to Yellow

2011-04-18T11:04:00.002-05:00

Material of the Day - Decorative Mesh Overlay

2011-04-08T11:00:00.001-05:00

Another brand new one on Inventables, this is a very open mesh rubbery feeling wire-like material. It can be creatively sewn, tacked or adhered as a decorative overlay for apparel, footwear, displays and other applications.

Heat Shielding Gel Demonstration

2011-04-06T19:06:00.000-05:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words a video is worth a million.

At Inventables we are always working on making R&D inspiring and easy to do. Last year we launched the innovator's hardware store. Our goal over the next year is to build tools eliminate complexity from the process. Big companies have big budgets, experts, a network of suppliers, and equipment. We hope to be able to provide an online experience for everyone else that makes it just as easy for a small lean team to work on building a prototype.

Today we posted a prototype demonstration video. We invest in making our product pictures tell a story so you can look at the page quickly and understand how it works rather than requiring the visitor to already know the product or read lots of text to figure it out. Even with a picture sometimes it is still hard to fully understand. For example in this picture of the Heat Shielding Gel we got a blow torch and a plastic bottle. Someone looking at the picture gets the idea but you don't really know what happens next. Does the bottle melt? If you trust us that the gel protects the bottle, how long does it last?

Enter video. Matt Binns over at Giant Globes was inspired by Inventables and decided to put together this demonstration video for us. It's about a minute long and shows the heat shielding gel in action in his workshop. Take a look and tell us what you think.

Material of the day - Light Reflective Film

2011-04-06T03:48:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why some light fixtures are brighter than others with the same bulb? Some surfaces reflect light better than others. This light reflective film reflects 97% of the light that hits it.

Material of the day - Grip Tape

2011-04-05T10:00:00.004-05:00

Inventables has just added this new material to our online store. It's got a cool embossed texture that provides a grippy quality.

Technology of the day - Bend Sensor

2011-03-14T05:25:00.001-05:00

This simple sensor detects how much it is being bent. Its simplicity makes it versatile; it can be used to detect vibration, humidity, motion, impact, and air flow. For example, sew it into the arm of a stuffed animal to respond when a child moves the arm, or place it inside the tube of a medical device to monitor the velocity of air through the tube (the faster the air, the more the sensor will bend).

New Material of the day - Resistant Carbon Fiber Fabric

2011-03-12T10:21:00.000-06:00

Resistant Carbon Fiber Fabric is composed of 87% polyester and 13% gray resistant carbon fibers, which are woven right into the fabric in an attractive diamond pattern.

This material provides surface resistivity of 10 5 Ohms per square. This fabric is very comfortable, weighing only 3 oz per square yard. It cuts, sews, and washes like any polyester fabric. Conductivity will hold up to 50 or more low heat washings.

New Material of the day - Conductive Velcro

2011-03-11T05:19:00.002-06:00

Material of the day - Soft-Feeling Conductive Textiles

2011-03-10T16:54:00.000-06:00

The two pieces of fabric pictured in the sample look and feel just like regular fabric, but they have a special coating that conducts electricity. This coating can be applied to any fabric, and has virtually no effect on the fabric’s strength, feel, flexibility, and (for certain formulations) color. You could never tell this fabric had any special coating just by feeling it.

New Material of the day - Conductive Velcro

2011-03-02T23:57:00.000-06:00

This is a hook and loop mechanism (commonly also known as conductive Velcro®) that conducts electricity. You can see in the picture (on the photo of the sample), the electricity is running through the two pieces stuck together and lighting the bulb. It is manufactured by woven nylon tape impregnated with silver.

This fastener is perfect to integrate into smart fabrics and other soft-goods products (clothes, stuffed animals, back packs) where you want to incorporate a soft switch. For example, your backpack could set off an alarm if someone opened the flap to get at the contents inside; or your winter jacket could turn on its built in heater when you closed the flap in front.

Cool technology of the day - Skin Conductive Switch

2011-03-01T16:52:00.003-06:00

We've tried these out with 10 people holding hands in a circle. When one person let's go the switch trips.

Cool material of the day - Color-Changing Desiccant

2011-02-28T14:22:00.002-06:00

Indicates absorbed moisture instantly by changing color

This material is used in cold storage. For example Ice cream parlors and other cold storage areas use this colored silica gel to get a visual indication of oxidation. The color changes when it absorbs humidity thus helping to prevent freezer burn.

Cool Material of the day - Heat Shielding Gel

2011-02-24T04:23:00.003-06:00

Temporarily shield virtually any solid material from temperatures up to an incredible 7500 ºF (4100 ºC). Available as spray gel or paste.

Signup to get ridiculously cool new materials emailed to you once a week.

New Technology of the day - Tension Sensing Bolt

2011-02-23T17:52:00.003-06:00

Visually indicates its tensile load on the end of the bolt. Red means the bolt is not properly tensioned and black means it has been tensioned correctly.

Sign up to get ridiculously cool new materials emailed to you once a week.

Joystickers Launch on Kickstarter

2011-02-22T10:27:00.004-06:00

Anthony Cerra and Russ Hakimiyan are the tag team that make up JoyStickers LLC. They came to Inventables online hardware store about six months ago with an idea to make a joystick for the iPad. They had played some games and experienced some frustration that the device didn't have a button you could press. After all, shooting a machine gun is kind of hard to do on a touch screen.

They started by creating some CAD drawings for what the device could look like, and then they started sourcing materials. They had to solve several sourcing and engineering problems including finding conductive rubber or foam materials, how to stick the button to the iPad, and how to package the whole device together. They found a few materials and vendors through Inventables, ordered some samples, and ran some tests. After a little bit of iteration they came up with a prototype that worked!

Last week they came to our office and showed us their prototypes. The prototype has a simple red barrel and a squishy black button. The button is conductive so that when it hits the iPad screen it can detect that it's been pushed.

Today they've launched on Kickstarter! They are looking to raise $25,000 to help them buy the tooling and materials they need to build the product. Watch their video, and if you like the product, sign up to back it.

Chicago startups hiring

2011-02-16T16:38:00.000-06:00

At Inventables we believe that it is currently too difficult for designers, artists, and inventors to source materials. To solve this problem, a few months back we started building an "Innovator's Hardware Store" that sells hard to find materials along with the basics needed to complete a project. We've started stocking our virtual shelves with some of the most ridiculously cool materials in the world. A few examples are:

The business model is starting to take off and we are looking for a talented individuals that are excited about helping us achieve our goal to join our team. Right now we're hiring for the following jobs:

UX/UI Designer
Software Engineer
Product Curator and Sourcer
Special Projects

People tell us that our culture is fairly unique. Employees have lots of autonomy especially in technical roles. In operational roles we work with lean systems and processes. Throughout the company we have an appetite to continually improve and grow.

If you're looking for a Chicago based startup company, you love product development, and our mission get's you excited check out these jobs and think about helping us change the world.

2011-02-11T23:10:00.002-06:00

Chicago Design Professionals-

Spring is right around the corner and that means job hunting for graduating students. IDSA Chicago and UIC are hosting an event to get local students ready for their moment in the spotlight. On February 19th we will be bringing students and professionals together for a portfolio workshop. While it is always good for students to get feedback on their body of work, wouldn't it be great if you could see a before and after look at one project?

We are asking students to bring one key project (digitally) from their portfolio to review with professionals in the morning. Then they will team up with another student and revise their presentation to present again to another professional at the end of the day. This process will give them both feedback and a template to use to fine tune their entire portfolio. The schedule will look like this:

Portfolio Scramble Event

February 19th,

UIC Innovation Center (1240 W. Harrison St.)

10:00am- Introduction and Opening Remarks

10:30am-11:30am- Student teams meet with professionals to review their projects

11:30am-1:30pm- Students teams work to revise their projects. (during this time, professionals will be roving and giving input)

A working lunch will be provided at noon.

1:30pm-2:30pm- Student teams will meet with professionals to review the final results of their work

2:30pm-3:00pm- Closing Remarks

Pat Brackley

2011-01-30T21:25:00.003-06:00

The 4th/5th grade Seminar classes in Sheridan, Wyoming used the retractable pole discussed in your TED presentation as inspiration for our own innovations.

Currently about 45 students are identified for the program, which meets for ½ day a week and serves high-ability children in our beautiful community. In Seminar we work on a yearlong interdisciplinary unit. Our goal is to introduce new content and provide more depth and complexity within that content. This year’s theme is change, and a big focus is on innovation. Besides learning about innovators and innovations of the past, we’re innovating, too – coming up with hundreds of new inventions and ideas. Last week we SCAMPERed the retractable pole. As you probably know, SCAMPER is an acronym. So far we have used the first 4 letters (substitute, combine, adapt and minimize/maximize) to come up with new ideas. During our creative thinking sessions, all ideas are accepted. Here are our retractable pole innovations.

I substituted what the pole is made of with:
-wood so that you could make a boat. It would be able to shrink or get larger. JB
-dragonfly wings so that it could fly you around. EH
-gummy bears so I never run out of a snack and can get more by extending it. LO
-a clockwork, so you can now tell time everywhere and it looks cool. TP
-hard plastic. That way I have a hitting stick that fits into my pocket. It would be useful to hit people on the go. WC (a nonviolent student )
-with glass. Then I would put lava lamp stuff in the tube. The result is a retractable lava lamp. PB
-with a weapon. You can carry it in your pocket and pull it out if there’s a dangerous moment. It could save your life. AG

I combined the retractable pole with:
-a gun barrel. Then when you’re shooting, your barrel could adjust to the size of a pistol or the size of a rifle or shotgun. TP-R
-licorice so it would enable me to have a small snack for the day without getting hungry. BB
-a chair. The chair legs can be adjusted to anyone’s height. JP
-trash to make trash small and fill landfills slower. TG
-food to feed the hungry. DH
-hooks so I could hang stuff on it. It could be a large coat hanger or a small earring hanger. PR
-an airplane so if it gets shot, a new plastic piece unrolls over the gap. AP
-a pencil so you can adjust to the size that you need. JC
-a table so you can eat anywhere you go without having to sit on the floor. KC-K
-a spring on the bottom of the pole so you can get around and it fits in your pocket. ML
-a door so people don’t have to duck. WB
-a shrink chamber so when I extend it all my action figures are shown on a button which I push to unshrink them and get them out, then drop it down the hole and it goes into its shrink pocket. IH
-a fan. You could use it to start fires. Instead of blowing into the fire, it could do that for you. PK
-a candle to have a longer or shorter wick. This will reduce the amount of candles made. AP
-suction cups and shoes with straps to make stable stilts. MB
-monkey bars so you could make a long or short line of monkey bars. SB
-a rubber claw on a wooden pole so in case electrical lines or anything electrical crashes, you can grab them safely without being electrocuted. GG
-a computer so it will be more portable. NB
-a bike so as the child grows, he/she just simply makes it their height (comes with 10 different sized tires). BP

I adapted the pole:
-for a soldier so it’s a retractable rack of ammo. OP
-for a plant to make an artificial stem to make it different heights. CS
-for a baker. You would flatten it, make it produce cake, and have cakes at the fair. TM
-for people in the Arctic so they have an adjustable ice tester. CM
-for a marine biologist. A camera would be on one end and a retractable net on the other. BS
-to have the blade type things that make a helicopter fly on it along with Kevlar straps on it so that, like with a parachute, you can fly! Only gliding/floating will be replaced with controlled flight! BR
-to a window by making mini blinds that would hang down from a window to keep out light and then simply push them up to let light in. CD
-for a magician. I came up with a trick in which the magician pulls a 12 foot pole out of his throat. ID
-for a Samurai so he can pull a sword out of his pocket. KM
-for a deep sea diver, so they can extend it to get air and still breathe. EF

I maximized the pole so you can:
-make different heads like a toothbrush or a shovel head and stick it on the end of the pole. GP
-make a slide. When you are finished having fun with this giant slide, you can just pack it up and store it in the attic. OT
-easily set up medical tents after a natural disaster. AD

I minimized the retractable pole:
-to help medicine travel easily into your body. You stick the tube into your mouth, but not too far back. Then you breath in and the air flow pulls the medicine back down in the esophagus where you swallow the rest. No more tasting the bad medicine. JM
-for a broom stick. This allows a “little person” to use it and be the right size and a “big person” to use it after the “little person.” The broom stick adjusts. AB
-and flavored it and changed it so it holds pills and other medicine while you are swallowing it. It retracts to the size of the pill you’re taking. SO
-to make earrings. This way you can choose how long or short you want your earrings. This will make it so that you don’t spend a lot of money on different sizes. AB
-so it can be a mini cane. The cane can be used for rodents or for doll house play. This would help the rodents so they wouldn’t have to lay down all the time when they get old. ME

In addition to these and other creative thinking ideas, we have been involved in a major research project to see what personality characteristics help innovators. We learned about historical innovators and then formed a hypothesis about the characteristics they possess that have helped them be successful. Our hypothesis is that they are creative, curious, determined, intelligent, and persistent. Now we’ve emailed a survey to innovators of today (one for each of the students) to see if our hypothesis is accurate. We’d like to thank Zach for participating. We are waiting for all surveys to return so we can see if our hypothesis is correct.
It’s wonderful to be part of a school district that values the needs of high-ability children, and encourages curriculum that develops innovative thinking.

(Ms.) Pat Brackley
Elementary Gifted Ed Specialist
Sheridan School Dist #2
Sheridan, Wyoming

$250 Gift certificate to access new materials on Inventables

2011-01-25T05:32:00.012-06:00

Inventables is working on democratizing access to new materials for what we affectionately refer to as "Little R&D". Little R&D in our view includes all the small teams or individuals that work on R&D projects from places like Universities, startups, and small companies. Typically they have a little bit of funding but getting high volume suppliers and manufacturers to give them technical support or sometimes sell them materials and components can be challenging. In our experience these teams have lots of passion, energy, and great ideas. We launched Inventables new innovator's hardware store for Little R&D folks like Tom Rooney and his team who built an autonomous underwater robot.

When we think about improving our store we think what can we do to democratize access. This meaning what can we do to make it easier for these innovators to get their hands on new materials and components. Sometimes that means literally making something available for sale that isn't on the market, other times that means building features on our website that let folks in the ask and answer questions.

Recently we ran a contest to reward a "Little R&D" group with a $250 gift certificate to Inventables. The idea was to take away the barrier of cost. Contestants submitted their ideas for what they would do with the gift certificate and the world voted. The world selected Tom Rooney of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of West England. He plans to use the money to upgrade their under water robot.

Tom and his team are engineers designing and building an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). The robot is entered into a competition where it is expected to perform realistic missions in the underwater environment. The event is designed to encourage young engineers and scientists to think about underwater technology and its future possibilities as well as fostering interest in innovation and technology, and encouraging careers in the field. Here at Inventables we love supporting groups like this. We believe they are exploring what's possible and in he process changing the world. Here's a video of his robot being tested in a swimming pool:

With his gift certificate Tom selected two of each of the following products:

These will be used for system status of each one of the distributed onboard modules.

These are for selecting different modules

These are to aid the divers in recovery and to make their robot look extra cool!

We threw in free shipping and Tom is going to send us a picture when everything is installed.

We're hiring a Product Curator and Sourcer

2011-01-24T17:05:00.000-06:00

We’re hiring a Product Curator and Sourcer to curate the selection of products we sell in our innovators hardware store. This person will be responsible for researching and vetting manufacturers, selecting products, setting up our supply chain, and writing product descriptions.

We’re looking for someone with an engineering background (probably mechanical) that is also an excellent writer. You’ve probably built things your whole life and you love engineering. This position requires someone that will transform highly technical product specifications into accessible, fun, yet accurate product pages that inspire our customers to buy them and use them in their projects.

This person will be responsible for helping our customers solve their R&D problems by optimizing our product selection and by setting the vision for how each product is portrayed on our site. To succeed you will need to:

Manage the product mix by proactively curating products into groups that solve the same or similar problems

Breaking down quarterly goals into group specific monthly quotas

Monitor weekly and monthly performance updating sales and sourcing plans accordingly

Work along side our fulfillment team to optimize our inventory

Work closely with our photographer to communicate the story each picture needs to tell

Check out all the details and instructions on how to apply in our careers website.

2 Artists you should know about

2011-01-21T10:23:00.005-06:00

At Inventables we believe that the process of invention and new product development is social and collaborative. Products are rarely if ever created in the back room by a lone inventor. We're working to build tools to make conversations and collaborations easier for "Little R&D". We think about conversations around product development quite a bit and they tend to break down into questions and answers, show and tell, and free form brainstorming. In this post two Inventables customers will be doing some show and tell. If you've bought something and care to share what you've built email us at help @ inventables dot com.

Justin Kovac is a self styled Eco Artist. Justin Kovac's works are developed from abstract compositions he often renders with the use of computer aided software which includes vectorizing drawings that will then be utilized in conjunction with a CNC machine. The results include stand out pieces such as Sunflower Red #1 2010 made with Sunflower hull fiberboard, chipboard, tree free handmade banana paper, Homasote, domestic poplar, Ultralight MDF type materials, non-toxic glue and non-toxic acrylic paint.

Currently Kovac is conceptualizing a new work, similar in style, but entirely constructed of Plexiglas and Acrylic type materials, and possibly incorporating LED lights to illuminate and highlight points throughout the piece. He recently bought some Translucent Wood and Color Changing Translucent Panels to experiment with. He is always on the lookout for green materials to incorporate in future pieces - Check out his website, other works and get in touch at justinkovac.com

A second Inventables customer is British born artist James Hopkins. He has produced a series of thought-provoking, highly imaginative works, including Full Circle, 2000, a 3 dimensional paper sculpture of a human heart, carved from the pages of a London A-Z road maps book.

The appreciation for this artist's craft grows when you learn that each page is cut by hand with a scalpel from a print out stencil of a cross section of an object. The object is run through a split animation in accordance with the amount of pages needed to match the object's thickness.

James recently bought a product from Inventables Hardware Store and is experimenting with it for an up coming piece. Stay tuned for a future blog post where we reveal his new work. In the meantime you can find out more at jameshopkinsworks.com.

The Product Design Show

2011-01-07T18:48:00.000-06:00

I've always wondered why there haven't been more TV shows giving a backstage look at product design. The IDEO Nightline video was influencial in my life and if I remember correctly the most ordered video from Nightline ever. On Jan 7th A web-based program looking at the design of consumer and industrial products launched called The Product Design Show:

Check out episode #1 "Designing a Better Bicycle," Vince and Allison look at bicycle designs past, present and future.

We can't wait to see the one on new materials!

New Materials

2011-01-03T03:05:00.000-06:00

Materials and Products of the week

Miniature Web Server
A complete networking solution in a tiny package that enables a product to do things such as deliver personalized content, be remotely diagnosed or upgraded, and regulate speed, power or other states based on information being sent to it.

You can order these small, self-contained, Ethernet modules through Inventables.

Other Products you can order through Inventables:

Circular Polarized Films
These films cancel out bright ambient light that is reflected off the surfaceof a display.

Temperature Sensitive Ceramic NEW!
This ceramic product is unique due to its ability to change color through any kind of change in temperature.

Wall-mountable Packaging
These clips let you hang almost any hand-held package, up to 5 lbs, on almost any vertical surface.

Thanks for supporting Inventables throughout 2010. As we set our sights on the new year we look forward to adding many more exciting and useful products to our Innovator's Hardware Store so that we can inspire everyone, regardless of profession, to explore what's possible!

Where do you find new materials?

2011-01-02T08:23:00.000-06:00

If you're an industrial designer or mechanical engineer you might be wondering where do you find new materials? Inventables has recently launched an online hardware store for product developers we call the "Innovators Hardware Store". In the store we sell all sorts of new materials and technologies that can be used for product development. Typically most of these materials have only been available in high volume orders but we are working with manufacturers to make them available in small quantities for prototyping and short runs. Here's a look at one of the homepages we're testing.

Our goal is to democratize access to materials. This means we are trying to make them easier to understand with plain language descriptions and pictures that tell their story, sold in small enough quantities that a general audience can buy them, and available for purchase online with a credit card. As we continue to develop the store we will continue to try and make it even easier for folks to get access.

We're looking for beta testers that have experience using new materials in prototypes or other product development projects to come into our office. You can find our contact info and read more about us on our website.

If you have an answer to where do you find new materials, we want to know!

Friends of MakerBot Operators Discount!

2011-01-01T00:01:00.001-06:00

Our friends over at MakerBot are lowering the barriers to 3D printing. If you're not familiar with 3D printing it's similar to printing on paper but instead of printing flat 2D objects you print 3 dimensional objects. Companies like 3D systems, Z-Corporation, and Stratasys have been manufacturing industrial grade machines like this for years. Typically the least expensive ones cost between $15,000-30,000 while the most expensive cost as much as $250,000. Here's a list of most of the ones one the market. A finished part typically is made of plastic and looks like this:

MakerBot is a startup in New York that has launched an open source RepRap machine. Their machine is sold unassembled and typically costs $899-$1225 in the MakerBot store.

For a limited time they are Sharing the love of 3D printing by extending a “friends of Makerbot operators” exclusive time-limited offer to the friends, family, coworkers, students, and fellow creation enthusiasts in your life.

Forward this link and tell them to use the coupon code “MAKERBOTFRIEND” so they can pick up a Makerbot Cupcake Ultimate kit for just $697—everything needed to turn their desktop into a thing-generating factory.

That’s a whopping $202 savings on your friends’ very first MakerBot—they’ll thank you forever, and who knows, maybe they’ll even share their special creations with you!

This is just a limited time offer good just for friends of MakerBot operators until 11:59 PM January 5th, 2011.

This is probably the lowest cost 3D printer the world has ever seen!

Free Geek: computer recycling, training, and thrift in one location

2010-12-31T12:05:00.000-06:00

With the recent move, we had an opportunity to dispose of some dated machinery, and in the process found out about FreeGeek Chicago. FreeGeek is a non-profit occupying a unique niche in a few American and Canadian cities, serving as a computer recycling center, a technical training center, and a source of free computers to the community.

The premise is simple, but clever: the facility takes donations of old computers. The computers are disassembled and their components tested by a team of volunteers. Broken components are shipped off to a recycling facility in Lombard, IL, and functional ones are put together to make fully working computers.

Volunteers give 24 hours of service, during which they are trained in taking apart, testing, and building computers. At the end of their hours, they are given a computer built from donations, running Xubuntu.

The service educates, recycles, finds a use for older machines, and successfully operates with limited budget all at once. Volunteers get training, get a computer, and help keep the program going. And that's what makes this business so clever: that both their resources and their labor are so broadly purposeful, directly benefiting environment, volunteer, and business at once.

Hello world...Pick the winner in our 1 x $250 contest

2010-12-09T16:11:00.005-06:00

Inventables is giving away 1 gift certificate worth $250 to our store.

To win, submit your idea for what you would build to @inventables on Twitter. We'll post it to the poll on the right side of our blog and we'll let the world decide who wins the site credit. Voting closes on 12/17/10 at 5pm. We'll post pictures (and maybe video) of what the winner did with the prize.

You might be wondering, why are we doing this? At Inventables, we believe that it is currently too difficult for designers, artists, and inventors to source materials. We've set out to solve this problem by building an online store that will streamline the process of innovation by making previously hard to find materials available to purchase. We think of our store as "the innovators hardware store," and our goal is to inspire everyone—regardless of profession—to explore what’s possible. We think we can accomplish this by leveling the playing field of materials research.

The first step we took towards realizing this goal was making samples of materials available for sale on our website. Traditionally, many of these materials were only available for purchase by large companies purchasing in large volume. The next step we'd like to take toward leveling the playing field of materials research is to make some of these products free for innovators with great ideas. If this contest is successful, we'll likely expand it to give more even more innovators the opportunity to make something special. We believe that energy, ideas, and industriousness (read: not deep pockets) should be all that is required to compete with the biggest R&D teams in the world. When writing software in 2010 all you need is a computer, open source tools, and your mind...we're asking, can it be the same for building physical things?

Growing up I built projects ranging from robots, to potato cannons, to LEGO sets. In the beginning, construction toys like LEGOs, Bolt and Play, and Construx were awesome because they gave you a framework to build with. Once you get the hang of it they become good tools for prototyping and concept development but a bit limiting for the final product. Well, unless you are Nathan Sawaya:

So I tried building things that looked more like products you would buy in a real store like Toys R Us. The first place I would go was the local ACE hardware store or Radio Shack to get materials and components. As anyone who has gone down that path knows you are somewhat limited in the types of materials, components, and fasteners you have at your fingertips. One of the projects I was most proud of was when I made my own laser tag gun and sensor using one of these project boxes from Radio Shack.

When I was done it barely worked, and cost more than the toys available at retail, and looked like a science experiment. I was proud to have built it, but was ashamed that mine didn't look nearly as good as the real ones:

Product designers and engineers that work in big companies have had materials and tools available to them that, until now, little R&D did not. We want to change that. We hope this experiment works, because it we believe that it could lower barriers to entry in the field of product design, and allow more people to build cool stuff.

Are you a writer? We're hiring a product copywriter

2010-11-26T18:06:00.000-06:00

We're very excited to announce that we've just posted a new position we're hiring for, a product copywriter. We’re hiring people that want to embark on a hazardous startup journey. We’re looking for people that share our passion for pushing the world’s progress forward, for inspiring the dreamers of the world to explore what’s possible.

So what does that mean on a daily basis? A few months ago we launched our online store selling materials and technologies in small quantities for prototyping and R&D. Right now we have hundreds of products listed on this site for sale like gel magnets and soft touch paint.

Over the next year we plan to increase the number of products for sale from hundreds to thousands. We hope to create a comprehensive collection of materials so anyone with an idea can browse our virtual aisles to get exactly what they need to build a prototype. If you're an excellent writer and your passionate about product development this is the perfect opportunity for you! Read the full posting and apply today!

Reducing the distance between creator and consumer at the Chicago DIY Trunk Show

2010-11-23T13:28:00.016-06:00

Last Saturday was the 8th annual DIY Trunk Show, an oversized craft fair showcasing a wide variety of work from Chicago artisans, from home-made yarn to local magazines. The event filled up two rooms of the Pulaski Park auditorium, and felt like a flea market's prideful sibling.

New uses for old materials
Much of the most interesting work displayed involved finding novel uses for well-known materials. One artists would cut rocks into thin slabs that could be used as drink coasters, or reassembled into their original formation. There were bottlecaps turned into magnetic art, jewelry made from junk, notebooks made from scrap leather.

It evoked a certain kind of wonder to see materials used outside their traditional uses, reflected a certain kind of openness, a willingness to understand the actual properties of a material, rather than fall back upon its common understanding. This tendency stands at the center of much invention: one must often separate a material from its normal uses. Petroleum was used for light for thousands of years before it was used for heat, and then it was decades more until it was also used to generate plastics.

Bringing producer and consumer together
One of the booths that most struck me was a booth selling jewelry advertised as "Powder-Coated Steel Jewelry", almost reading like an Inventables product headline.

When I asked the seller for an explanation, she eagerly explained how the metal was charged to attract ionized colored powder, evenly coating the jewelry it before it was baked on. The method itself was nothing new, but it was fascinating to have the process emphasized over the product. If this same jewelry was sold at a mall, their tagline would read something like "colored steel jewelry".

You could see this throughout the Trunk Show. Everyone was eager to talk about the way their craft was made, was eager to advertise the origins of their creation. In most of the modern marketplace, the consumer is heavily removed from the product. We rarely understand how something works, moreover how something was made. R&D is a distant, mysterious realm of thick glasses and tesla coils.

While we may not be selling cat sweaters, the DIY Trunk Show was an engaging showcase of the exact kind of spirit we hope to help evoke.

Scott Wilson + MNML = Cool watch with over 100k in pre-orders

2010-11-19T00:56:00.000-06:00

The internet is changing product design by reducing the risk that a product might fail. Scott Wilson is a designer based in Chicago that has worked for Nike, Motorola, IDEO and now runs his own design firm called MNML. Scott and his team designed a watch band for the new iPod Nano so it could be used as a watch. Before actually manufacturing it they posted their design on Kickstarter to try to get enough backers to fund the product. They needed $15,000 in pre-orders to make the product and with 27 days left they already have $155,097 in pre-orders. Check out their pitch video to learn more about the product.

This success starts to put some pressure on established consumer products companies that outsource their product design. It starts to put control in the designers hands. If they can go direct to consumers with sites like Kickstarter, do they even need the clients anymore? Fee for service relationships might not make as much sense. A designers true vision can be presented to a customer rather than a watered down version that has gone through the corporate gauntlet.

Bend your mind with circuit benders and other experimental electronics

2010-11-11T18:57:00.000-06:00

Last year at ORD Camp the guys from Roth Mobot did a very cool circuit bending demo with some old toys. They are going to be at this performance/showcase so check it out if you're in Chicago. It will be a carnival for hacking electronica!

The Midwestern Experimental Electronics Conference and Showcase (MEECAS)

Saturday, November 13 : Lizard's Liquid Lounge, 3058 W Irving Park Rd. (map)
The 3rd annual Midwestern Experimental Electronics Conference and Showcase (MEECAS) is a free, day-long symposium highlighting the past year's accomplishments in the areas of Musical Instrument Design, Performance, Circuit Bending, Data Hacking, and Video Art.

CONFERENCE : Noon - 3:00 PM
The MEECAS begins with a three-hour circuit bent open mic, and an open “horizontal lecture series” structured around a free hardware hacking workshop wherein all participants are both teacher and student. The conversation will focus on networking, hacking techniques, project demonstrations, and setting goals for the next year.

DINNER : 3:00 PM
Order some carry out, and continue the conversation and networking into the evening.

SHOWCASE : 8:00 PM - Midnight
The MEECAS continues into the evening with live performances featuring:

Tim Kaiser, Duluth, MN
Roth Mobot, Chicago, IL
Welcome Tomerica, Chicago, IL
Alex Inglizian, Chicago, IL
Will Soderberg, Chicago, IL
CMKT4, DeKalb, IL

VIDEO - 8:00 PM - Midnight
In addition to the live video mix work of The Machinist, the evening will include pieces from some of the Midwest's (and Europe's) premier Glitch artists, featuring:

(steven) Buck, Chicago, IL
Spright Light Theater, Minneapolis, MN
Hugo Paquete, Portugal

INTERACTIVE INSTALLATIONS : 7:00 PM - 1:00 AM
The audience is encouraged to explore interactive electronic installations created by:

Michel Una, Chicago, MN - LIFE Synth
Sam Piro, Evanston, IL - Circle Machine, Jr.
Kim Alpert, Chicago, IL - Stolen
Patrick McCarthy, Chicago, IL - Graphite Synth

MEECAS STORE : 7:00 PM - 1:00 AM
Exhibiting and performing artists will be selling recorded works, experimental musical instruments, electronics kits, and apparel to offset the cost of the show.

A tale of 2 homepages - New Materials Resource

2010-11-05T17:46:00.002-05:00

Inventables is working on democratizing access to new materials. We're an advocate for the little guy and we hope to level the playing field for small product development teams to be able to go up against giant Fortune 500 companies. With this mission in mind we've expanded our services to include the sale of new materials in our online store.

Since launching the online store the response has been tremendous. Our goal is to continue to remove barriers between "makers" and "prototypers" and their visions. The first way we are tackling this is by offering materials for sale in small quantities that are typically hard to find or unavailable. The second thing we're doing is redesigning our homepage for this new business model. Specifically we have re-designed two versions. The first uses vertical categories. The default view is the most recently purchased products and down the left side you can review all the different categories we offer. Within each category we have subcategories. If this version wins we will continue to develop it and add additional filters to help a visitor narrow down their search to find the products that meet all their criteria.

The second version takes an editorial approach. We tell a story of how the materials sold on our site have been used in the past as a way to inspire visitors to the site to think about how they could be used in the future.

Click the links, try out both home pages, and let us know which one you like better by posting a comment to this blog post or tweeting us @inventables.

What materials are used in windows that break in movies?

2010-10-21T23:09:00.003-05:00

Ever wonder how actors jump through a window but then live to talk about it on late night talk shows? Sometimes they use computer graphics but that's not the only way to create the special effect.

Simon Tong / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

A product called Rubber Glass, lets you create special effects that simulate glass without the inherent dangers. Unlike other transparent plastics, this one breaks with the same spiderweb, shattering pattern as glass.

It uses a polyurethane that enables you to create glass and ice-like objects without the hassles of conventional breakaway plastic products. Unlike other plastics, this product cures at room temperature; once cured, it is odorless and easy to handle. You mix it up and shape it into whatever you need.

Rubber Glass is a non-toxic silicone that simulates broken glass or ice. Once you combine the two bottles, you let it cure to form a soft, clear rubber, and then crumble it. The film Die Another Day used over 1.5 tons of it, and several other films rely on it to create broken glass and ice chips.

Inventables is moving to a new office

2010-10-21T00:36:00.001-05:00

Inventables is going through some exciting changes this year. In addition to launching our online store, we're also moving to a new office.

With the launch of our new store, we seek to democratize the practice of materials research, streamline the process of innovation, and inspire everyone—regardless of profession—to explore what’s possible. We believe exploration is a precursor to innovation. In order to create a workspace that embodies that spirit of "Exploring What's Possible", we approached the team at Studio O + A to design our new office.

We found an awesome loft space near the west edge of Chicago's loop and two blocks from Union Station.

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The designers at Studio O + A had a blank canvas to work with. The building is currently being renovated, and it has tall ceilings and a really cool concrete look and feel.

The main focus of our work at Inventables is software development. We're continually improving our website to make it easier for our customers to find materials that can help them build prototypes and products. We designed our main work area to be open and to encourage collaboration, yet one special feature is that the room will not have any phones. This will help keep a quiet work environment and minimize disruptions. We'll have a few pair programming stations and two flat screens that will display the OneTh1ng each team member is doing each day, as well as a dashboard showing real-time analytics from our website using ChartBeat. Each morning, we'll gather around the two flat screens for our stand up meeting.

We also installed a phone booth room and a customer success area where our team can talk on the phone when necessary.

We're really excited about two new areas of the office - the exploration area and the video production room. The exploration area will give guests and members of our team the opportunity to explore what's possible. We are installing some awesome honeycomb shelves designed by Clive Wilkinson to hold and showcase materials we sell on our site. We plan to have a worktable where visitors can build quick prototypes, take pictures of their creations, and share them with future visitors on built-in monitors. We'll hook the monitors up to a flickr photo stream to share their creations with the world. This area will be full of all sorts of things to explore. For now we're going to keep them a secret; you'll have to stop by to experience them for yourself.

Down the hall from the exploration room will be the video production room. This is where we plan to interview innovators in the fields of computer science and product development. When we started thinking about what we wanted out of our space, we realized that our current space wasn't set up to share as much as we'd like. Creating a space specifically designed for interviews will make it possible to invite the best technical minds into our office and help them tell their stories of creation. We hope to peel back the layers of the onion and dig deep into why they do what they do. We hope to hear stories of how they got started, what they explored, and how their work and persistence translated into success.

Another exciting feature of our new office is that the furniture will be easy to move around, making the space convertible. This will make it easier for us to hold events like Ruby meetups, IDSA Chicago meetings and ORD Sessions. During the next two months the space will be transformed, and we're excited to share the progress with you.

CORE-Materials

2010-10-20T22:50:00.003-05:00

At Inventables we believe that it is currently too difficult for artists, innovators, and product developers to source materials and ﬁnd solutions for their projects.

I recently found the CORE-Materials OER project and they share our passion. They are working to make a significant number of the many existing learning resources in Materials freely available online. They explain on their site "the resources will be licensed for open use and repurposing worldwide."

They offer a resource page with a number of interesting resources. One that stood out to me was a paper by Prof Claire Davies, School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham where she goes through materials used in sporting goods.

Hat's off to this organization. If you know of other resources for learning about materials tweet it to us! @inventables

A New Beginning

2010-09-28T16:51:00.002-05:00

Inventables has started selling the materials we showcase on our website, like Squishy Magnets and Temperature Sensitive Fabric. But you may be wondering why we changed to this new model.

To answer this question, it helps to think about WHY we exist.

Inventables was founded on the premise that “Anything’s Possible”. The spirit behind that phrase can be explained by Thomas Edision’s quote, “None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” In the beginning, Inventables worked on building a brand and a company around our belief in Yankee ingenuity and the can-do spirit. We believed that, given an idea and a relentlessly curious disposition, you could build anything. Over the years our customers proved this to be true. For example:

Peter Skillman, the former VP of Design at Palm, was faced with a challenge when working on the Palm docking station. He found that the station could easily be knocked off of a desk, causing the phone to fall and the screen to crack. He found micro-suction tape through Inventables and used it to solve this problem.

The micro-suction tape was used on the bottom of the docking station, as seen in this picture provided by Palm Info Center. It's got tiny little micro-suction cups so there is no sticky residue.

For years, hackers, makers, and students have lusted over the materials, like micro-suction tape, listed on inventables.com, but access to them has only been granted by paying subscription fees. Typically, only major corporations have been able to afford access. We originally took this path because we bootstrapped the business. We didn't have the money to fund longer term initiatives and used our customers' subscription fees to fund our growth. Customers paid their annual subscription fees up front, and we used that revenue to hire researchers to find and procure all the materials on our website. In exchange for the subscription fees, users gained access to the contact information for the vendors and we shipped them a sample of each material.

This subscription service was wildly popular amongst industrial design departments specializing in consumer products. At our peak, 20% of all Fortune 500 companies, including 7 of the top 10 most innovative, subscribed to Inventables. Design firms, artists, and small companies longed for access to the materials but weren’t able to afford it…until now.

Inventables is a mission-based company. We've always used long term thinking to guide our decisions. In 2009, we raised some venture capital to help us begin to realize our long term vision for the company. Roughly two years ago, we started giving away access to our collection of materials for free. Some questioned the validity of this approach since, at that time, we earned nearly all our revenue from selling information. We realized that in order to have a bigger impact on the world and to bring our idea to a much larger audience, we had to innovate and push ourselves forward. With the most recent model, we earned revenue by selling sales leads to the suppliers and manufacturers that produce the materials. This approach grew the size of our audience by roughly 300%, from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand. After analyzing thousands of inquiries from potential customers, we discovered that roughly 70% were trying to buy a sample or a small quantity of our materials for prototyping.

A few weeks ago, with this data in hand, Inventables started working with our suppliers to make their products available for sale in small quantities. So far the response has been tremendous. Here is a sampling of a few that can now be purchased through our site:

In the coming months, we’ll be working with our other suppliers to make their products available for sale through Inventables. Our goal is to eventually have all the materials available in small quantities so that someone doing research and development can easily buy them for prototyping.

We believe this is an exciting time in the history of the world because the existence of the internet and search engines like Google has made access to information immediate and essentially free. With manufacturing moving to Asia, most of the product development work being done in the US revolves around R&D projects, prototyping, and short runs for testing. At the same time, the Maker community has exploded. Make Magazine and Maker Faire have joined some of the more traditional science and engineering magazines, like Popular Science, Wired, Popular Mechanics, Design News, and Machine Design, in bringing new energy and new blood to the art of building. In addition to all of this traditional media, the web has also provided new ways for people to share what they build, from sites like Etsy and 1000markets where you can sell handmade goods to sites like Instructables where you can learn how to do just about anything.

We believe that by making information about materials and how they have been used free, along with making them available in small quantities for purchase, we can help our customers explore what's possible. This, in turn, will lead to a larger audience of makers and even more product innovation. We believe we're democratizing access to materials, and new, smaller teams will have similar access that major corporations have. These new teams will give product innovation departments at great companies like Nike, Apple, and Boston Scientific a run for their money.

We invite you to come explore what's possible and challenge you to think about what you would build with a squishy magnet.

Inventables Interview Series: Stephanie Battista

2010-09-10T09:20:00.001-05:00

Great ideas always seem to come to us when we least expect them. How many times have you scribbled or sketched something on a napkin, trying to capture the details of your brilliant new concept while it’s still fresh in your mind? Often times, even after we experience these flashes of genius, it’s difficult to translate them from concept to reality. That’s where Stephanie Battista comes in.

Stephanie started Laf, Inc., a Florida-based industrial design firm, in 2002. Many clients have walked into her office with such napkins in hand, hoping to turn their rough sketches into finished, sellable products. She’s worked on everything from packaging for an organic line of soap to designing promotional pieces and advertisements for a fashion label. She says, “Every day is a different challenge,” acknowledging that her diverse array of projects keeps work from becoming boring.

It’s that spirit for embracing new challenges that has driven Stephanie throughout her life. She left business school to pursue her passion for design at the Savannah College of Art and Design, starting her company shortly after graduating. And she takes on these varied projects, even though they can be difficult and unpredictable at times. In order to introduce structure into her exciting and ever-changing schedule, she’s developed a distinct 12 step program that she uses for each design project that she takes on.

Stephanie’s process includes defining the project concept with the client, coming up with branding, packaging, and advertisements, and prototyping and manufacturing the products. While much of the design work comes naturally to her, there’s one part of the process that always presents a challenge – finding materials to make the finished products. She says, “Material sourcing is its own ballgame. The most difficult part is having enough time to source the materials.” She says that many of the traditional avenues for finding these resources aren’t efficient, especially for small businesses like Laf, Inc.

At Inventables, we’ve recently started selling small quantities of materials and technologies online in an attempt to help designers like Stephanie explore what’s possible. We believe that if we can create an easily accessible catalog of materials for a vast array of projects, we can make material sourcing simple and efficient for Stephanie and other passionate designers that are driven to find the best solution, rather than the available solution.

As we continue to develop our online store, Stephanie’s business continues to blossom. She has multiple new products hitting the market at the end of 2010. And eight years after starting Laf, Inc., her passion is still evident. “You only live one time, and you should do it your own way. Who doesn’t want to design and make people happy?” And she is definitely making her clients happy, one scribbled napkin at a time.

Fish Leather

2010-08-31T17:56:00.004-05:00

Everyone is familiar with leather from cattle hide. This kind of leather has become synonymous with jackets, baseball gloves, and racing pants like these.

Cowhide leather better watch out because there is a new game in town...fish leather. Fish leather typically comes from four different varieties of fish: perch, salmon, wolffish, and cod. The leather comes from fish commonly caught for food. As you might expect, this means these materials are a by-product reclaimed from food processing activities. In the past the hides have often been discarded. Fish leather is being used in everything from purses to women's shoes. Some big brands you've heard of including Prada, Dior, Nike, Ferragamo and Puma have used it in some of their products.

The leather comes in small strips or can be made into panels using 7 strips which is useful when making larger items.

Check out the salmon fish leather we have here, samples are now available.

The Nature of Creativity - Part Four

2010-08-21T08:00:00.032-05:00

by Heidi Kneller
Mechanical Engineer at The Payloads Concept Center, The Boeing Company

As in real life, a personal creative journey is fraught with hiccups. Even the best laid plans to become a fanatical journal-keeper will, at some point, be derailed by reality. In Part Four acceptance, and even expectation, of life’s disruptions and upheavals become more than traumatic – they become a tool.

Admit Fear

If you are not scared, you aren’t living. Fear does not have to become a weakness. Both admitting you experience fear and becoming confident letting it into your life, are not easy things to do. It certainly is easy to be so afraid of yourself that you unconsciously make choices that take you to where you most fear. Fear is the animal in us. It is being human that allows us to choose how to use it: harness it to survive, to be creative, or give in and let it take our choices away. Animals are not capable of being their own worst enemy.

I have done some very stupid things. When I think back on my single day, solo climb of Mt. Adams I really wonder what I was thinking. The weather was set to be great, I had a little bit of mountaineering experience, the route I was taking was non-technical, and I had been up the mountain previously. I set out after a full day of work and drove the five hours to the trail head where I took a little nap. In the wee hours of the morning I set off up the mountain. I enjoyed the climb and dawdled, chatting with folks, and basking happily in the sun. It was not until I had reached the top and the euphoria of the moment started to wear off that I realized just how late and tired I was – and how far from a safe night’s sleep. I did make it down, but just before dark and dangerously exhausted. I had not been equipped to spend a night on the mountain alone. Fear is what got me back to the car before dark. I proceeded to drive the five hours home which was probably more dangerous in my tired state than spending a night on the mountain alone.

Immerse yourself in foreign environments where your instincts are tested, your skills are challenged, and you feel deeply uncomfortable. Run amok over your own boundaries. Risk abject, debilitating fear and use it to store up soul food for a winter, and creative juices for a drought. Part of my fascination with diving has to do with fear. Some driving force propels all divers into an environment where the primary ingredient for life is blatantly missing. Aside from the majesty and mystery of The Deep, I am a bit afraid every time I enter the water. I take that figment of fear and pop it into my pocket but, like a hundred dollar bill, I do not ever forget it is there. The day it is not there is the day I should stop diving.

Diving around a grounded iceberg, Antarctica.
Photo credit: Cameron Etezadi

When you admit fear, you take away its ability to sneak up on you and you outwit panic. When you share your fears with others, you allow them to do the same. Together you shine a flashlight in fear’s face and cry “Boo!” Most of the time fear retreats and you share a laugh.

Share

Surround yourself with people who get it, and be patient with those who do not. Embrace Crazy and her entourage. Judge less. Some people just reek of fire and light – they naturally sparkle. Gravitate to these kindred spirits like the proverbial moth to the flame. Others are like glows sticks: the ingredients are all there, you just need to shake them up before they shine. Give willingly and often of those things, like compliments and smiles, that cost you nothing. In mathematical terms, a generosity that cost you nothing provides infinite returns. Ask questions. Listen, and be listened to. Let a sunset loose your usually tight lips, and spill your guts to a winsome stranger. Do that more often and prepare yourself to be the winsome stranger for someone else. Those who create easily owe it to others to be their awe factory. Be a comet. Leave a trail of light!

Let Go

Practice letting go. If it does not matter, do not make it. Forgive yourself when you misstep or you need to be ordinary: a temporary state of ordinary is not the enemy. Ordinary or extraordinary, be confident enough to be comfortable with either label. Be as forgiving with yourself as you are with others. You are not Atlas and the weight of the world is not your burden, so shrug it off carelessly. Do not carry a lifetime of baggage with you everywhere when all you really need is a toothbrush, sunscreen, and three ounces of liquid self respect in a clear Ziploc bag. (Oh, and a notebook).

Night diving is an exercise in letting go; it has to be one of the most surreal experiences on earth. Suspended weightless in a salty womb, I am aware that every sense and synapse has been tinkered with. To then deliberately turn off my dive light and disable what is my primary sense, my safety net, takes courage, but this is the essence of letting go. It is a willful release of what you hold most dear, with forethought and foreknowledge of the consequences. Letting go is the antithesis of instinct and yet, without being willing to do it, I so often hobble myself. Unless you let go, turn off the light, you miss the secrets of the sea. You miss how she phosphoresces when you stroke her. You miss hearing the pistol shrimp death knell as they cavitate their supper to stew with a genius of mechanics. You miss feeling the vertigo of space, an astronaut in Eden instead of the barrenness of space. When I am ready, I flip on my light and become a star in the constellation of the coral. I become part of a creation.

Celebrate
Left: Not wanting to get out of the water following the final Clipperton dive.
Photo credit: Randi Eisen

Celebrate every iota of progress. Honor mistakes, for they are only truly a waste when you refuse to learn from them. Play music that sets your duodenum dancing and abandon humbleness to unleash your inner hubris, just for a spell. Compel your cohorts to join you and acquiesce when reciprocally required.

Take Care of your Physical Self

A neglected body breeds a weak mind and a vaccinated soul. The most creative mind with the most creative spirit will fail to blossom if the health of the body is disregarded. Eat well and with forethought, rest deliberately, and sweat copiously. There is truth in the saying “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” It is impossible to enjoy the things I love to their fullest when I have neglected my body. As I age, I am reminded of this more often. Some sneaky extra pounds deflated my love of a good hill and affected my diving. They multiplied and chortled along with me over several years until I realized how active a roll I was playing in my own mugging. I am a better diver, climber, napper, kisser, musician, runner, giver, worker, and thanker when I am healthy in spirit and body. When I am physically healthy, I am a better creator.

Challenge

Franck again leaves us with a challenge:

“I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life. They SEE and do not have to draw. They are artists of being alive.” (Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation)

They are creative.

Lest you conclude otherwise, I have nothing really figured out. I regularly and grudgingly shoulder burdens better buried, am brusque with folks, and tend to judge harshly. I am afraid. However, I am also learning to be at peace, that the puzzle in my life does not have numbers on the back. If I put a piece in wrong, the worst that can happen is that the image appears surreal for a few moments while faces are reversed in the American Gothic reproduction before me. I laugh, decide if I like it that way or not, and then move on. Learn to do the same. A puzzle may come with a box and a picture, but there is no legend for life.

Thanks

Special thanks to shipmates and crews of the Nautilus Explorer, Professor Molchanov, and to fellow La Cusinga Biomimicers, as well as to my treasured kindred spirits who helped make this somewhat coherent. Thanks to Zach for the impetus and opportunity.

Above: Chasing Capuchin Monkeys at 5AM in Costa Rica
Photo Credits: Heidi Kneller

Above: Leopard Seal, Antarctica
Photo Credits: Heidi Kneller

Additional Reading

The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds by Jeanette Winterson
Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person by Hugh Prather
View with a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska
I Want to Be by Thylias Moss
Gitanjali: Offerings of Song and Art by Rabindranath Tagore
The Prohet by Kahlil Gibran
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul by Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett
Mathematical Basis of the Arts by Joseph Schillinger
Fire in the Mind by George Johnson

Baby Booby, Clipperton Island
Photo Credits: Heidi Kneller