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‘design’ Stories

Ornithopter Replicates Insect Flight

Kevin Fubar, Mar 25th 2011 Discuss [2]

A team at Cornell University's Computational Synthesis Laboratory has developed tiny hovering Ornithopters. These machines were the first type of design for mechanical flight that people began to experiment with. The team at Cornell has been working on the project design for the past few years, but last year they were able to construct a working model using 3D printing techniques. They mimicked the principles of insect flight to design their hovering machine. These little guys flit around like mechanical lacewings. Read The Full Story

Festo SmartBird is an automated mechanical herring gull

Shane McGlaun, Mar 25th 2011 Discuss [0]

One of the things that researchers have been trying to figure out for a long time is the exact mechanics behind how birds and insects are able to fly. The reason is that many of nature's flying machines are capable of generating much more lift than the aircraft people can design today. By discovering more behind the mechanics of how bird and insect wings operate, we can possibly design more efficient aircraft. Read The Full Story

Traffic Intersection Powered By Footsteps Concept

Rue Liu, Mar 22nd 2011 Discuss [5]

A group of college students have designed a traffic intersection that harnesses the power of vibrations from passing cars and pedestrian’s footsteps. The designers, Ian Jaye, Jovan Popovic, and Patrick Houin based the design on piezoelectricity, which converts vibrations and movement into electricity. We don’t see the use of piezoelectricity very much nowadays but the technology has been around for 100 years. Read The Full Story

Plumen 001 CFL Bulb Wins Design of the Year Award

Samia Perkins, Mar 15th 2011 Discuss [10]

The Plumen 001 lightbulb, which has been described as the "world's first designer energy saving light bulb", has won the Design of the Year Award at the 2011 Brit Insurance Design Awards today. This super-stylish bulb was selected from over 90 shortlisted products on display at the Design Museum in London. So why did the CFL lightbulb win the day? Read The Full Story

Bloodhound to test fire the UK’s largest hybrid rocket

Kevin Fubar, Mar 7th 2011 Discuss [1]

The Bloodhound Super Sonic Car project has been looking to oust the Thrust project as the current holders of the land speed record (LSR). The team has designed a two-stage rocket system to propel the car at a velocity of 1050mph. The first stage is a EUROJET EJ200, the same engine as found in the Eurofighter Typhoon. The second stage is a custom designed hybrid rocket designed by The Falcon Project Ltd. This specialist rocketry company is led by self-taught rocket scientist, Daniel Jubb, 27. Bloodhound announced plans to test fire this second stage rocket system last week. Read The Full Story

NashMoney’s custom Sneakerspeakers

Kevin Fubar, Mar 4th 2011 Discuss [3]

London artist, Alex Nash, has a lifelong fixation with athletic footwear. In a nod to his life-long obsession he created this custom set of desktop speakers as part of Intercity's Inspired Ingenuity project. This project is meant to showcase pieces of artwork that show inspired ingenuity by taking normal objects and turning them into something completely different. Nash took a pair of Nike Air Force 1 sneakers and constructed them into a pair of amplified speakers. The project is challenging artists to create pieces that take the everyday and turn it into something other. One winner will be chosen every month through June. Read The Full Story

Harness The Power Of Wind With The AERO E Cellphone Charger

Rue Liu, Mar 3rd 2011 Discuss [1]

Here’s a design that would make all your environmentally conscious friends jealous. The AERO E harnesses the power of the wind to generate electricity, much like its larger wind turbine cousins you see out in the hills or the ones they’re experimenting with far out at sea. Read The Full Story

Genius Light Switch Design by Taewon Hwang

Kevin Fubar, Mar 2nd 2011 Discuss [6]

Have you ever walked into a house and had trouble figuring out what switch controlled which light? Designer, Taewon Hwang comes through with this delightfully intuitive light switch concept. He takes the floorplan of a house and turns it into the design for the light switch. One of these switches could make it easy to control every light in your home from one location, or you can install multiple switches for any configuration or purpose you can imagine. Read The Full Story

Aava Mobile TWIST concept origins revealed [Video]

Chris Davies, Feb 4th 2011 Discuss [2]

We've already told you that Aava Mobile will be bringing its slick second-gen Medfield-based smartphone to MWC 2011 shortly, and now we know a little more about its design providence. Core77 worked with Aava and AGENT designer Alberto Villareal on TWIST, an angular, origami-inspired concept that, the smartphone company tells us, turned out to be the basis for the second-gen Aava Core hardware. Video after the cut Read The Full Story

Traffic Signals on Trees

Rue Liu, Feb 1st 2011 Discuss [3]

A good way to green a city is to plant more trees and what better reason to do so than have trees replace traffic signal poles. Designers have conjured up the traffic signal of the future, called the Wearable Signal, in the form of a flexible LED solar panel that can wrap around any cylindrical form. Read The Full Story

Apple Loses Top UI Designer to PayPal

Rue Liu, Jan 31st 2011 Discuss [8]

Sarah Brody is leaving Apple for eBay-owned PayPal to help improve user experience and make its payment platform easier to use. The hire of one of Apple’s leading UI designers is a big catch for PayPal. Read The Full Story

Awesome Hublot La Cle Du Temps watch debuts

Shane McGlaun, Jan 28th 2011 Discuss [5]

I am not a watch wearer, I have said that many times. I do like to look at some of these awesome watch designs like the Hublot La Cle Du Temps "key of time" watch here. This thing is so cool it hurts. If Darth Vader had an awesome watch, this would be it. Read The Full Story