While in Inverness I visited the Center for Health Science where I witnessed their state-of-the-art medical simulation equipment, including these incredibly sophisticated (and creepy) medical dummies. Doctors and nurses in training use them to train for real-life scenarios, so these life-like dolls have a temperature, a pulse, a voice and can undergo a number of […]
Category Archives: materials
ill robots
Also posted in evil robots, livingbreathing, possessed products, soft/glowing, tangible
Comments closed
paper cloth
Mio pointed me to a Japanese site that sells cloth and clothing made from a combination of cloth and rice paper. There is a lot of talk about design for durability, but even better is the conscientious reuse of temporary materials. This solution looks like it might make an adequate vegetarian substitute for leather, it […]
Also posted in fabrication, fashion, futurecraft, soft/glowing
Comments closed
naturalness
Bio-pens are made of 80% cellulose acetate, a material that was invented in 1865 and is now most commonly used in cigarette filters. It is a biopolymer made from wood pulp with an embodied energy of 100 MJ/kg – about six times higher than glass and and twice as much as PET, although it’s biodegradable […]
Also posted in energy, environment, marketing, possessed products, product design
Comments closed
the wooden age
Given all the recent hype about wooden electronics, I would like to bring up some of the gorgeous examples from the George Eastman House collection, which is available on their website and partly on Flickr. Some jewels of the collection include the earliest cameras and videocameras, including this original Lumiere Brothers video camera (called Cinematographe) […]
Also posted in fabrication, product design
Comments closed
watts up
Saul Griffith has just released WattzOn, a personal footprint calculator that allows you to account for everything in your life – including taxes and the embodied energy of the products you own. You can then compare your impact with other people in the world and start to understand how much alternative energy is needed to […]
Also posted in blogogracy, customization, energy, environment, possessed products, visualization
Comments closed
scrap shoes 2
Tiffany has a great post on the state of the art in diy shoes from scrap tires, including a link to this pattern for cutting sandals from a slab of reused rubber (above) and this link to purchase up-cycled Cambodian tire sandals from the Old Ho Rubber Sandal Company: To replace your Old Ho’s straps […]
Also posted in fashion, futurecraft, marketing, open objects
Comments closed
light noodles
Charlie Davidson’s Hasta la Pasta is part of the redesign (tagline: for designers who don’t want to make landfill) Lighten Up collection of lamps that have vastly reduced environmental impact. Making products out of food – like these spoons and these espresso cups – guarantees that they compost well and affords alternative uses – especially […]
Also posted in furniture, futurecraft, lighting, open objects, product design, soft/glowing
Comments closed
chip chop shops
Hiroshi pointed me to this BusinessWeek investigation on microchip counterfeiting, which explains how electronic waste recycling is profitable: used circuit boards are baked over coal fires to loosen precious microchips. These are rinsed in the local river and sorted according to manufacturer. The chips can be re-sold as is, or their markings can be sanded […]
Also posted in environment, fabrication, supply chain, traceability, upcycling
Comments closed