The Cryptide: A Fully 3D Printed Shoe Inspired by Mythical Beasts

Meet the Cryptide, the brainchild of German designer Stephan Henrich, who set out to design a shoe inspired by cryptids that could be entirely 3D printed. Interesting design perimeters. The shoe is 3D printed via selective laser sintering (SLS, in which a high-power laser forms tiny particles of polymer powder into a solid) using a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) material, so they aren’t rigid and painful like the entirely-too-small wooden clogs my dad brought me back from a business trip to Holland.

The idea behind the Cryptide is a shoe that can be 3D printed on-demand to fit an individual’s unique feet after taking 3D scans of them. And, I think I speak for everyone here who has two different-sized feet when I say that’s terrific news because I’m tired of having to buy one pair of 12’s and another of 7’s just to make a pair that fits.

Stephan says the unique patterns left by the shoe’s soles were inspired by cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. The patterns left by my soles? They were inspired by the cheapest pair of shoes I could find on Amazon. I’m just saying; there’s no way they wouldn’t leave marks all over the gymnasium floor and get me kicked out of PE, that’s for sure.

[via TechEBlog]

Chewbacca ‘Pillow Pet’ Is The Stuff of Nightmares

Created in the likeness of everyone’s favorite Wookiee, the Chewbacca Pillow Pet Jumboz Plush (affiliate link) is the perfect companion for a young child that you never want to sleep again. I think it’s the vacant, dead eyes that really do it for me. They should have at least put teddy bear eyes in those sockets. Shoot, anything but those pitch-black, soul-stealing caverns.

The pillow measures approximately 14″ x 14″ x 14″ and unfastens to reveal the 30″ x 30″ stuffed Chewbacca mat/rug you’ve always dreamed of. In pillow form, though he looks like a cross between a Shih Tzu and a Wookiee, with the face of a snub-nosed monkey. My goodness, that face. Did I mention the eyes? I’ll be sleeping with a night light on tonight for sure, I don’t care if my wife makes fun of me.

Admittedly, I just bought one. But I am going to hot glue googly eyes on Chewie the moment he arrives? Yes, and if those googly eyes ever happen to come off and I see him without them, well, let’s just say it won’t be the first time I’ve ever smelled burning Wookiee fur (campfire accident on Kashyyyk – should have listened to Smokey).

[via DudeIWantThat]

Finally, A Pillow That Lets You Sleep With Your Head Inside Kirby’s Mouth

Kirby: he eats everything in sight. Including your bad dreams, thanks to this Kirby sleep pillow. Designed with a detachable tongue cushion, you can stick your head in Kirby’s mouth and just let all your daily woes slip away. The only thing that would make it better is if it had a white-noise machine that made a sucking sound.

Originally released by Bandai for $97, it appears all the official units have sold out and been replaced with units of… questionable authenticity on Amazon (affiliate link), albeit for a much more reasonable $23 – $28. Just remember that you get what you pay for, and in this case, you will be paying for a Pink Sucky Blob Pillow.

Obviously, we should try to get a leg-up on the trend and start selling Big Mouth Yellow Pellet Eater pillows before the officially licensed Pac-Man pillows even hit the market. Get rich quick scheme – or cease-and-desist scheme?! Probably the latter.

[via GeeksAreSexy]

With bright colors and blockish designs, this furniture collection makes the office playful!

If the OFIS Collection by chmara.rosinke vaguely reminds you of LEGO bricks, Minecraft, or Jenga, let it be known that it’s completely intentional! There’s a common consensus that making objects curved allows them to look less threatening and more playful, but the OFIS shows that if done right, the opposite is just as true!

Constructed from timber, and colored with strictly monochrome hues, the OFIS Collection’s furniture promotes a sense of fun and relaxation. The collection, which includes a swivel chair, a kneeling stool, desk, chaise-longue, and standing luminaire, follows a somewhat Constructivist-meets-Memphis 2.0 design approach, and questions everything we know about form and its relationship with comfort as well as spaces. Even the name OFIS flouts the traditional spelling, showing how the collection looks at reinterpreting our “professional” and “serious” relationship with our office and its artifacts. The collection debuted after the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the world, as a way of making the office appear more benign. As these professional workspaces began infiltrating our homes and sacred spaces, designers Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara felt the term ‘office furniture’ needed an absolute makeover. With the OFIS series of furniture, chmara.rosinke hope to ‘soften the edges’ of the ‘hard’-working attitude we’re supposed to embody at work… even though the furniture pieces themselves showcase hard, blocky, geometric forms!

Designers: Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara of Studio chmara.rosinke

Finally, The Banana Cat Bed Your Cats Have Been Meowing for

Cats: they’re particular. You buy them a fancy memory foam bed for $80 and they sleep in the sink. Enter the Banana Cat Bed, a plush, banana-shaped cat bed, complete with a peelable peel on top. I can close my eyes and already see my cat sleeping in the packaging it came in.

While available in a variety of sizes (18-inch small, $20; 22-inch medium, $25; 26-inch large, $30; and 36-inch extra-large, $41), it is not available in a variety of colors. It’s yellow or nothing.

What the – you’re not a cat! I suppose it also makes a decent dog bed, and not just for small dogs. I mean a 36-inch banana is a pretty big banana. Maybe not the biggest piece of produce I’ve ever seen, but I have been to some serious county fairs. But have I ever won a giant stuffed animal at the ring toss? Not even after throwing $350 of rings in a sitting.

Who knew Origami and Robotics were a match made in heaven!?

With two very unlikely reference points, origami and robotic actuators, Arnav Wagh’s robots mimic the dexterity of human hands, but actuated through hydraulic or pneumatic pumps. Developed as an experimentation in ‘soft robotics’, FLXO’s applications go far and wide. Using clever origami folding and readily available parts like actuators and pumps, FLXO helps democratize robotics, allowing people to experiment and tinker with the technology without relying on expensive machines and fabricated parts.

Wagh developed FLXO to be a budget-friendly yet effective way to work with soft robotics, and designed a system around it that allows you to quite easily put together your own robot in minutes. At the heart of FLXO are the different types of actuators, and their innovative origami sleeves that enable their unique movement. Whether you need components that bend, twist, or compress and expand in a linear path, FLXO’s 3D printed sleeves achieve all the aforementioned movements, and the actuators (which are compatible with VeX robotics kits) are designed to be modular, and can easily be assembled together to make anything from a human hand to a walking toy.

Still in its infancy, Wagh believes soft robotics is a exciting and emerging field, but still lacks universal accessibility. Designed to be as ubiquitous as LEGO, FLXO aims to bring soft robotics and its cornucopia of possibilities to anyone who wants to build robots that aren’t rigid in their design and approach, but are more organic and highly adaptive to their surroundings.

Designer: Arnav Wagh

MIT Soft Robotic Gripper Is Part Balloon Part Vacuum Cleaner

One day, robots will replace humans at places like Amazon where objects need to be taken from one bin and packaged in boxes for shipment. Before that can happen, we need robot arms with grippers that can handle odd objects of all sizes. Engineers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have come up with one such idea.

The “Magic Ball” soft gripper uses an origami-inspired 3D printed silicon rubber skeleton inside that is very flexible. Over the top of that, the team used a balloon in some instances to create an airtight system that can contract under vacuum pressure. When the suction is applied, the gripper closes and has enough strength to lift 100 times its own weight.

The gripper is also said to be inexpensive to make. It can lift items that are 70% of its diameter and handles fragile objects with care. I wonder if they could build a version that can grip and lift larger and heavier objects.

[via VentureBeat]