Vortx is a ridiculous machine. On the surface, it's a $120 desktop fan — a bulky black box with a hole in the front that blows air at people's faces as they play PC games or watch YouTube videos. However, things get much more interesting on a s...
Designer Chanmi Lee rethinks home entertainment in an all-new, never-before-seen format known as the Wind Sound Bar. Don’t be confused by the name, however… this is anything but the sound bar you’re probably imagining. The design adopts a shape similar to that of a trumpet or other wind instrument – a familiar form for an unfamiliar functionality! Usable as a pendant-style system over living room seating or as a wall-mounted unit, it envelopes the user in 360 degrees of high definition audio to accompany TV entertainment or stream a favorite playlist. More sculptural than it is electronic looking, it is a far cry from the technical aesthetic of any traditional soundbar.
Designer: Chanmi Lee
If You are a fan of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest creations, you are going to love this. A recently released video shows off the evolution of his mechanical creatures, and there’s also a video of the new UMINAMI model he created this year.
Just in case you aren’t familiar with these majestic man-made beasts, Strandbeests are skeletal structures made from plastic tubing that walk along the beach, and are powered by the wind.
It’s interesting to see all of the different versions that he has made and how far these beasts have come over the years. People love these unique creations because they are creative, magical and full of wonder. If you ask me, Jansen’s latest design is his best yet. It looks pretty graceful doing its thing. The UMINAMI is not only graceful, but it looks fast too.
Theo says that he eventually wants “to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.” I think that a herd of these things might be a bit creepy, but I really want to see that now. You know, someday some race is going to dig these up from the dirt and think they were the skeletons of living beasts.
[via Boing Boing via Geekologie]
Made for extreme outdoor conditions, the Peakboil stove doesn’t only work in the harshest of winds, it actually is optimized to boil your liquids faster than usual. Designed by the students at ETH Zurich, the Peakboil is a 3D printed stove and jug with a specially designed burner and chimney system. A series of Venturi nozzles on the burner use localized pressure differentials to feed the flames inside the combustion chamber, which is protected from wind by high sides and a narrow top chimney. The stylized chimney walls increase the surface area, allowing more heat to be provided to the liquid within the container, increasing its temperature substantially faster than a regular stove and kettle.
The entire jug and burner system are 3D printed, to achieve their specialized design. The complex, single-piece combustion chamber couldn’t be manufactured using conventional techniques, and is only possible via additive manufacturing. Selective laser melting was used to fuse metal powder together in layers just 1/30th of a millimeter thick, and to progressively create 3D details from scratch.
Designer: ETH Zurich
