This Tiny House Builds a Covered Porch Into Its 30-Foot Frame

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Four feet of covered porch is a generous allocation when your entire home measures 30 feet long. Mint Tiny House Company gives that space to the Onyx 2630, a production tiny house on wheels that pairs an outdoor entrance with an open living area. The Canadian builder lists 26 feet of enclosed living space, plus the integrated deck.

That decision gives the house a recognizable front rather than a door dropped into the side of a trailer. Recessed beneath the roof, the porch creates a sheltered threshold with room for a chair. Black metal siding wraps the exterior, while a wood-look feature wall brings a warmer tone to the entrance. Mint specifies aluminum for that accent and composite decking underfoot.

Designer: Mint Tiny House Company

Inside, the strongest spatial move is overhead. The sleeping loft occupies one end of the house, leaving the lounge open to the pitched ceiling. Tall side windows and additional glazing above the entrance draw the eye upward. In Mint’s photographed interior, white wall paneling, pale wood trim, and a timber ceiling make the construction’s narrow proportions feel less visually insistent. You can still read the room’s width, but it isn’t the first thing demanding attention.

The lounge accommodates a sofa and small table without relying on a built-in seating platform. Opposite, a slim counter beneath the windows provides a place for two stools. That arrangement gives eating and sitting separate spots while keeping the center of the room available for circulation.

The kitchen continues along the side walls, combining black lower cabinets with white overhead storage and butcher block veneer countertops. Mint lists an 11-cubic-foot refrigerator, propane cooktop and oven, and microwave hood fan. A separate stretch of counter beside the refrigerator creates another preparation surface, so every kitchen task doesn’t have to happen around the sink. The photographed layout also places cabinets above that secondary counter.

At the far end, the bathroom sits beneath the loft. Its specified fittings include a 32-by-32-inch shower enclosure, vanity, and conventional flushing toilet. Grouping these enclosed functions at one end preserves the uninterrupted kitchen-to-lounge space, a straightforward planning choice that matters more here than another decorative flourish.

Upstairs, the loft fits a queen mattress, with open cubbies forming a partial divider along its edge. The shelves provide storage without completely blocking the connection to the room below. Access is by ladder, though, so the saved floor space comes with a daily climb. This isn’t a layout for someone who needs step-free sleeping accommodation.

The Onyx’s appeal lies in that allocation of space: a porch outside, headroom over the lounge, and a compact sleeping area above the services. It leaves fewer enclosed feet downstairs, but gives those remaining feet distinct uses.

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Corteiz x Nike Shox R419 “Game Royal” first look, releasing late 2026 for $190

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There are a few collaborations that are as meaningful as the one involving Corteiz and Nike. The partnership between the London-based independent streetwear brand, founded by Clint419, and the footwear giant is considered one of the most prominent partnerships in modern streetwear culture.

The two stalwarts have, after many previous outings with the Air Max 95s and other sneaker collabs, now dropped a brand-new collection of the Shox R419, which will be available in black, metallic silver, and this now-unveiled royal blue variant. Nike Shox R4, which the sneaker is based on, is an unconventional silhouette with mechanical cushioning technology originally released in 2000. In the partnership release, Corteiz has reworked the Nike Shox R4 to give it a distinctive design and thoughtful detailing, making it more of a standout than mere inspiration.

Designer: Nike

According to the images, the Shox R419 maintains the unique shape of the original silhouette, but is overhauled to strike a distinct charm, which footwear enthusiasts would appreciate. The initial glimpse of the collaborative sneaker was provided via the Corteiz Instagram handle, where the metallic silver version of the shoe was shown off in a creative ad.

Now the first look of the new Corteiz x Nike Shox R419 “Game Royal” is revealed and the colorway reportedly will retail along with a back and the metallic silver options. The Shox R419 is scheduled to release during the 2026 Holiday season for a $190 tag, with raised horizontal carbon fiber paneling around the toe box and side profiles.

Other than the redefined ridges, the silhouette retains the original pair’s signature Shox cushioning columns at the heel, which, of course, is the defining aspect of the sneaker. The royal blue colorway is highlighted with a red “C” logo on the tongue, and a translucent window at the heel reveals internal “R419” lettering. The automotive aesthetics of the sneaker are not only visible on the upper, but you can also find multi-colored engine graphics on the footbed.

The Corteiz x Nike partnership is reportedly not only about footwear. It is expected to extend beyond the sneakers. Rumors suggest a complete collaborative apparel collection is on the way. It could comprise tracksuits, shorts, technical vests, and more. Of course, as the apparel is part of the collection centered around the Shox R419, these would be designed to complement the footwear.

The Corteiz x Nike Shox R4 doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, but it’s slated to drop toward the end of the year with a retail price of $190. The revamped silhouette is expected to arrive in three teased colorways. If you’re interested, keep an eye out for release date updates, as new information could surface at any time.

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This palm-sized robot dog has a Nokia battery and a customizable LEGO-compatible back

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Petoi has been shrinking Boston Dynamics down to desk size for almost a decade now. Dr. Rongzhong Li started the company in his dorm lab in 2016, after a video of his open-source robot cat prototype went viral. That cat became Nybble, a laser-cut wooden kitty, and it was followed by Bittle, a palm-sized robot dog that ended up in classrooms, research labs, and a surprising number of home offices. Petoi says it has shipped more than 30,000 robots to over 60 countries, all running its open-source OpenCat framework. Each new model has gotten smaller, smarter, and easier to build, which brings us to the newest pup in the litter.

Meet Quaddle, a palm-sized robot dog that walks, glides, spins, and does backflips using just four servos. That’s half what Bittle uses in its legs and roughly a third of what most quadrupeds need, thanks to a spring-loaded linkage Petoi calls the MinDoF leg, which lets one motor drive both the shoulder and the knee. It weighs about 6 ounces, snaps together without screws, and takes LEGO bricks on its back. You can teach it tricks by physically moving its legs, chat with it, or code it in anything from beginner blocks to ROS. Prices start at $179, which is pretty reasonable for a dog that never needs walking.

Designer: Petoi

How one servo runs an entire leg

Each of Quaddle’s legs hangs off a single servo, with a spring and a four-bar linkage doing the job a second motor normally would. As the servo swings the upper leg, the linkage folds the knee up and straightens it again, turning one rotating shaft into a proper step. Petoi calls this the MinDoF leg, short for Minimal Degrees of Freedom, a degree of freedom being one independent way a joint can move. The spring clips onto different anchor points, changing how stiff or bouncy each leg feels. In Petoi’s tabletop tests, Quaddle walks about one body length per second, turns 90° in a single step cycle, and climbs onto a ledge as tall as its own knee.

Walking machines driven by a single crank go back to Pafnuty Chebyshev, the Russian mathematician whose 1870s linkage turned rotation into a surprisingly lifelike stride. Theo Jansen’s wind-powered Strandbeests on Dutch beaches run on the same basic idea, and Quaddle feels like their tiny, battery-powered cousin. Petoi added one more trick by fitting small bearings to the tips of the feet. Angle the legs just right and those bearings become wheels, letting Quaddle glide across a smooth desk at around three body lengths per second without a single extra motor. Fewer motors also means less weight, less cost, and less battery drain, which is how the whole dog comes in at roughly 6 ounces.

Teach it tricks by hand, then teach it in code

On the Buddy and Scout models, every leg servo reports its position back to the robot, so you can teach Quaddle a move by simply grabbing its legs. Tap to start recording, guide the legs through whatever silly dance you have in mind, and tap again to have it play the motion back. There’s no app or code involved, and Petoi says you can teach it a basic walk in about ten seconds. Recorded moves can be pulled into Petoi’s Skill Composer software for fine-tuning and shared with other Quaddle owners. For a kid, this is probably the fastest route from “I wonder if” to a robot actually doing the thing.

Buddy and Scout split their thinking across two ESP32-S3 chips, one for motion and balance and one for voice chat and smart home control. A physical slide switch cuts power to the AI chip entirely, which is great for privacy and for days when your robot dog gets a bit too chatty. Coding starts with drag-and-drop blocks, moves to Python or MicroPython, and eventually reaches the Arduino C++ firmware. Bigger projects can mount a Raspberry Pi Zero on its back or plug into ROS, the software framework most research robots run on. A browser-based simulator runs the same code as the real robot, so you can test ideas on a laptop or even a phone with no robot in sight.

LEGO bricks, a Nokia battery, and three Quaddles to pick from

The top of Quaddle’s shell takes LEGO bricks, and Petoi will publish printable shells and mounts for anyone with a 3D printer. Petoi’s own demos have turned it into a walking LEGO AT-AT, a waddling biped called the NanoDuck, and a rover on Mecanum wheels, which use angled rollers to slide sideways. Power comes from a swappable Nokia-format phone battery, the same BL-5C shape that lived inside Nokia’s famously indestructible early-2000s handsets. Quaddle ships with the bigger 1,800 mAh BL-10C cell, good for roughly 1 to 1.5 hours of walking depending on the model. Plug it into USB-C while you code and it charges as it runs, so marathon debugging sessions are fair game.

Builder PLUS ($179) handles walking and coding, Buddy ($219) adds AI chat and teach-by-hand, and Scout ($269) adds a sensor head that detects gestures, light, distance, and people. All three are priced at $144, $175, and $215, with deliveries starting in December. For context, Petoi’s own Bittle X lists at $279, Unitree’s Go2 starts around $1,600, and Sony’s Aibo launched in the US at $2,900. Petoi spent a decade shrinking big robots down to desk size, and Quaddle shows the smartest way to shrink one further is to give it fewer parts.

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