Tag Archives: A’ Design Award and Competition

This Kevlar Medical Brace Folds Flat Like Origami and Might Finally Kill the Plaster Cast

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What do Swiss timepieces and sailing rigging systems have in common with orthopedic braces? More than you might think. The engineers at Osteoid drew inspiration from these precision mechanical systems to create Bracesys, a revolutionary approach to fracture immobilization that challenges everything we thought we knew about medical casts.

Traditional plaster casts have remained largely unchanged for over a century. Off-the-shelf braces offer convenience but rarely fit properly. Custom 3D-printed alternatives require expensive scanners, lengthy production times, and specialized expertise. Bracesys sidesteps all these limitations with an adjustable framework of segmented units, articulating connectors, and tension dials. The entire system weighs just 150 grams and folds flat into an envelope, yet provides rigid support comparable to traditional casts. More remarkably, clinicians can customize it to each patient’s anatomy in real time, adjusting the fit as swelling decreases and healing progresses.

Designer: Osteoid Design Team

Kevlar cables run through the framework and get tightened via integrated dials, borrowing directly from sailing rigging where distributed tension points create precise control. Yacht rigging achieves massive structural loads through this exact principle. Osteoid just applied it to wrist immobilization. The framework comes from SLS and MJF 3D printing with medical-grade Nylon 12, reinforced at stress points with CNC-machined aluminum and stainless steel. This hybrid manufacturing approach delivers geometric complexity for anatomical conformity while keeping structural integrity where loads concentrate. Pure injection molding couldn’t achieve these organic shapes. Pure 3D printing couldn’t handle the forces.

Over 600 anonymized CT scans went into the sizing methodology, processed through AI-driven segmentation and implicit skinning algorithms that map soft tissue deformation around bone structures. Principal Component Analysis crunched all that data into four standardized sizes covering the 5th to 95th percentile of hand and wrist anatomy. You’re getting semi-custom fit from off-the-shelf components, which anyone in medical device design will tell you is brutally difficult to pull off. Manufacturing needs standardization for scale. Patients need personalization for outcomes. Most companies pick one and live with the compromise.

A typical Colles fracture brace measures 190 x 90 x 115 mm assembled but breaks down completely flat into an A4 envelope. Clinicians wrap it around the limb loose, let the segmented units find their natural anatomical alignment, then use screwdriver-sized tools to adjust connector lengths and tighten the tension dials incrementally. Spring-loaded quick-release pins handle adjustments as swelling changes during recovery. The whole initial fitting takes minutes. I keep coming back to that speed because custom 3D-printed orthotics need weeks of turnaround, and drugstore braces fit approximately nobody correctly. This lands right in the middle with none of the usual tradeoffs.

Every plaster cast is single-use. Every prefab brace eventually becomes landfill. Traditional orthopedic devices generate waste at a scale that should embarrass the industry but somehow doesn’t. Bracesys uses recyclable materials throughout, sterilizes for reuse in clinical settings, and lets you replace individual components rather than trashing the whole assembly. I’m usually cynical about sustainability claims in medical devices because they often conflict with clinical needs or regulatory requirements. This actually works because better economics and better outcomes align with lower waste. Nobody has to sacrifice anything.

We shouldn’t still be using plaster casts in 2026. The technology to do better has existed for decades. The problem has always been the gap between custom fabrication costs and mass production constraints. Most attempts at solving this try to make manufacturing cheaper or faster. Bracesys flips that entirely by making adjustability the core feature and shipping that capability to the point of care. You’re not customizing during manufacturing. You’re customizing during application. That philosophical shift matters more than any individual mechanical innovation. If orthopedic practices actually start using this widely, we might finally kill off a medical technology that’s been coasting on pure inertia since the 1800s. It’s time we ‘brace’ for change…

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Inside the Cheetos Cheesyverse: How PepsiCo Turned a Snack Brand into an Immersive Theme Park

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In July 2024, an event in Mexico City called the Cheetos Cheesy Verse invited people to experience the Cheetos brand in person. The large installation, designed by PepsiCo, featured ten rooms, each with a unique theme. The concept was to create a fun, explorable space that represented the personality of the brand’s different snacks.

Each room was based on a specific Cheetos product, with distinct visuals and activities. For example, some rooms used hypnotic patterns and bright colors, while others were themed around concepts like Hollywood or sports. The overall project was a success, creating a memorable experience for visitors and winning an A’ Design Award for its interior and exhibition design.

Designer: PepsiCo Design and Innovation

The design here is so visually dense that it commands your full attention. Every surface is covered in saturated oranges, hypnotic swirls, or bold cheetah spots, creating a total environment that feels completely detached from the outside world. This level of immersion is a deliberate choice, engineered to produce highly shareable content. The entire experience is a meticulously crafted backdrop for social media, and that’s not a criticism; it’s a recognition of a very shrewd and effective design objective.

Executing on that objective is the hard part, and it’s where a lot of brands stumble. It’s one thing to have a mood board, but it’s another to translate the “personality” of Cheetos Poffs into a physical space without it feeling forced. The team got around this by anchoring each room to a strong cultural reference. The “Palomitaswood” concept is a perfect example; it’s a clever, immediate signifier for a Hollywood-themed popcorn room. It’s this kind of smart, efficient world-building that elevates the project beyond just a collection of cool-looking sets.

 

You can see this thinking in every detail. Visitors walk in, take photos against the incredible backdrops, and share them, effectively becoming the brand’s marketing department for the day. Look at the photo with the Shiba Inu; that’s a calculated nod to internet culture, designed to resonate with a specific audience. It shows a deep understanding of how visual trends propagate online, which is essential for making an investment like this pay off. This is what a modern marketing ecosystem looks like.

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This Grand Piano Has a 20″ Touchscreen, and a Design Worthy Of A Supercar Showroom

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The grand piano has remained visually unchanged for generations, its familiar silhouette a fixture in concert halls and living rooms worldwide. Mohammad Limucci saw this consistency differently. Rather than accepting the traditional form as immutable, he recognized an opportunity to evolve the instrument’s aesthetic while preserving its acoustic soul. His creation, the Porochista Piano, applies automotive design principles to classical craftsmanship.

Measuring 8.7 by 6.2 feet, Porochista combines glass, metal, and matte black composites in flowing organic shapes reminiscent of Luigi Colani’s biomorphic philosophy. The rear section appears to float, creating visual tension between sculptural ambition and structural stability. A large integrated touchscreen offers digital functionality without compromising the acoustic purity professional pianists demand. This fusion of old and new earned recognition at the A’ Design Award, where judges appreciated its ability to attract modern design enthusiasts while respecting the instrument’s heritage. Porochista suggests what tradition might become when filtered through contemporary vision.

Designer: Mohammad Limucci

Designers slap touchscreens onto everything from refrigerators to bathroom mirrors these days, usually with results that make you question basic decision-making processes. A grand piano sporting what looks like a 20-inch display sounds like exactly that kind of misguided thinking. But Limucci clearly studied how supercar manufacturers like Pagani and Koenigsegg integrate function into form, where every curve serves both aerodynamic purpose and visual drama. That swept-back lid with its silver trim could’ve been lifted from a hypercar’s active aero system. The base, with its angular cutouts and geometric voids, solves the eternal design problem of making something massive feel light without actually compromising structural integrity. The solution here involves actual engineering rather than visual tricks.

The Colani influence runs deep, and anyone familiar with the German designer’s work will spot it immediately. Those seamless transitions between surfaces, the way hard edges soften into organic curves, the sense that this object could achieve flight velocity if you just gave it a runway. Colani designed everything from trucks to cameras using the same biomorphic language, always asking why objects should have corners when nature abhors them. Limucci applies that thinking to an instrument that’s been geometrically rigid since the 1700s. Production apparently requires CNC machining and molding techniques borrowed from automotive manufacturing, which makes sense given the compound curves involved. You can’t slap veneer on particleboard and achieve forms like these.

The touchscreen integration could’ve gone full sci-fi nightmare, all glowing edges and pulsing LEDs, but instead it sits flush and purposeful. The digital features (recording, playback, animated notation display) address actual pianist needs rather than adding gimmicks for marketing bullet points. There’s even a hidden compartment up top that slides out to hold sheet music, activated by touching a specific spot. That level of detail suggests someone actually thought about how musicians interact with their instruments over hours of practice, not just how the thing photographs for Instagram. The matte black finish with those copper-toned pedal details visible through the base cutouts gives it presence without screaming for attention, which is harder to achieve than it sounds.

Tehran to Zagreb doesn’t seem like an obvious design pipeline, but apparently that’s where this concept gestated. Whether it ever reaches production remains the question nobody’s answering yet, though the A’ Design Award recognition certainly helps with credibility. The manufacturing complexity alone suggests this won’t be competing with Yamahas at your local music store. Still, seeing someone finally treat piano design with the same innovative energy that automotive and consumer electronics enjoy feels overdue. Professional musicians deserve instruments that fit contemporary spaces without looking like props from period dramas.

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This Intelligent Pet Exoskeleton Helps Injured Dogs Relearn Movement on Their Own Terms

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Watching a dog struggle to walk is quietly heartbreaking. Movement, for animals, is not just mobility. It is freedom, confidence, and joy. The Pet Power Assistive Exoskeleton was born from this understanding, blending emotional insight with advanced engineering to create a rehabilitation solution that truly listens to the animal it supports.

The project’s inspiration traces back to a news report on prosthetic limbs designed for disabled pets. While well-intentioned, many of these solutions revealed clear shortcomings. They were passive, rigid, and often uncomfortable, offering limited support beyond basic mobility. This realization became deeply personal when the designer cared for their own dog after a hindlimb injury. Seeing firsthand how difficult recovery could be for an animal exposed a larger issue. Modern rehabilitation technology has evolved rapidly for humans, yet animal care continues to rely on simplified, often outdated aids. This gap sparked a mission to extend intelligent, humane rehabilitation into veterinary practice.

Designer: Leijing Zhou

Instead of forcing movement, the Pet Power Assistive Exoskeleton focuses on understanding intention. Borrowing principles from active exoskeleton systems used in stroke rehabilitation, the device uses surface electromyographic sensors to read muscle signals from a dog’s healthy forelimb. As the dog initiates movement, these signals are analyzed in real time to predict how the impaired hindlimb should move. The system then activates precise mechanical assistance, synchronizing the injured leg with the dog’s natural gait.

This approach transforms rehabilitation into a cooperative process rather than a mechanical correction. The dog leads, and the technology follows, creating movement that feels natural, fluid, and instinctive. By aligning assistance with intention, the exoskeleton reduces strain, encourages correct gait patterns, and supports faster, more confident recovery.

Personalization is central to the design philosophy. Every dog has a unique body, posture, and injury profile, so the exoskeleton is created using advanced 3D printing based on individual body scans. This ensures a tailored fit that distributes weight evenly and avoids discomfort. Carefully selected materials such as lightweight structural components, soft memory foam padding, and non slip contact surfaces prioritize comfort, stability, and long term wearability. This makes the device suitable not only for clinical rehabilitation but also for everyday use.

Developed between 2023 and March 2025 in Hangzhou, the project required extensive research and experimentation. One of the greatest challenges was interpreting muscle signals in animals, an area with little existing data or standardized methods. Translating raw biological signals into reliable movement predictions demanded repeated field testing, iterative modeling, and close observation of real canine behavior. Equally complex was balancing strength and comfort, designing a structure robust enough to assist movement while remaining gentle and non restrictive.

Ultimately, the Pet Power Assistive Exoskeleton represents more than a technical innovation. It reflects a shift in how we think about animal care, recognizing pets not as passive recipients of aid, but as active participants in their own recovery. By merging empathy with intelligent technology, this project restores more than mobility. It protects dignity, independence, and the simple joy of movement.

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This Yacht is actually powered by a Detachable Jet-ski

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Jet skis rip through water with ridiculous speed and agility. They’re also terrible at everything else. Try bringing friends along for the ride, or packing anything beyond a phone in a waterproof case. Yachts fix the space issue completely, but they cost a small fortune and require actual skills to operate. Spanish designer Amor Jimenez Chito created the One 16 to split the difference: it’s a six-meter boat powered by a jet ski that detaches when you want to go full throttle solo. The design won the Golden A’ Design Award for 2025, which apparently goes to projects that solve problems nobody else bothered to address.

The engineering is surprisingly straightforward. Your jet ski slots into the hull and becomes the propulsion system for the entire boat. The plug-and-play setup works with major jet ski brands, so you can use whatever you already own or prefer. Six people fit comfortably on deck, where a convertible bow switches between table mode and sunbathing platform depending on the vibe. The hull keeps weight distributed properly so the whole thing stays stable instead of feeling like you strapped a picnic table to a rocket. You get two vehicles in one without paying marina fees for two vehicles. That’s the entire pitch, and it actually makes sense.

Designer: Amor Jimenez Chito

This kind of modularity has been tried before, usually with clunky results that looked like a science fair project gone wrong. The reason the One 16 works, at least conceptually, is that it doesn’t try to hide what it is. The jet ski integration is a core feature, not an afterthought. Chito’s background in industrial design engineering clearly shows in the execution, where the docking mechanism appears both robust and user-friendly. Making it compatible with Sea-Doo, Yamaha, and Kawasaki from the get-go is the smartest decision they could have made. It bypasses the proprietary ecosystem trap and opens the concept up to the entire existing PWC market, which is a massive advantage.

Of course, the real test is how it handles chop with a 300-horsepower jet ski bolted into its spine. The weight distribution is supposedly optimized, but there’s a big difference between a CAD rendering and a windy afternoon on the water. Aesthetically, it’s clean and inoffensive, which is probably the right call for a product aiming for broad appeal. It won’t turn heads like a Wally tender, but it’s not supposed to. The One 16 is a clever piece of problem-solving that prioritizes function over form. It’s a utility player, a waterborne multitool for people who want more options without owning an entire fleet.

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A Vertical Farm Skyscraper Reimagines Chicago’s Skyline as a Living Food Ecosystem

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Imagine standing in Chicago, looking up at a skyline that does not just symbolize power and progress, but nourishment. A skyline where fresh lettuce grows a few floors above your head, rainwater is harvested from the clouds, and the architecture itself works quietly to heal long standing urban inequities. This project dares to ask a radical question. What if skyscrapers did not just house people, but fed them?

At the heart of this proposal lies a deeply human problem. Food deserts. Across Chicago, many low income neighborhoods struggle to access affordable, nutritious food. Grocery stores are scarce, fresh produce is often out of reach, and fast food becomes the default not by choice, but by circumstance. These conditions have fueled health disparities and reinforced socio economic divides for decades. Rather than treating this as a policy issue alone, the project reframes it as an architectural opportunity.

Designers: Yuhan Zhang and Dreama Simeng Lin

Programmatically, the tower integrates vertical farming directly into its core, transforming food production into an essential urban utility. Instead of transporting produce from distant rural farms, food is grown locally within the city, within the building, and within reach. The skyscraper becomes a self sustaining ecosystem, drastically reducing carbon footprints while restoring food access to the communities that need it most.

Formally, the building draws inspiration from one of Chicago’s most defining natural elements. Water. The tower’s fluid, organic silhouette mirrors the geometry of a water droplet, symbolizing renewal, continuity, and resilience. This form is not just poetic. It extends Chicago’s green belt upward, turning the skyline into a vertical landscape. Nature is no longer pushed to the city’s edges. It rises with it.

Life inside the tower unfolds as a fully integrated vertical community. Residential units sit alongside commercial spaces, allowing people to live, work, and socialize without leaving the structure. Hotels offer short term stays and panoramic views, contributing to both cultural exchange and economic vitality. Schools are embedded throughout the tower, weaving education into daily life rather than isolating it at ground level. Sky terraces appear at multiple heights, acting as social lungs. Green, open spaces where residents gather, relax, and reconnect with nature. These terraces sustain every function of the tower, fostering interaction, wellness, and a sense of shared ownership.

Sustainability is not an add on here. It is the backbone. Vertical farms housed within the core supply fresh produce. Cloud harvesting and rainwater collection systems are seamlessly integrated into the façade, ensuring efficient water reuse. Wind turbines embedded along the exoskeleton generate renewable energy, while a breathable atrium and natural ventilation system enhanced by a diagrid structural framework maximize airflow and daylight. The result is a building that does not merely coexist with nature, but actively collaborates with it.

Structurally, the tower is composed of four conjoined vertical volumes, laterally supported by two layers of bracing that increase depth and resilience. A diagrid exoskeleton spans 25 story modules, weaving fluid structural lines that integrate mega bracing with lateral stability. This strategy allows for a generous inner void, flooding the tower with light and air while reinforcing its architectural clarity.

The project also represents an ambitious research endeavor. Integrating agriculture into a mile high skyscraper demanded innovative thinking around energy efficiency, water cycles, and food systems. Balancing extreme structural demands with green technologies like cloud harvesting and passive ventilation pushed engineering boundaries. Most importantly, research into food deserts grounded the project in real social needs, ensuring that sustainability here is not symbolic, but equitable.

Positioned as a future icon for the next fifty years, this tower reimagines what urban architecture can be. It suggests a future where buildings do not just shelter cities. They sustain them. Where the skyline does not just inspire awe. It feeds the body, the community, and the planet.

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Handcrafted Porcelain Dinnerware Redefines Everyday Dining Through Craft, Light, and Ritual

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Porcelain dinnerware has long been shaped by the logic of industrial production. Uniform forms, limited color palettes, and standardized finishes dominate the contemporary table, reducing porcelain to a neutral backdrop rather than an active part of the dining experience. This porcelain dinner set positions itself in deliberate contrast to that reality. It proposes a quieter, more thoughtful vision in which craft, material honesty, and visual sensitivity redefine how everyday meals are experienced.

At the core of the design lies a simple but powerful idea: food presentation should be as engaging as flavor. Dining is not only an act of nourishment, but also one of attention, rhythm, and atmosphere. By merging handcrafted processes with functional versatility, the set bridges modern living and nostalgic familiarity. It feels contemporary in its restraint, yet warm in its tactile and visual language.

Designer: Monte Porcelain

The collection consists of four pieces designed as a cohesive system: a glass, a bowl, a deep plate known as the Saturn plate, and a service or supla plate. Rather than assigning each object a single rigid purpose, the designer embraced multi-use functionality. This approach reflects evolving dining habits, where objects are expected to adapt fluidly across meals, occasions, and spaces.

The glass is conceived as more than a vessel for drinks. Its form allows it to function equally well as a dessert or snack bowl, encouraging informal and flexible use. The bowl supports a wide range of meals, from soup and salad to breakfast cereal and hot appetizers. Along its upper edge, engraved firefly patterns introduce a subtle decorative layer. These motifs are filled with glaze, ensuring a smooth, sealed surface that interacts gently with light, adding depth without distracting from the food itself.

The Saturn plate is designed for both sauced and non-sauced dishes, such as pasta and main courses. Its flat-edged form frames the food cleanly, while the patterned base enriches the visual composition of the plate. The service plate anchors the set, offering generous proportions suitable for main course presentations or layered pasta services. Together, the four pieces create a table setting that is expressive yet balanced.

Material integrity and production ethics play a central role in the project. White porcelain, often referred to as bone porcelain, was selected for its suitability for food contact, durability, and timeless visual quality. Each piece was cast using high-quality porcelain clay in plaster molds, then fired at 1230 degrees with transparent glaze. The firefly patterns were engraved using a special technique and selectively colored or left transparent, allowing light to pass through while remaining fully sealed and hygienic.

The project was developed over an eight-month period, beginning in June 2024 and completed in February 2025 at the Monte Porcelain Ayvalık Workshop. Every stage of production was carried out by hand, including molding, casting, glazing, and painting. Throughout the process, a fair production approach was maintained, with careful consideration for environmental responsibility and respect for nature. No living creatures were harmed at any stage.

Dishwasher safe, food safe, and designed for long-term daily use, the set demonstrates that handcrafted objects can be both poetic and practical. Recognized within international design contexts such as the A’ Design Award & Competition, this dinnerware collection repositions porcelain as an active participant in the dining ritual. It invites users to slow down, notice light and texture, and rediscover the quiet pleasure of thoughtfully designed everyday objects.

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This Dinosaur-Shaped Cat Bowl Reimagines Feeding as a Thoughtful Daily Ritual

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In a market saturated with look-alike pet products, the Decopark Dino Bowl stands out by asking a deceptively simple question: What does feeding actually look like, for both cats and their humans? From that question emerges a ceramic object that blends ergonomics, storytelling, and quiet functional innovation into a single, memorable form.

At first glance, the Dino Bowl reads as charming and whimsical. Its silhouette resembles a small dinosaur mid-stride, with its neck arched forward and its spine visible along the back. However, this visual identity is not decorative excess; it is a design serving multiple purposes simultaneously. The bowl’s cylindrical form is bent at the center to create a slanted feeding surface, improving a cat’s eating posture. The “spine” at the back, meanwhile, is not just an aesthetic flourish: it is a fully integrated stir stick, transforming a playful metaphor into a practical tool.

Designer: Xueyong Liang

The designers behind the Dino Bowl began with observation. Research revealed two critical gaps in existing ceramic pet bowls: visual homogeneity and a lack of consideration for real feeding routines. Many cat owners regularly feed canned food, which requires mixing, yet most bowls offer no solution for this step. The result? Extra tools, cluttered countertops, and frequently misplaced stir sticks.

The Dino Bowl addresses this head-on by merging bowl and tool into one cohesive unit. The attached stir stick slots neatly into an insertion hole at the rear of the bowl, always returning to the correct orientation regardless of how it is placed. During feeding, it assists with mixing; afterward, it wipes clean and stores seamlessly back into the form. No extra parts, no visual disruption.

This integration is where the project’s core innovation lies: recognizing that usability is not just about the primary function (holding food), but about the entire micro-ritual surrounding it. Material choice plays a crucial role in translating this idea into a durable object. The bowl itself is made from high-temperature fired ceramic, giving it weight, stability, and a premium tactile quality. At 1kg, the bowl resists sliding during use, another subtle nod to feline behavior. The stir stick, crafted from PP, balances durability with ease of cleaning.

Designing a slanted ceramic rim, however, introduced a technical challenge. During firing, asymmetrical forms are prone to deformation. To counter this, the designers engineered a double-layer rim structure, reinforcing the edge while preserving the intended silhouette. Multiple iterations were required to refine both the curvature of the bowl and the fit between the stir stick and its housing, ensuring harmony not only in appearance but also in manufacturing reliability. The result is a one-piece ceramic form that feels intentional from every angle, cute, yes, but also structurally resolved.

Pet products occupy a unique space in design: they must satisfy animals ergonomically while appealing emotionally to humans. The Dino Bowl leans into this duality. User research indicated that owners are strongly drawn to playful shapes, especially in objects that live openly in the home. By referencing a dinosaur, an instantly recognizable, almost universally beloved figure, the bowl becomes more than a utility item. It becomes a character.

Yet the designers were careful not to let novelty overpower function. Every line, proportion, and junction was calibrated to maintain unity between bowl and stir stick, ensuring the product reads as a single, holistic object rather than an accessory-laden gimmick. With overall dimensions of 168 × 140 × 164 mm and a bowl capacity of 115 ml, the Dino Bowl is compact yet substantial, suited to everyday feeding without overwhelming a space. More importantly, it demonstrates how even the most ordinary household objects can be reimagined through careful attention to behavior, context, and form.

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MagSafe Breadboard Turns Your iPhone Into a Circuit Prototyping Lab

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Show me another MagSafe breadboard. I’ll wait. Kevin Yang’s Commi Board is the only one, and that alone tells you something about how design students occasionally see opportunities that entire industries miss. The engineering is smarter than it looks: instead of embedding a full microcontroller and battery into a phone accessory, Yang uses GPIO communication to let your smartphone handle the processing. Your phone already has more power than an Arduino Mega, better connectivity than most dev boards, and a screen you actually want to look at. Commi Board just provides the physical interface for components and the software to make it work. You get four programming methods ranging from conversational AI to a proper IDE, real-time circuit validation, and a small display that shows execution status. Dimensions are tight: 62mm by 98mm when installed, with the board itself at 62mm by 82mm when detached.

The color scheme gives strong Flipper Zero vibes, but there’s a key difference between that infamous pen-testing tool and this humble breadboard. Flipper wants to be everything: NFC reader, IR blaster, sub-GHz radio, GPIO interface, and more. Commi Board has a tighter scope and probably benefits from that focus. It’s specifically for prototyping circuits and validating code, not for pentesting your neighbor’s garage door. The modular design splits into the breadboard surface and a MagSafe mounting frame with that distinctive ring cutout for phone cameras. Everything connects through USB-C 3.2, BLE, or Bluetooth, and the cloud storage means you can start a project on your phone and pick it up later without dealing with local file management. Yang has a working theoretical PCB prototype with tested connectivity, though the full API integration is still in mockup phase. For a student project that started in June 2024, this is surprisingly far along.

Designer: Kevin Yang

Most IoT hardware tries to do everything and ends up mediocre at all of it. You get a device with its own processor, battery, screen, and connectivity stack, essentially rebuilding a worse version of the phone already in your pocket. Yang went the opposite direction. Commi Board is parasitic by design, borrowing your phone’s computational power, display, internet connection, and power management. What remains is pure interface: holes for components, GPIO pins for communication, and minimal onboard electronics to translate between physical circuits and software. This approach means lower weight, cheaper manufacturing, and no battery degradation to worry about in three years. After 3 years, swap your phone, but continue your tinkering. Sounds almost revolutionary, no?

You can tell Yang actually built and tested this thing because of how the modular split works. Sometimes you want the board magnetically stuck to your phone for portable testing. Other times you need it detached because your circuit blocks the camera or needs more space to breathe. The MagSafe frame has that circular cutout positioned exactly where iPhone camera arrays sit, which matters more than it sounds. Misalign that by a few millimeters and the magnetic connection feels sketchy. The orange border serves double duty as brand identity and a visual indicator of where the two pieces separate. Good industrial design makes functional divisions obvious without needing instruction manuals, and this pulls it off cleanly.

Four programming methods cover a wide range of experience levels, from ‘never touched circuitry in my life’ to ‘I ship builds and hardware for a living.’ Beginners can type “make an LED blink every second” and watch AI spit out working code. That builds intuition about syntax without requiring fluency first, which is how people actually learn instead of how computer science departments think they should learn. Visual block programming handles the intermediate phase where you understand logic flow but typing semicolons still feels unnatural. Puzzle-piece interfaces work surprisingly well for teaching conditionals because the physical constraints mirror logical ones. Then there’s the full IDE for anyone comfortable with text editors or shipping actual products. Most educational platforms force you to switch ecosystems as you level up, losing all your previous projects in the migration. This keeps you on the same hardware using the same project files, just changing how you communicate with the circuits.

Yang claims GPIO communication lets the phone simulate most microcontrollers, which holds up for Arduino-class applications but gets questionable under pressure. Smartphones have absurd amounts of raw compute, but they run full operating systems with schedulers and background processes that introduce latency. Blinking LEDs and reading sensors? Totally fine. Tight timing loops or bit-banging niche protocols? You’ll probably hit walls. The spec sheet lists USB-C 3.2 alongside Bluetooth and BLE, which tells me Yang ran into exactly these problems during development. USB-C handles the demanding stuff while Bluetooth covers casual wireless control. That’s the kind of tiered connectivity you see from someone who tested their assumptions and had to architect around reality.

And the Commi Board comes with cloud storage too, allowing you to save your projects/builds/experiments in a secure place that isn’t bound to your phone. Imagine the alternative – you get inspired, start wiring something up, then life happens and three weeks later you can’t remember which transistor you needed or where you saved that working code. Friction kills momentum harder than technical difficulty does. Being able to pull up a half-finished project on your phone while standing in a component aisle trying to remember your parts list solves a real problem. The project-sharing community is obviously coming next, which transforms this from a standalone product into a platform. If Yang opens the API properly for third-party development, this could turn into something way bigger than a thesis project. Right now there’s a working PCB prototype with tested connectivity, which means the core tech functions. Let’s hope Yang gets to a point where he can take this to a startup level, or even crowdfunding. I know I’d have my money ready.

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This Amazon Rainforest Pavilion Uses Bamboo and Biomimicry to Reconnect Humans With Nature

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As technology accelerates and daily life becomes increasingly disconnected from the natural environment, the Amazon Immersion Pavilion offers a quiet counterpoint grounded in presence, atmosphere, and ecological respect. Conceived as a conceptual project for Iquitos, Peru, the pavilion proposes a gentle architectural intervention that allows visitors to experience the rainforest through sound, texture, light, and movement. It approaches the Amazon as a living partner rather than a backdrop, inviting visitors to rediscover a relationship with nature through deliberate sensory engagement.

The pavilion centers on the idea that architecture can heighten awareness when it blends into the rhythms of a landscape. The design seeks to create a space that listens to the environment and responds through form, materiality, and environmental intelligence.

Designer: Nathalia Cristina de Souza Vilela Telis

The project began with a desire to create deeper dialogue between humans and the forest. The Amazon provides constant motion and sound, and the design team wanted a structure that would reveal these qualities rather than compete with them. The result is an organically composed pavilion shaped by biomimicry, sustainable material thinking, and an understanding of local ecosystems. Bamboo was selected as the primary material because it is strong, flexible, and deeply rooted in regional construction traditions. Its use affirms the project’s commitment to low-impact building and ecological responsibility.

The sensory experience is structured as a gradual unfolding across two levels; the first floor establishes a calm and introspective atmosphere. The circular base, measuring 31,500 mm in diameter, creates a grounded platform for the structure. A partially enclosed volume captures natural light from an overhead opening, allowing soft illumination to guide the visitor. Water flows gently along the walls, creating a rhythmic soundscape similar to a small waterfall. Lush plantings soften the edges of the space, allowing architecture and vegetation to blend into one continuous environment. Humidity, aroma, and sound work together to create a cocoon-like experience.

As visitors move upward to the second floor, the atmosphere changes. The space opens outward and offers a wide view of the Amazon River as it stretches toward the horizon. The architecture recedes to make room for the scale of the landscape. The main body, with a diameter of 17,000 mm and a height of 14,000 mm, supports natural ventilation and introduces a sense of elevation within the forest canopy. The contrast between enclosure and openness creates a clear emotional arc: grounding, expansion, and renewed connection.

Sustainability shapes every design decision. The pavilion uses a biomimetic approach informed by natural growth patterns and the fluid movement of the river. Bamboo construction reduces environmental disruption and reflects local building culture. Passive ventilation works with the natural breezes of the rainforest, while carefully directed natural light reduces reliance on artificial systems. Low-impact assembly techniques help protect the forest floor and the delicate ecosystems surrounding the site. Together, these strategies allow the pavilion to behave like a companion to the landscape, quietly aligning itself with the rhythms of the forest.

The project draws from research on environmental design, indigenous construction knowledge, sensory behavior, and Amazonian ecology. The methodology included a bibliographic study, environmental impact evaluation, and an examination of the social context surrounding Iquitos. The goal was to create an architectural experience that supports ecological understanding and deepens a sense of environmental awareness.

Although the pavilion remains fictional, the design process revealed the challenges of creating architecture for remote natural settings. The limits of bamboo in large spans, the logistics of transporting sustainable materials, and the need for construction methods that respect ecological cycles were key considerations. Crafting an immersive sensory environment within such constraints required careful problem-solving and adaptation.

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