If you know anything about anything, it’s that Duct Tape is king. Duct Tape fixes everything: broken cups, broken glasses, broken furniture, broken promises and broken marriages. If we could have marital relations with Duct Tape… we probably would. So imagine our excitement at finding this: the Keychain Duct Tape. It’s a tiny tape dispenser that you can use as a keychain. It’s perfect for little jobs where Duct Tape could come in handy, which, as we’ve already established, is pretty much any job. It comes in Stainless Steel or Brass, and fits 18″ of Gorilla Tape or 24″ of Gaffers Tape. It’s about the size of a tube of Chapstick, and costs $20.
If you’ve ever received a package, chances are you’ve taken the goodies inside and discarded the box without removing the invoice. Unfortunately, this is also means that you may have unnecessarily put private, personal information out in the world, putting you at risk for threats such as illegal identity theft. This thoughtfully designed dispenser called the Invoice Tape Printer actually allows the invoice to be printed in the form of tape directly on the box by the sender for effective protection of personal information that can easily be removed by the recipient. Easy to use, the shipper can input the information directly on the device and print with ease quickly and efficiently.
Handheld 3D printers like the 3Doodler are easy and fun to use, but they’re suited for small sketches. That’s why a group of Hasso Plattner Institut (HPI) students came up with the Protopiper (pdf), a unique tape dispenser.
Made by Harshit Agrawal, Udayan Umapathi, Robert Kovacs, Frohnhofen Johannes, Hsiang-Ting Chen, Stefanie Mueller and Patrick Baudisch, the Protopiper dispenses hollow tubes made of adhesive tape. Since the tubes are lightweight and sturdy, you can use them to make life-size mockups and other large objects within a few minutes.
Protopiper uses guides and stencils to turn a flat strip from a roll of adhesive tape into a tube. It then sticks the tube’s edges together to seal it, then an electrically heated wire cuts the tube.
At the press of a button, the Protopiper can equip an extruded tube’s tip with “wing connectors” – two patches of tape on either side of the tip that lets you stick it other tubes or surfaces.
To speed things up, you can store up to three tube lengths – A, B and C – in Protopiper’s memory. You then switch between the stored lengths using a small knob near the trigger. But the knob actually has six positions; switching to one of the three in-between positions – AB, AC and BC – results in a tube length that fits the diagonal of the respective stored lengths.
It seems a lot of fun to use, but is it a tool or a toy? For instance, do the mockups above really give you a great idea of what the actual furniture will look like? I think an augmented reality app would be more helpful in that case. On the other hand, if you want measurements, then a measuring tape would be more efficient. I think it would make for a great construction toy though, assuming it’s cheaper than existing ones like LEGO. You can read the group’s full paper at HPI’s website (pdf).
Pay homage to a part of your past and recall the awesomeness of the era of mix tapes with this cassette tape-shaped coffee table. The gigantic cassette tape sits atop custom made steel legs and is built with removable remote and bottle holders, cleverly positioned in cassette’s holes. The coolest part is probably the cassette’s label, which you can actually write on because that part is actually a white board. Neat huh?
The cassette tape coffee table was commissioned by Rob Ireland and built by Ross Langley. You can check out more photos here.
If your childhood pretty much consisted of hearing Eye of the Tiger, Gloria, and the Flashdance theme while moving around at high speeds in an oval under pulsating disco lights, then this is the tape dispenser for you my friends. Roller Tape Neon Tape is a pair of brightly colored Scotch tape rolls encased in a lace up old-school roller skate made of cardboard sure to Take My Breath Away. Clear the floor, couples only right now, because we’re All Out of Love. Break out the curling irons, leg warmers and spandex. No color is bright enough. Shoulder pads for men and women. Headbands. Caribbean Queen? Oh yeah baby, now we’re sharing the same dream. Comes with pink and green tape. It’s a real Maneater. Ladies and gentlemen, my memory has just been sold because I’m taping with the Queen of Hearts. Might as well Jump.
Unlike its flimsy plastic counterparts, ClickTape is a super-minimalistic approach to the tape dispenser that you won’t mind displaying on your desk! The design consists of just a single flexible ring and one stainless steel blade. “Click” on your tape roll and grip the ergonomic ring to start using. When you’re finished, simply pop the empty roll out and replace! See how it works —>
- Yanko Design Timeless Designs - Explore wonderful concepts from around the world! Shop CKIE - We are more than just concepts. See what's hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design! (Click It and Stick It! was originally posted on Yanko Design)
That’s a blasphemy, isn’t it? To suggest that there may be a better candidate for all-around everything-fixer-upper-for-the-home than duct tape is like suggesting McGuyver wasn’t that handy a guy after all. And yet science and technology march on, and we find out about FiberFix. It’s a special kind of tape that hardens into a steel-like material, which is 100 times stronger than duct tape. Once your objects are fixed with FiberFix, they won’t break in the same spot again. The tape comes in special airtight pouches because the special resin that powers this product’s magical powers is activated with water. And while there is usually enough moisture in the air for FiberFix to work properly without any additional step, you can help it along by briefly soaking the material in water beforehand. After 5 to 10 minutes the resin hardens and you can start using your broken item, although it can take up to 24 hours to fully cure and reach maximum strength. Special care needs to be taken not to get any of the stuff on your hands or scissors, because you’ll have a hard time getting it off afterwards.
So, ok, FiberFix is not quite like duct tape because once you’ve applied it, you can’t remove it. And you need to be kind of careful when you use it. But if it needs to stay fixed, this looks like a good choice. Prices start at $6 for a 1 inch wide by 40 inches long strip.
The Force is great and all, but if you have duct tape, why do we even need it anymore? Duct tape can do anything. And these days you can purchase duct tape in kinds of colors and themes. Now you can also get Star Wars duct tape. Use the tape, Luke!
Star Wars duct tape is great for everyday uses like fixing household items, making crafts like wallets, patching up damaged X-Wing fighters, AT-ATs, protocol droids, or even Death Stars. Facebook commenter Chris Bugher put it best: “It has a light side a dark side and it binds to the universe together.”
It comes from the Duck tape brand and will start hitting stores soon. The design includes Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, and Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers, and the classic yellow Star Wars logo and Imperial symbol. How cool is that?
Forget the MP3 player, or even the Walkman -- the real instigator of the portable audio revolution is the compact cassette, which just marked its 50th birthday. Philips formally launched the format on September 13th, 1963, bringing recorded sound to a truly portable (and more accessible) form factor. The technology didn't just kickstart the markets for media players, field recorders and boomboxes; it led to bootlegs, mixtapes and other ways to shake up the audio status quo. The cassette has largely disappeared outside of nostalgic reissues and transforming robot toys, but its effects are still visible after half a century of progress.
Boy, I haven’t seen a reel-to-reel tape deck in years. After 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, MiniDiscs and MP3s, we’re at least five generations past the everyday use of these things. And dekstop calculators? I haven’t used one in a very long time either. Between my smartphone and my computer, I’ve had no reason to have one. But that hasn’t stopped somebody from mashing up these two obsolete technologies into one new device.
This retro-style LCD calculator combines these old-school gadgets into one – though it only works as a calculator and won’t play your old spools of magnetic tape, no matter how hard you try. On the plus side, you don’t need to worry about getting your tape tangled up.
If you actually have some use for this thing, it sells for £8.49 (~$13USD) over at I Want One of Those.
is a pair of brightly colored Scotch tape rolls encased in a lace up old-school roller skate made of cardboard sure to Take My Breath Away. Clear the floor, couples only right now, because we’re All Out of Love.
