Point of View

Some of you might remember that a group of us are working to design and build a smalll vertical axis wind turbine.  One of the great things about working for a product design and innovation firm is the level of resoures at our disposal – both physical and intellectual.  Is there anything these folks can’t do? 

The ultimate objective would be to disconnect my office computer, lights, etc from the electrical grid and see if we can be a president who is… well… err… disconnected, I guess.  Hmmm. Maybe I should think about that a bit.

Anyway, we reached a milestone of sorts after the weekend when our prototype made electricity for the first time.  The turbine was designed and built entirely here at Design Concepts including CNC foam cutting of the blades which you can see here:   http://www.design-concepts.com/blog/hot-wire-foam-cutter-for-our-wind-turbine-project 

My sincere thanks to Design Concepts’ electrical engineer extraordinaire Chris Sherwin for his slick prototype charging circuit.  Chris has a passion for power supplies and charging circuits and whipped together a design which handles cut-in, voltage step-up and even has electric braking!  Not bad for a first generation.   

We have a way to go, but it’s been a fun diversion.

Today for the first time in my life I want to travel to Las Vegas. For today I took a peek to see what one of my favorite creative companies has been up to.

Digital Kitchen created a “digital experience” for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas that looks like it may be worth the trip alone. But then I poked around the website of this new luxury resort on the strip and was sucked into the Mad Men image of me having a martini in the Chandelier bar.

This new resort seems to have put a lot of thought into what their clients want and the image they want to embody, I wish them all the luck Vegas will bring them.

Like many offices, the post-holiday period here is a weird ying/yang combination of New Year’s resolutions doing battle royal with an endless stream of holiday treats and brought-from-home baking offal.  However I feel we reached a new nadir with the appearance in our kitchen of a dozen bacon covered donuts. 

Oh my.  Had I not seen this with my own eyes I would not have believed such a thing could exist. 

I try to remain open to new things but seriously now.  Yuck. 

I couldn’t resist snapping this picture.  One of the reasons I absolutely love working here is because you get to work on some of the craziest stuff.  You never know what the next day will bring. 

I actually have no idea why our prototyping shop is working with a model of a human pelvic bone but I know it’s going to be something cool and important. 

A coworker recently introduced me to the amazing work of Brad Litwin, a self-described multi-discipline artist whose work delightfully spans technical design, engineering, craft and the fine arts.    

Brad’s latest brainchild (brainchildren?) are the wonderfully inspired Mechanicards – essentially playful mechanisms rendered as mail-able greeting cards.  Stuff like this really inspires me! 

You can watch Brad’s Mechanicards in action here: 

Oh and if Brad’s artistic and design skills aren’t humbling enough, he’s also an accomplished ragtime, jazz and blues musician, playing the music heard on the youtube video.  Wow.  Very Cool.