We’ve all found ourselves banging out a rhythm with some produce or tapping the keys to an imaginary keyboard on a pile of books—right? Now music creativity has reached ingenious new heights with the Ototo, an all-in-one musical instrument invention kit from London-based…
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Science and design collide to offer a glimpse of a parallel universe
Setting up shop at Designersblock in a relatively quiet spot in the vast London Design Festival, Patrick Stevenson-Keating managed to avoid the clamoring masses on opening night. What he may lack in promotional capabilities he more than makes up for in pioneering spirit and sublimely engaging source material.
Stevenson-Keating, who graduated just this year from Dundee University with top honors in product design, showed two projects at Designersblock, The Quantum Parellelograph and On Our Way to the Impossible.
The Quantum Parellelograph is an exploratory piece examining the science and philosophy of Oxford professor David Deutsch’s parallel universe theory and the earlier work of professor Hugh Everett. Stevenson-Keating explains that “there might be infinite copies of ourselves within multiple universes.”
Harnessing the Internet and basic personal information, the simulation machine can be dialed in to a customizable alternate reality. The user can calibrate the machine according to the desired “distance” from one’s real life, pushing a button to receive a printed receipt outlining their hypothetical life in a parallel universe. We decided to go deep in our tinkering, and received a printout telling us that “in 20 years’ time Richard Prime may not be born yet.”
Stevenson-Keating goes on to explain that, while up until recently, the notions of the parellel universe has been confined to the realms of science fiction. However, scientists are beginning to turn more serious attention to the potential of the existence of the alternate space in time.
This focus on science and design sets Stevenson-Keating apart from many of his contemporaries. “I try to blend science and design,” he says. “If you think about it, there are people whose job it is to look at the stars and then there are thousands of amateur stargazers. So why not science?”
Exemplifying that approach is the other objet the designer brought to London, On Our Way to the Impossible. The project attempts to visualize complicated scientific thinking and abstract concepts in a way the public might understand without diluting the ideas themselves.
Stevenson-Keating thought it best to apply this thinking to bridge the gap between advanced science and how the public is informed about its possibilities. According to the description on his website, his particle accelerator—created with the buzzed-about and largely misunderstood Hadron Super Collider as the model—”aims to show that design can be used as a tool to take people beyond what most of us think is possible, and after seeing it, you just might think a little differently.”
The designer cites as his inspiration the 18th-century scientists whose discoveries gave birth to the era of enlightenment and goes on to ponder whether our current contemporary batch of amateurs will bring forth a second era of science. Check out Stevenson-Keating’s next exhibition at the Birmingham Design Fair in January 2012.
Calorie-free caffeine inhalers with more kick than a strong cup of Joe
In an age when medical marvels such as inhalable vaccines are becoming more widely available, it’s only logical that this convenient medium converges with the global energy drink boom. While increasingly smaller forms span shot-like bottles (R.I.P.
Nos) to
dissolving strips, Aeroshot’s inhalable caffeine has some notable advantages.
This new paradigm packs B vitamins and 100 milligrams of caffeine, equivalent to that in a large cup of strong Joe, but without craft-level preparations, the calories of Starbucks or coffee breath. Designed to be temperature resistant as well as TSA-friendly for use on commercial flights, though we haven’t tasted it yet, the website claims it’s both fast and safe.
The brainchild of Harvard professor David Edwards whose culinary innovations include inhalable chocolate and many others, this latest commercial effort has some interesting applications for looping back into the medical community. Both less messy and easier to use than today’s nasal inhalable devices, Aeroshot could have some far-reaching potential for delivering vitamins, medicine, anti-viral shots and vaccines at more affordable price points.
Hitting stores in Boston and New York in about three months from now, a free sample is available for the first 500 people who apply for a promotional code.
Seven unconventional clocks that tell more than time
Our pace and focus on the short-term these days seems to have surpassed the steady tick-tock of time passing. Groups like The Long Now Foundation aim to counteract this phenomenon by encouraging long-term thinking. To foster this world view—time as a series of years, one lined up after another and 10,000 more after that till infinity—computer scientist Danny Hillis proposed a monumental timepiece that “ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.” The latest version of this 10,000 Year Clock (currently under construction) will rest inside a Texas mountain, intermittently ringing out original chimes, both heard and unheard, for a stretch of time you must bend your mind to conceive. Below are six other designs for clever clocks with mind-altering concepts about time and time-telling.
Rather than focusing on the future, Scott Thrift, founder of Brooklyn’s creative company m ss ng p eces (and original Cool-Hunting-Video-maker), has devised an annual clock, The Present. “It’s the gift we give ourselves,” he puns. The clock, currently in development, tells the time of year, tracking changing seasons with a single gradient hand that moves across the vibrant color wheel face. Each color denotes one of the four seasons (green as spring, yellow for summer, red for fall and blue for winter) and blends seamlessly from one to the next, poetically mimicking the way the seasons gradually shift.
The Flow of Time also relies on gradients to track time. Conceived by Korean designer Byung Min Kim, the timepiece replaces conventional hands with a grayscale swatch that rotates around the face. The dark end marks the hour as the minutes vaguely sweep behind. The indistinct clock poses freedom from “all the unnecessary things,” including time constraints.
Drawing attention to the irrevocable tie between the passage of time and aging, the Life Clock by French artist Bertrand Planes measures lifespan. Though ordinary in appearance, the Life Clock ticks at such a painstaking pace that each hatch represents a single year up to 80.
Unlike standard clocks based on abstract conventions of time, Italian architect Andrea Ponsi‘s Solar Image Clock conveys time in terms of the cosmos. Representative of the sun, the red dot undulates above and below the clock’s horizon line to depict not only the sun’s exact position in the sky, but also the time of day.
Another design based on the position of the sun, Morning Glory by Wendy Legro of the Rotterdam-based Studio WM marks daytime and nighttime. The solar-powered fixture shrinks during the day to allow natural sunlight indoors, blossoming at night to emit light. Not only is the mechanical flower aesthetically pleasing with its delicate structure—whether hung alone or in a tight cluster—Morning Glory also provides healthful benefits due to its sensitivity to our biological clocks.
Often mistaken for a stock market tracker, the Union Square Metronome by artist duo Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel is in fact a public art installation that explores notions about time. From the LED screen which displays various time conventions and the slab of bedrock that reflects the earth’s massive geological history to the bronze cone representing perspective and the rotating sphere that tracks the cosmos, the Metronome encompasses practically every method of time-telling. This amalgam of measurements provides various perspectives on time, paradoxically including both regularity and ephemerality.
An at-home trash converter turning plastics into oil
While denaturing plastics is a relatively common practice, the compact Blest machine simplifies the process to a “safe to use at home” degree. Claiming to be the safest, cleanest and most user-friendly form yet, inventor Akinori Ito’s portable Blest machine converts plastic waste back into usable oil with just a temperature-controlling electric heater.
A video of the machine in action shows how several features set Blest apart from similar machines. By using the electric heater in place of a flame, plastic melts but since nothing is directly burned, the machine doesn’t release CO2 or other toxins that come from incinerating trash. Most importantly, the machine is small enough to fit on a countertop, allowing fuel generation to take place anywhere from a warehouse to a family room.
Ito’s goal was to address the issue of overwhelming plastic waste. A landscape like Japan suffers from the lack of places to put garbage; plastics from there and almost every other country around the world end up in landfills or in the ocean (see the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). By creating a machine that allows the user to take everyday waste and make something as useful as fuel, the project shows people the value of garbage and also the value of recycling. Ito has introduced the machine and these concepts to schools around Japan, educating children about the potential that “garbage” holds.
The fuel produced from the plastic conversion process can be put to use immediately for stoves and generators, or can be further refined to be used as gasoline to power vehicles. While the end product still involves the burning of fossil fuels (and therefore damage to the environment) by converting the plastic back into oil as opposed to burning or dumping it, there is an massive overall net loss in the amount of C02 released into the environment. Another impressive benefit, by producing your own fuel locally you remove the carbon footprint that comes from transporting petroleum from distant countries.
The current tabletop model can convert one kilo of plastic into one liter of oil, and can sells from Blest for $9,500.
Newest in the London Design Museum “World Changing” book series is Fifty Cars That Changed The World. Writer Andrew Nahum, Principal Curator of Technology and Engineering at London’s Science Museum, presents a selection of cars that over 90 years have contributed significantly to design, innovation, engineering and national pride. From Buckminster Fuller’s 1933 Dymaxion to the 1998 Smart car, each automobile represents a milestone of achievement.
Fifty Cars That Changed the World is available from Amazon for around $14.
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