Hasta La Ideas

London designer Paul Cocksedge has launched a set of circular bike lights on Kickstarter that can be locked to a bicycle by slotting them over a standard lock (+ movie).

Cocksedge said he wanted to design a stylish light that also confronts issues associated with theft and glare resulting from light sources that are too bright.

“I’ve used many bike lights but I feel some things could really be improved,” the designer explained. “The inspiration for Double O comes directly from the shape of the bicycle. I wanted something that almost looked like the bike had designed it itself.”

The round lights feature a polycarbonate shell with a robust silicone backing housing 12 LEDs that are more spaced out than the densely arranged ultra-bright bulbs used by many other bike lights.

Cocksedge said this configuration produces a bright glow that is less dazzling for other cyclists and car drivers. “We use more LEDs at less power, which means the harshness is gone but the brightness hasn’t,” he said. “There is no compromise, you can see and be seen.”

A button on the back of the light enables the user to switch between steady, flashing and eco modes.

The lights contain magnets that allow them to clip onto a bike mount when in use and snap together to protect the LED surface when they are removed from the bike.

Once attached to one another, the two lights can be slotted over a typical D-lock and locked up with the bike so cyclists don’t need to carry them around.

Cocksedge has launched a campaign on crowdsourcing website Kickstarter aiming to raise £75,000 to fund prototyping, tooling and manufacture of the product.

Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

Paul Cocksedge launches the Double O bike light on Kickstarter

Today Paul Cocksedge Studio® launches its second innovative design on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. Following on from the success of the Vamp®, Paul has this time turned his attention to bike lights, creating a product that will revolutionise the market and provide an intuitive and practical solution for cycling enthusiasts and leisure users alike. Cycle safety was a crucial element in the design and the resulting product is a simple, safe and secure light for everyday cycling.

Double O, named after its distinctive shape, is inspired by the form of the bicycle and the fluid motion of cycling. Double O attaches magnetically to the bike-mount supplied, making it super easy to get on and off, minimising any fiddling that gets in the way of the flow of cycling. It consists of two ‘O’ shaped lights, one white light for the front, one red for the back. When not in use, these magnetically connect together to protect the LED face.

One of the most common problems with bike lights is the safe keeping of them whilst a bike is locked up. The unique shape of the Double O allows users to thread the lights through a D lock and leave them secured along with their bike, eliminating the need for cyclists to carry their lights around with them.

Most existing bike lights use ultra-bright LEDs which are packed too closely together. This causes a very bright light which is blinding for car drivers and approaching cyclists. Double O tackles this issue by using 12 LEDs which are spaced out creating a bright yet soft glow, enabling cyclists to be seen without dazzling others. The light has three modes: steady, flashing and eco which can be changed via a push button.

Double O is made from a polycarbonate shell with silicone backing and is extremely robust and hardwearing. Bike lights come in all shapes and sizes but none as practical and as stylish as Double O’s. These powerful lights are very likely to be the last ones you’ll ever need to get for your bike and also do away with batteries as they are USB chargeable.

Paul Cocksedge says: “As with so many people, cycling is an essential part of my life, and cycling safety is crucial. I’ve used many bike lights but I feel some things could really be improved. I wanted to design a bike light and the inspiration for Double O comes directly from the shape of the bicycle. I wanted something that almost looked like the bike had designed it itself.”

The post Paul Cocksedge’s Double O bike lights
slot securely around a D-lock appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish bicycle accessory brand Bookman has created a cup holder that snaps onto handlebars so city bikers can cycle with their takeaway coffees (+ movie).

The Bookman cup holder is constructed out of two rings and a steel spring, completely free of screws and glue.

Squeezing together the two rings opens the spring so it can be placed over the handlebars, clasping securely into place when the user lets go.

“The Cup Holder sits firmly in place never losing grip even during rides over bumps and potholes,” said Bookman.

The rings are different sizes so cyclists can flip the cup holder over depending on whether they ordered a small or large drink.

The cup holder comes with a little storage cube that fits inside the spring, holding the two rings together to keep it neat and tidy when not in use. It is available in black, white, red and green.

Bookman also produced bicycle lights that are attached by simply stretching the elastic cord around the handlebars or seat post. We filmed a short interview with Bookman’s Johan Lidehäll about the lights at the Interiors UK trade show in 2012 – watch it here.

More cycling accessories on Dezeen include magnetic lights that turn on when they snap to the frame and an inflatable helmet that folds away into a scarf.

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for coffee-fuelled cycling appeared first on Dezeen.

ECAL student Renaud Defrancesco has designed a transparent acrylic glass headband that passes music vibrations across its surface to the ears.

“It’s a new way to listen to music,” Renaud Defrancesco told Dezeen. “You are bathed in music without being isolated like with normal headphones, which can be dangerous because you don’t hear what’s around you.”

His Vibso headphones play tracks via Bluetooth and create sound using a vibrating electromagnet hidden in the top of the headband, beneath an opaque plastic cover. Similar to how a speaker works, the electromagnet moves a connecting element that in turn causes a membrane to pulsate.

However, instead of a black round plastic layer used in traditional speakers, this surface is formed from two-millimetre-thick transparent acrylic glass. “The membrane is in acrylic glass because it transmits the sound well, has a good flexibility and it’s easy to thermoform,” explained Defrancesco.

The vibrations spread across the curved membrane down to the sections that cover the ears, where they are heard as music without the user feeling the tiny movements. “The shape of the headphones directs the sound inward, so a person close by will not hear the music,” said Defrancesco.

Comparing his design to large padded noise-cancelling headphones, Defrancesco’s list of advantages includes being able to share music with others if they touch their ear to the other side of the headband and not causing sides of the head to overheat.

The band can also be covered in padded fabric for added comfort. Defrancesco showed the project at the Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne‘s Half-Time exhibition earlier this month.

The post Headphones by Renaud Defrancesco transmit
music through clear plastic band appeared first on Dezeen.

Swiss designer Fabienne Felder has worked with University of Cambridge scientists Paolo Bombelli and Ross Dennis to develop a way of using plants as “biological solar panels”.

“Theoretically any photosynthesising plant could be used as a biological solar panel”, said the team, which has developed what it calls Photo Microbial Fuel Cells (Photo-MFCs) to capture and harness the electrical power of plants.

The team has prototyped the world’s first moss-powered radio to illustrate the potential of its Photo-MFCs. Moss was chosen because its photosynthetic process makes the plants particularly efficient at generating electricity.

Fabienne Felder developed the technology with biochemist Dr. Paolo Bombelli and plant scientist Ross Dennis, both of the University of Cambridge.

The radio is the first time Photo-MFCs have been used to run an object demanding more power than an LCD screen.

The Photo-MFCs  consist of  an anode where the electrons generated by photosynthesis are collected, a cathode where the electrons are finally consumed, and an external circuit connecting the anode to the cathode.

The moss grows on top of a composite of water-retaining materials, conductive materials, and biological matter.

The team has high hopes for the potential of this emergent technology. “We may assume that in five to ten years the technology is applicable in a commercially viable form,” they said. Currently the technology used in the radio can only capture about 0.1% of the electrons the mosses produce.

Felder compares the technology behind biological solar panels to the very early days of experiments with photovoltaics. “Biological solar panels will go through a similar development phase: determining optimal conductive materials; the right plants; and watering and maintenance systems that guarantee stable flow of electricity”, she explained.

“Finding the right plants will be a study in itself,” said Felder. “Mosses are extremely desiccation resistant, but they don’t like direct sunlight. Other plants, which might also fulfil certain criteria in their photosynthetic process to be considered efficient photo-active components, might struggle in colder weather. So the right mix of vegetation will be the solution.”

Rice paddy fields may also provide good environments for biological solar panels because of the large amount of water used in their cultivation, she added.

Here’s some more information from the team:

Moss FM

Moss FM is the World’s first plant-powered radio.

This is made possible thanks to Photo Microbial Fuel Cells (Photo-MFCs), which harness and convert electrons produced by plants during photosynthesis. Moss tufts are essentially used as biological solar panels in this emerging biophilic technology.

The radio was conceived and built by Fabienne Felder, a creative strategist and designer originally from Switzerland, in collaboration with the biochemist Dr. Paolo Bombelli and plant scientist Ross Dennis of the University of Cambridge.

Background

Dr. Bombelli has been working on Photo-MFCs for years – ever since he was inspired by a single sentence in a biochemistry textbook. These studies are now housed at the University of Cambridge and Dr. Bombelli is leading the research as a senior research associate in Prof. Chris Howe’s team.

In 2011, a collaboration with two designers, Alex Driver and Carlos Peralta, led to the first conceptual piece to showcase the technology, entitled the Moss Table.

It was also the Moss Table that first got Fabienne Felder interested and she was soon hooked, immersing herself in papers and reports published by Dr. Bombelli and his colleagues. As fate would have it, the two eventually met and Fabienne Felder presented another futuristic scenario in which Photo-MFCs might be applied. Dr. Bombelli needed convincing of the idea that aircraft cabins might one day be moss- clad, but being a scientist, the research eventually won him over and he was keen to get another collaboration started.

From aircraft to air time

The team initially began working on the premise of creating a mossy electricity- generating surface, which might indeed be used to cover aircraft cabins or other spaces in the future. A number of factors eventually shifted the focus of the project to trying to conceive an every-day object that would work today, not in 10 years’ time.

The very thing that motivated the collaborators also kept posing the biggest challenge: feasibility. It was the first time this technology was supposed to work in an object that was not as low-powered as something like an LCD screen. Flexibility was required of the designer, who wanted to respect scientific requirements, and the scientist, who sometimes had to ditch logic for reality. The result is a radio that certainly causes intrigue.

Design and performance

Whereas theoretically any photosynthesising plant could be used as a biological solar panel, the genus of bryophytes can operate as potentially better photo-active components in Photo-MFCs due to particularities in their photosynthetic process. Simultaneously, mosses also quite simply deserve good press and are consciously promoted by the team for their incredible uses and undervalued beauty. Many of those properties are explained on the project blog mosspower.tumblr.com

Moss FM consists of ten Photo-MFCs, which are embedded in a minimalist design taking strong visual cues from the world of biochemistry. They can be connected in series, parallel, or a combination thereof, depending on the performance of each cell. Gadgets such as LCD screens can run continuously connected directly to the circuit, whereas higher consumption objects are bridged via a capacitor or battery solely charged by the Photo-MFCs.

At the moment we can achieve the following electrical output:
The current radio run time via a re-chargeable battery lasts a few minutes.

A serial circuit consisting of 5 Photo-MFCs has reached a peak power of ca. 3.5mW per square meter (2.9mA @ 1200mV).
A parallel circuit consisting of 5 Photo-MFCs has reached a peak power of ca. 4.6mW per square meter (18.7mA @ 246mV).

What does it all mean?

As with every emerging technology, many questions are as yet unanswered. We may assume that in five to ten years the technology is applicable in a commercially viable form, mainly in emerging economies. But to give an idea of what kind of contributions this low-carbon technology could make, consider this:

If 25% of Londoners (ca. 2.7 million people) charged their mobile phone on average for 2 hours every other day with moss, we would save enough electricity to power a small town: 42.5 million kWh, amounting to a saving of £6.81 Million and 39632 Tons of CO2* a year.

These are interesting values, given the huge amounts of electricity that are wasted during generation and transmission, for example. And even more interesting, if we consider that at the moment we capture only about 0.1% of the electrons the mosses potentially produce.

*Figures based on input and output values of a Nokia charger consuming 180mA
@240V, 2012 N-Power electricity rates, and 2013 UK electricity consumption figures.

The post Moss used as “biological solar panels”
to power a radio appeared first on Dezeen.

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has wrapped a pattern of woven rattan around one side of this radio for design brand Lexon, which is on show at the Maison&Objet trade fair that begins today in Paris.

Lehanneur used the natural material on his Hybrid radio for Lexon as a contrast to the digital technology. “Digital intelligence is blended here with a raw material, what might be called smart and craft,” said Lehanneur.

Formed from dried palm-like grasses and woven into a flexible material, the rattan is wrapped around one of the curved ends of the radio and framed by plastic on all sides.

Disks sticking out of the other end control the volume and radio frequency, which is shown using a small digital display on the front. The chunky antenna that pops from the top can be adjusted up and down to receive the best signal.

Small and large sizes are available, and both come with either a white or graphite-coloured case. The radio is being presented at Maison&Objet fair at the Nord Villepinte exhibition centre outside Paris, which commences today and runs until 28 January.

The post Mathieu Lehanneur wraps Hybrid radio
for Lexon in woven rattan appeared first on Dezeen.