Hasta La Ideas

Last weekend, New York saw the opening of its first ever Museum of Math (MoMATH)—the first one in the States—which, for all its kid-friendly attractions, probably doesn’t delve into higher-order phenomena such as, say, Voronoi diagrams, in which a space is divided into cells that correspond to ‘seed’ points. Each regions are defined as being closer to a given seed point than any other, typically resulting in a pattern of abutting irregular polygons defined by a set of points within a given space, such that their vertices are equidistant from three (or more) points.

Confused? Alan Rorie has designed a software tool to make Voronoi diagrams… into furniture. The San Francisco-based artist/designer explains in his Kickstarter pitch, below:

It’s an interesting concept for generative furniture, allowing for a degree of creativity within the algorithmic constraints, but unfortunately, the extant Java app (demo’d in the video after the jump) wasn’t working so well for me… which is precisely why Rorie’s looking to develop a new version in Javascript. The funds from the Kickstarter go to that end, as well as physical refinements for the voronoidal shelves themselves.

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Splitting firewood with a hand tool is a solved problem—the axe is one of the oldest tools on Earth—but there’s still a mess of people experimenting with different ways to do it. Here we’ll take a look at a few of these alternate methods, ranging from crazy to clever.

Mechanical Advantage

Any homesteader worth their salt will scoff at these, but they’re worth including just to see the range of what people have come up with.

The Logmatic Wedge Axe has got a real buy-one-get-one-free kind of vibe, and the video quality is horrible, but it’s an earnest attempt to design an easy-to-use tool that concentrates a lot of force on a single point with minimal effort.

The Foot Operated Log Splitter seems like it looked great on paper, but turned out to be underwhelming in reality:

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Perfect for small spaces, the Tragwerk toolbox makes a great starter kit at home or the office. The minimal wood cover is a more attractive option compared to industrial style boxes and easily detaches to reveal a myriad of tools from hex keys to hammers. As an added bonus the sturdy cover doubles as a stepping stool for hard-to-reach places!

Designer: Tim Wieland

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(DIYer’s Dream Toolbox was originally posted on Yanko Design)

Related posts:

1. More than a Toolbox
2. Every Stalker’s Dream
3. A Wacom Wet Dream?

No!

Yes!

As I first learned during my stool reupholstery post two years ago, and have been experiencing ever since, the design of your standard metal staple gun sucks. For leverage you need to apply pressure way low on the lever, but if you want the staple driven flush you have to apply a lot of force at the nose, which is on the other end of the tool. This is a bitch, at least for me and my small hands, to accomplish one-handed. While reupholstering stuff I end up using a tack hammer more than I’d like, to correct raised staples.

New-Jersey-based Arrow Fastener Company has redesigned the staple gun in a mechanically-intelligent way: The lever is backwards, so you get maximum leverage on it while pressing downwards in the same spot you do to drive the staple flush.

The FA50elite Forward Action Heavy Duty stapler, as it’s called, was designed with input from DIYers: “Some consumers [complained] that other companies’ models often make it difficult to precisely place staples. The FA50elite tool addresses this using patented forward action technology; it is easy to fire and allows the user to place his body weight and leverage over the point of impact.” As the name suggests, it will fire staples up to size T50 (that’s 1/2-inch for Yanks, 12mm for the rest of you) for when you hit those thick, folded corners of upholstery-grade vinyl. Can’t wait to get my hands on one of these.

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The perpetually jotting gang over at Moleskine is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the audio cassette—developed in 1962 by a crack team of music lovers at Phillips—with special versions of the Milan-based company’s beloved notebooks. The limited-edition Moleskine Audio Cassette Books, introduced today, have covers that reproduce the front panel of a tape recorder (on the large notebook, available in ruled and plain versions) and a portable player (pocket notebook). Inside the pocket are “retro mini-stickers,” and die-hard tape lovers can download a cassette-shaped pocket that can be printed and glued to the notebook.

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