THE INVENTABLES WORKSHOP

Day 7: Hello, So we had a great time yesterday at Pumping Station 1, we ended up enrolling in hackerspace with their $40/month "starving artist" membership. It gives us full access to the shop and space 24hrs a day and most importantly exposure to its highly creative members. This place will be a huge resource for us in the future. Today we did some more hunting, we are still at the stage where we are really trying to wrap our heads around what and how makes a great lamp. We are understand the few necessary components and know need to find places to source them. So on the Home Depot! One might not think HD would be the greatest place to source lamp parts but I think it will be a good start, plus they are pretty much everywhere. We would like to use parts that are fairly common and off the shelf. Piggybacking off of existing technology and products is good way to test the waters when designing something new for the first time. This approach will allow us to adapt and expa

2011 was an exciting year for Inventables .  We grew our selection to over 30,000 products.  With that much choice we thought it would be fun to take a look back and see what were the most popular products for desktop fabrication for the year.  Drum roll please... 10. Powerless Illuminating Polymer Ribbon Glow in the dark, thin, and tear resistant ribbon that can be sewn into garments 9. Opaque Black Acrylic Sheets Cast sheets good for use in laser cutters 8. Shape Memory Polymer Learns and remembers any shape you give it 7. Suction Cup Tape Uses tiny micro suction cups instead of adhesive 6. Super Elastic Plastic Stretches to eight times its size without ripping 5. Light Diffuser Films Optical diffuser film designed to distribute light evenly 4. Modeling Silicone - Sugru Modeling clay that cures to a tough flexible silicone when exposed to the air 3. LED Light Diffusing Plastic Compounds Evenly disperse and transmit light from LEDs without visib

Day6: Hello again, I hope you had a nice holiday and are ready for the new year! Today Fed and I take a field trip and visit the hackerspace, Pumping Station 1! We were thinking about resources to prototype and build and a friend recommended this place to us. Located just north of us @ Sacremento and Elston, Pumping Station 1 (PS1) is a " collaborative environment wherein people can explore and create intersections between technology, science, art, and culture". It sounded exactly like what we were looking for and heard they had a laser cutter so we were in! But first, Tacos! from La Finca, a small mexican restaurant across the street. The PS1 logo, vinyl cut applied to the hallway as you walk in. The main room is pretty big. We were checking out some soft goods supplies while the officers of PS1 held a meeting. A classroom for anyone who has something to teach. Here someone is building some sort of CNC The beginning of the electronics cave A reprap, a low

Day 5: Ideation So today we began some actual design work. The iconic post-it-note thumbnail sketch ideation session. The crucial first step is a verbal and visual conversation between Fed and I, documented on these colorful squares. It started in the kitchen while making dinner, we just started talking, and then we grabbed some note pads and pens. The brainstorming process allows us to throw out ideas, anything at all, and bounce it off each other. No matter how wacky or obscure an idea, at this point just get it out, get it down, move on. The more ideas you can generate the better chance one or two of them will be good! Started on the island Moved to the ping pong table. Myself, pen in hand. Fed, putting one down. We used our inspiration mood boards from yesterday to begin to organize our thoughts. Confetti aftermath. A good ideation session but there will be more! More thoughts soon, Dan

Hello Again, I apologize for the delay, sometimes the life of a designer can be a little crazy. I work in Garfield Park for the design consultancy, Streng design and Federico is a designer at Radio Flyer in Elmwood Park. At the end of last week and all through weekend I was extremely busy in the office and I haven't had the chance to document any of our process. At this point in the process we have visited a couple of retail stores, and specialty lighting shops. We've done online research, looking for innovative lamps and peaking trends. At this point we can start to further define the direction we are going to take with this lamp. I do want to take a moment and define the parameters for this project. We are designing a lamp that is intended for the DIY beginner; that is, a kit that an end user can use to assemble a finished lamp. It will be based on a system that is fairly open sourced, simple in construction and design. We want to create a kit that functions as a lamp but

Day 3: Hello Again, welcome to day 3, the second day of onsite research. Today we are going to a dedicated lighting shop up in River North. A friend recommended Lightology to me for its huge selection, great staff, and museum-like displays Really nice anodized aluminium task lamps A very museum-like display showing the range of color temperatures. They had allot of this type of display, very informative and very clear in illustration. Probably the coolest thing I have seen all year: This bowl and LED's are coated in phosphorus glass, as your hand enters the bath of LED's your body makes the connections lighting up the LED's. Soo cool. This display is worth a trip to this store! Very fancy, silk chandelier Rugged Cast aluminum task lamps Very organic LED array under neath this task lamp. The ribbon like form this lamp takes is inspiring A metal mesh chandilier Check out the Al heat sinks on the head of this lamp, and the wood veneer shade, very awesome

Day 2: Fed + Dan go to CB2 + Hortons welcome Today and Tomorrow are going to be devoted to showing some onsite research we are doing to complement the online stuff we are doing. It is the perfect way to re-affirm and discover new ideas, get our hands on some real products, and further develop the landscape we are exploring. When we find inspiration or places on confusion we make notes, to come back to later on in the design process. So sit back and enjoy some pictures and commentary from todays outing. CB2 near North & Clyborn A nice little task lamp Fed in front of a great wall of color, CB2 was a great place to gauge current color trends. Cool pulley chandelier mechanism Nice junction of painted steel and wood on this stool Fun Acrylic flowers! On to Horton's Lighting across the street! Interesting task lamps Awesome light saber-ish hanging lights This place had allot of ceiling fans and vanities. Not really what we were looking for but still gave a