Royal College of Art

They may look somewhat bulky and a bit like someone wandered out of an avant garde theater, but a pair of concept pieces developed by students and the Royal College of Arts in London allow wearers to fine tune their senses of sight and hearing. Called “Eidos,” from the Greek for "form," "essence," "type," or "species," the system uses sensors and computer processing to select sensory input and alter it for applications in sport, the arts and medicine.  Read More

As highlighted by the cardboard bicycle, cardboard can be a surprisingly versatile manufacturing material in the right hands. Further proof of this comes via the Kranium: a bicycle helmet constructed from cardboard and designed by Royal College of Art student Anirudha Surabhi, which promises to be 15 percent lighter than standard helmets, while absorbing up to three times the impact energy during a collision.  Read More

Chris Peacock may not have reinvented the wheel, but he’s definitely reinvented the cup. The British inventor has created handSteady, an ergonomic cup to help people with health conditions (such as tremor, joint pain and Parkinson’s disease) to have their drinks without undergoing a nerve-wracking, socially-awkward challenge.  Read More

Royal College of Art graduates Amos Field Reid and Lasse Oiva have put a new twist on the humble street vendor tricycle with Velopresso – a prototype mobile coffee making machine that uses pedal-power to grind the beans as well as turn the wheels.  Read More

With sprinting events at the elite level decided by fractions of a second, athletes are always on the lookout for anything that can provide even the smallest advantage over their rivals. We recently looked at Nike’s Pro TurboSpeed suit that is claimed to cut down a runner’s wind resistance by using golf ball-like dimples, but footwear plays an equally, if not more, important role in an athlete’s performance. Now French engineer and designer Luc Fusaro has employed 3D printing technology to create lightweight sprint shoes that are customized for individual athletes that could prove the difference between winning and losing.  Read More

A Master's design student from Germany has developed a concept for the audio speaker that might just hint at how the product will look in the future. In a word, it's flat.  Read More

Skateboards are definitely a part of the urban landscape, but you know what else is? Stairs. Generally, the two don’t go together – when skateboarders reach a set of stairs, they typically have to pick up their board and carry it. London-based product designer Po-Chih Lai would like to see boarders be able to roll right on down those stairs, however, so he created a one-off skateboard that lets them do just that. It’s called the STAIR ROVER.  Read More

Hair extensions are already big business in the world of fashion – or so I’m reliably informed by those with more fashion sense and hair than yours truly. Now two graduates from London’s Royal College of Art have found another use for people’s jettisoned locks by creating a collection of fashion glasses made from human hair.  Read More

When we think of robots, we tend to think of clean, antiseptic automatons that don’t suffer from yucky things like halitosis, flatulence or body odor ... unlike us humans. According to London designer Kevin Grennan, however, this difference alienates us from robots, and will keep us from ever fully accepting them as anything other than machines. His solution? Robots that secret human odors, in situations in which people would secrete those odors. While some of his odor-secreting devices are purely conceptual, he has produced a working model of at least one – a sweating robotic armpit.  Read More