July 18, 1969

The Command Module, Service Module, and Lunar Module of Apollo 11 passed from the gravity of the Earth to the gravitational pull of the Moon on July 18, 1969. (Image source: NASA)

Apollo 11 consisted of three separate modules: the command module (CM) where the crew of three spent most of the journey, a service module that contained fuel cells, oxygen tanks and rocket engine that would take them to the moon and back, and the Lunar Module (LM) that would carry Armstrong and Aldrin to the surface of the moon.

On July 18, at a distance of 201,000 miles from the Earth and a mere 55,200 miles from the moon, the astronauts started another television transmission while opening the hatch to the Lunar Module named Eagle. Armstrong moved through the 30-inch hatch into Eagle, followed by Aldrin and the pair checked over the lander to make sure that nothing had gone amiss during the liftoff and journey across space to the moon.

Later that evening, the Apollo 11 spacecraft passed from the gravity of the Earth into the gravitational field of the Moon. Traveling at just over 2,000 miles-per-hour, they would soon enter orbit around the moon, in preparation for a landing, just two days away, on July 20.

 

Retiring Boomers are leaving manufacturing plants with a knowledge deficit. The engineer who could smell a failing motor or hear a bum bearing is getting replaced by preventive maintenance tools run my younger workers who are digital natives. Automation tools are advancing to accommodate this change. More and more, emerging plant technology requires configuration rather than original programming. Young employees are stepping into the jobs of the future and becoming "robot masters" in the process.

Improving operating efficiency may be a matter of replacing knowledge workers with configurable technology. (Image source: Catalyic)

Yet there is a skills gap between the retiring knowledge worker and the young engineer who is set to replace the Boomer’s training with technology. “We’re seeing a skills deficit. There is a retiring workforce. In some industries, we’re seeing this trend gaining a head of steam,” said Sean Chou, CEO and co-founder of Catalytic, an automation company that serves process plants. “Knowledgeable workers are retiring, and the people coming in are not replacing them at the same rate the knowledge worker is leaving. The question becomes: Who is going to provide that knowledge when that retiree has already walked out the door?”

Bring in the Digital Native

The young engineers set to replace the knowledge workers tend to be very open to digital automation tools. “The younger the worker, the more digitally native they are,” said Chou. “We look at the worker’s digital quotient or DQ. You have traditional IQ, and now you have DQ. What is the worker’s relationship to digital technology? Does it enable them? Or is it something like a burden? There’s a spectrum. Part of the conversation is about how to get the low DQ worker to see digital as enabling.”

"The advances in consumer technology are showing up in the industrial market"

To get the maximum return on digital automation, the workers and the digital tools need to be aligned so the worker can complete what the automation can’t. “How do we make the workers productive? There are all kinds of things they can do that platforms cannot do,” said Chou. “The younger workers start learning the skills for the future. If the technology is simple enough, it will help them move to the next level of automation.”

The Knowledge Now Lives in the Automation

New digital tools are not like the tools of the past that came with extensive manuals and slow learning curves. “Some of the skills gap can be solved by trends in software,” said Chou. “In the 80s you got a 180-page booklet that came with the software. Now the software is starting to conform to the people. You don’t get manuals with smartphones. That aspect of software is part of the solution. You lower the bar to understanding the software.”

The user-friendliness of the software is also reflected in the emerging automation hardware. “Sometimes the hardware is configurable. You see hardware that is smart and helpful,” said Chou. “We’re early in day where you’re fighting your iPhone because it’s trying to be too smart. Our users are challenged to make the software do more. A lot of that’s driven by consumer expectations. If something takes more than two days to learn, it’s too long.”

Training the Displaced Worker to Run Automation

How about workers who are displaced by automation technology (including robots)? Can they be trained to run the automation system? Some experts say no, but Chou is optimistic. “I think the consumerization of industrial technology means the technology is coming to the person instead of the other way around,” said Chou. “Consumer technology leads the charge for industrial technology. The advances in consumer technology are showing up in the industrial market.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

• Manufacturers Turn to Automation to Combat Labor Shortages

• Rise of the Augmented Worker

• Most Americans Think We're Too Reliant on Robots

Consumer electronics have pre-trained the young workforce for digital automation tools. “People’s notion of technology has shifted in the last 20 years,” said Chou. “In the past, the company provided you with a laptop or phone. You probably didn’t have a computer at home. Now everyone shows up with their own technology. People now have two phones, their personal phone and their company phone. That’s an unstoppable trend.”

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 19 years, 17 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years, he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

Drive World with ESC Launches in Silicon Valley

This summer (August 27-29), Drive World Conference & Expo launches in Silicon Valley with North America's largest embedded systems event, Embedded Systems Conference (ESC). The inaugural three-day showcase brings together the brightest minds across the automotive electronics and embedded systems industries who are looking to shape the technology of tomorrow.
Will you be there to help engineer this shift? Register today!

 

Imagine if there was a plant-based material that could easily be transformed into synthetic materials, the fabrication and disposal of which currently create excess waste and pollution.

That’s the scenario with a new discovery by a cross-institutional team of scientists, who have been working with enzymes to help solve the world’s plastic-pollution problem.

In their latest work, they have identified a new family of enzymes that paves the way to convert plant waste into sustainable and high-value products such as nylon, plastics, chemicals, and fuels.

A team—co-led by Professors John McGeehan at the University of Portsmouth, Jen Dubois at Montana State University, Ken Houk at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Dr. Gregg Beckham at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)—made a breakthrough in using so-called “promiscuous” enzymes to break down lignin to its basic molecules.

Lignin is one of the main components of plants, and for years researchers have been trying to find an efficient way to break the material down. This is because “lignin represents a vast potential source of sustainable chemicals, so if we can find a way to extract and use those building blocks, we can create great things,” McGeehan said in a press statement.

Lignin, a building block of plants, is seen here stained red in a cross-section of plant cells from an oak tree. (Image Source: Berkshire Community College Bioscience Image Library)

Research Evolution

Building on previous research to improve a plastic-digesting enzyme to help dispose of plastic pollution, the team now has found a way to overcome a key challenge in the process of breaking down lignin to its basic chemicals, researchers said.

The research now paves the way to make new materials and chemicals such as nylon, bioplastics, and even carbon fiber, from what typically is a waste product, McGeehan said.

“It’s an amazing material,” he said in the statement. “Cellulose and lignin are among the most abundant biopolymers on earth. The success of plants is largely due to the clever mixture of these polymers to create lignocellulose, a material that is challenging to digest.”

Specifically, the enzyme researchers worked with is a new class of cytochrome P450 that is categorized as promiscuous—which means it’s able to work on a wide range of molecules. The enzyme class can be used to degrade a variety of lignin-based substrates, so researchers can engineer it to work especially for a specific molecule, allowing them to customize its function, researchers said.

The team published a paper on their work in the journal Nature Communications.

RELATED ARTICLES:

• Bioplastics Get Tougher and Greener

• Nano-Organisms Can Eat Carbon Dioxide to Produce Bio-Fuels and Plastics

Due to lignin’s versatility, researchers foresee the development of numerous new, eco-friendly products if it can be broken down repurposed using their enzyme discovery, researchers said. Creating products from lignin could help reduce global reliance on fossil fuels to make everyday products as well as for fuel, providing myriad benefits to the environment, they said.

Researchers plan to continue their work not just with this family of enzymes but also to discover others that could possibly make the breakdown of lignin even faster, they said.

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer who has written about technology and culture for more than 20 years. She has lived and worked as a professional journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco and New York City. In her free time she enjoys surfing, traveling, music, yoga and cooking. She currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal.

 

Drive World with ESC Launches in Silicon Valley

This summer (August 27-29), Drive World Conference & Expo launches in Silicon Valley with North America's largest embedded systems event, Embedded Systems Conference (ESC). The inaugural three-day showcase brings together the brightest minds across the automotive electronics and embedded systems industries who are looking to shape the technology of tomorrow.
Will you be there to help engineer this shift? Register today!

 

As the Bauhaus celebrates its centennial this year, it seems there are more resources than ever to learn about the iconic school of design. If you can't catch the Getty Center's ongoing show, Bauhaus Beginnings, in person, the next best thing is this online companion exhibit just launched by the Getty Research Institute. Bauhaus: Building the New Artist is designed by yU+co and explores three seminal Bauhaus lessons through a series of fun, interactive exercises.

There are three modules—Form and Color, Matter and Materials, and Body and Spirit—which contain explanatory texts about each topic, its significance in design, and how they were taught at the school. Each module culminates with an exercise that lets you directly engage with the ideas you read about.

In Form and Color, a simple drag-and-drop game explores Wassily Kandinsky's ideas about the relationship between primary shapes and primary colors. A series of video tutorials show how a single sheet of paper can become a dimensional sculpture through one of Josef Albers' paper exercises in Matter and Materials. The final exercise brings Oskar Schlemmer's dances to life in the Body and Spirit section by letting you customize the choreography, costumes, and music and generating an animation of the resulting performance.

Combining digital and hands-on activities, the result is a lighthearted and entertaining way to experience Bauhaus principles in action.

The online exhibition was conceived in conjunction with Bauhaus Beginnings, on view at the Getty Center in Los Angeles through October 13.

Brought to you by MAKO Design + Invent, North America's leading design firm for taking your product idea from a sketch on a napkin to store shelves. Download Mako's Invention Guide for free here.

Navigating the world of crowdfunding can be overwhelming, to put it lightly. Which projects are worth backing? Where's the filter to weed out the hundreds of useless smart devices? To make the process less frustrating, we scour the various online crowdfunding platforms to put together a weekly roundup of our favorite campaigns for your viewing (and spending!) pleasure. Go ahead, free your disposable income:

You won't need to worry about carrying around a bulky, potentially easy-to-lose charging case for your wireless earbuds with Wearbuds. They come with a sleek fitness wristband where you can both store and charge them, so they'll literally always be at your fingertips, ready to go.

The Spinn camera carrying system shifts your camera's center of gravity from its top to the base, which prevents it from bouncing around on your body when you're walking and will keep the straps from getting in the way when you're ready to take a snap. It also doubles as a tripod mount.

Inside an unassuming exterior, this garbage can packs a lot of features that will keep you from ever having to smell or touch trash again: the lid is powered by a motion sensor, it's self-cleaning, can seal your garbage bags, and comes with an overfill detector.

Made using only a lathe, this sphere inside a cube was carved from inside, not placed where it is! Like the campaign says, "with just a simple twist in how we utilize our resources, we can create many great things and that's what the O Cube keeps on reminding us."

A sleek, highly portable alternative to bulky (and let's face it, hideous) tire inflators.

Do you need help designing, developing, patenting, manufacturing, and/or selling YOUR product idea? MAKO Design + Invent is a one-stop-shop specifically for inventors / startups / small businesses. Click HERE for a free confidential product consultation.

Get Your 2019 Core77 Conference Ticket while they last! Regular tickets are now available. Don't miss your chance to attend "The Third Wave" on October 4th at New Lab in Brooklyn, including exciting speakers such as Paola Antonelli, John Maeda, Liz Jackson, Francois Nguyen and more!

Once you register, you will be updated regularly with new speaker announcements, activities taking place at the conference, and more information regarding what will be covered at this year's festivities.

Seating is capped at 200 attendees and only a limited number of tickets are still available, so if you're thinking about attending don't wait—buy a ticket now!

What is The Third Wave?

The days of easily disrupting markets with iterations of existing technology are waning. Creating value through planned obsolescence and optimized supply chains is no longer interesting or acceptable to a marketplace with high expectations in performance, functionality and quality. Moving beyond our current commercial and financial understanding of 'innovation' will require transformative ideas and approaching challenges with an experimental mind frame, compelling insights and a focus on the human element.

The future will be a tech-oriented world, but we have a chance to design one with an optimistic view, emphasizing the notions of inclusion, sustainability, and cooperation as we transition into an economy more mindful of our own impact on the planet and the people who live here. The 2019 Core77 Conference: The Third Wave will aim to create an open dialogue around the larger topics at hand, while also taking time to narrow in on ideas that affect day-to-day operations within design firms and independent studios.

Speakers

The Third Wave speakers will lead attendees on a journey towards a better future, addressing topics such as the designer's role in a data-driven world, how empathy should be re-evaluated to include a wide ranges of voices in the design process, the future of food, transportation and more. Confirmed presenters include:

Paola Antonelli - Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Architecture & Design

John Maeda - Global Head of Computational Design + Inclusion at Automattic

François Nguyen - Creative Director at frog

Liz Jackson - Founder, The Disabled List

Joe Meersman - Director of Design Strategy at IBM

Dean Malmgren - Executive Portfolio Director at IDEO Chicago

Marijke Jorritsma - Senior User Experience Designer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Archie Lee Coates IV - Co-Founder and Partner at PLAYLAB, INC.

More presenters will be announced soon.

Venue Partner:

New Lab is a platform for scaling frontier technologies, located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They champion forward-thinking entrepreneurs and partner with investors, corporations and city stakeholders to catalyze innovation.

Tickets

Seating at this one-day event is limited to 200 attendees, and our first ticket drop went faster than you can say 'The Third Wave'. To receive advance access to our next ticket release, follow the below link to sign up for notification. Act fast to avoid future FOMO:

I want a ticket.

Discounts are available for groups and students. Email us for details if you are interested in either of these options.

The largest project to date from 1th Studio, Fletcher Eshbaugh's "Codependent" melds psychology and design into something termed "AnimaForma", representative of both mind and form. The inaugural piece in the ongoing collection focuses on a physical manifestation of a psychological condition.

Codependency is the focus of this piece, with two interlocking tables that rely upon each other to function, each one incapable of standing on their own. The black void of the larger surface acts as the enmeshed support with two legs, representing the enabler or rescuer and the white table with one leg acts as the victim, a shining beacon of dysfunction. The two tables seemingly have great physical effect on one another. The black table leaning into the white, and the white piercing the black with turned edge much like a bullet exiting a target. As Barbara De Angelis states, "the rescuer needs the victim as much as the victim needs the rescuer".

View the full project here

Creature is searching for a mid-level designer to join their team in Atlanta. Their ideal candidate is a sketching fiend with a strong visual vocabulary, but who balances style with an understanding of function and how things work. They're seeking an enthusiastic designer who loves to understand and design for the target user, and can generate a diverse range of solutions to attack any problem.

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

We recently had the chance to visit Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to check out their 2019 College of Art and Design grad show. We focused mainly on industrial and product design projects during our visit, which were housed in SCAD's The Shed building during the exhibition. Overall, we were very impressed by the quality of work the students had on display, so we weren't too surprised to learn that in 2018, SCAD celebrated a whopping 99 percent of alumni employed—90 percent of which are working in a creative profession. We walked the entire show and came up with a list of projects we were most excited to learn about. So, let's take a virtual walk through some recent SCAD grads' work:

Stick & Fish by Alexia Maegli

Stick & Fish is a fishing reel toy designed to attach to any stick, allowing infinite possibilities for DIY fishing rods. Alexia Maegli's original idea was to design a universal, easy-transport reel, but the concept later developed into a toy. Adjustable straps allow the system to be flexible and fit any form of stick—it's primitive, fun and simple to use.

Photography: Jenna Nabridge

TocaTiles by Olivia Vieira (photography by Jenna Nabridge)

"How might I create a sanctuary for children where they can be themselves, be imaginative, create their own space and feel safe and secure?" asked designer Olivia Vieira. The result of this question is TocaTiles, a customizable play space consisting of connecting triangular forms, designed to help children cope with being alone and physically express their need for personal space. TocaTiles come in easy-to-store packaging that helps the child keep their tiles organized.

Parzialmente by Andrea Parziale

The Parzialmente collection by Andrea Parziale takes scrapped motorcycle parts and re-purposes them into customizable furniture—think bar stools made from the front shocks of Ducati Monsters, which use working hydraulics to create a more comfortable seating experience. Parziale sourced the motorcycle parts on ebay, the metal parts where CNC plasma cut by Universal Steel, and they did the leather upholstery, woodwork, welding and assembly themselves. Customers are able to customize most of the parts to their liking on the Parzialmente website.

Simple. Period. by Eduardo Dodge

After hearing a group of women tell stories about horrible PAP smears—freezing rooms, male doctors, steel tools—Eduardo Doge decided to research women's healthcare to see if there is a way to improve the frustrating and uncomfortable PAP smear experience. Simple. Period. is a small personal device that uses menstrual blood to identify diseases such as cervical cancer and endometriosis. It does so using microfluidic chips that isolate cells by their size. Dodge's goal with this project is to, "provide access to affordable healthcare for women in their homes and communities, promote the well-being of women and their families across the globe, and empower women through education, giving them more control over their health."

In terms of cleanliness of the medical device, Dodge states that,"inside the device there is a pump that pulls the blood sample into the chip and pumps acetone or alcohol through it to sterilize it after the test is complete. An acetone container, a solenoid valve to switch between air and acetone, and a battery and bluetooth/wifi transceiver are also included so that the information can be sent to the doctor directly with the consent of the patient. Despite being able to sterilize itself" he continues, "it is also possible to discard the microfluidic chip by pushing the button on the bottom of the device."

Namu Spirits by Tiffany Zhang

Namu Spirits is a toy designed to introduce the difficult reality of death to a kids. With every Spirit, the child receives a story book that explains what the Spirit is and how the relationship between the two can grow. The toy is comprised of three different layers of materials: the first layer is a thin layer of fabric. As the fabric falls away, it will reveal a paper pulp material infused with photochromic pigments that change color in UV light. As the child takes the spirit into the sun, it will change color and slowly decompose. As the child keeps interacting with its Namu Spirit, the final layer (made from coconut husk) will begin to reveal itself. Once this happens, the Namu Spirit is ready to be planted in the ground and nurtured into a real tree.

FrEyes by Mukund Asagodu

Anthropophobia is a fear for people and human company which leads to adverse effects on an individual's psychological as well as physical being. As a way to ease anxiety for people experiencing Anthropophobia, Mukund Asagodu created FrEyes, a pair of simple AI assistive glasses that measures and analyzes the state of mind and level of comfort. In a series of three phases dependent on the user's anxiety level, the glasses play the user's favorite music to reduce anxiety, uses AI to activate real-time filters to eliminate eye contact (e.g. replacing peoples' faces with french fries), and either attempts to calm the user by playing a relaxing video if the area is safe or calls the user's emergency contact if they are under extreme stress.

Photography: Caroline Jakubowski)

Changé Pointe Shoe by Defne Öztürk

For the past 100 years, ballet shoes have been made using the exact same methods, with the same materials such as paper, cardboard and silk. Defne Öztürk created Changé ballet shoes to challenge the traditional ballet shoe by creating a more durable, customizable and comfortable solution. She believes that, "in the age of high-tech sneakers with innovative materials, ballet shoes can also benefit from the same technological advancements."

Changé pointe shoes are modular, meaning the box and shank can be swapped out to allow the dancer to experiment with different levels of hardness without having to buy a new shoe. Changé is also the first pointe shoe to incorporate built-in toe support based on different toe types, so that the dancer can distribute their weight evenly on their toes.

Tilt Project by Zoye Ruehl

Tilt Project explores the idea of customized footwear dependent on arch type. With an adjustable boa lacing structure, the wearer is able to raise and lower the arch support setting to their specific needs. "Some people have one high and one low arch and require different support; some people have flat feet but still supinate; some people like more arch support during different times of the day," says designer Zoye Ruehl. "No two feet are the same, and it's time we stop making shoes as if they are."

Ten years ago generative design was not a widely available technology (unless you were running Rhino and Grasshopper). Today it's integrated with Fusion 360. As the technology becomes ubiquitous, designers who have avoided thinking about it will be caught flatfooted. Even if you yourself are not currently in a position to use it, it's likely you'll encounter it in future projects. The smart money says you should consider GD's place in modern design and form an opinion on how the technology ought be wielded.

The non-I.D. layperson may not have ever heard of Rhino, Grasshopper, Autodesk. But everyone's heard of Volkswagen, and the German automaker recently released shots of a classic Microbus design touched up with Fusion-based generative design elements, created in collaboration with Autodesk. That's meant to build consumer awareness of GD. But before I get into that, let's look at what the technology promises, within the context of what came before.

Figuring out how to create strong structures has been the domain of mankind, ever since the first pioneering caveman decided he was done with caves.

"Let's move to the coast."

Fast-forward dozens of millennia, and man had figured out timber frames. By observing basic geometry and learning to interlock different members together in a particular way, mankind learned to build incredibly sturdy edifices, which have since been proven to withstand earthquakes and even atomic blasts.

Once we got into metal and mass manufacturing, engineers perfected the steel truss. The support elements were a lot finer, and the assembly of them more straightforward; it was easier to teach a guy named Jack to weld than to teach someone named Josiah to saw and pare a half-lapped dovetail joint.

Steel trusses, of course, changed structural design forever. With the ability to create large spans, architects could now create megachurches, convention centers and casinos with a minimum of support columns.

Industrial designers employ support trusses on a smaller scale. These can often be invisible, inside an injection-molded part…

…or left visible as a functional but stylish element, like on a Ducati Monster 797.

Car rims are another area where structural function and design style can be combined.

Which brings us to the latest example of generative design: The vintage Microbus cooked up by VW and Autodesk. VW's Innovation and Engineering Center California retrofitted an existing 'Bus with an electric drive system, and to strip weight from the vehicle, turned to generative design for some of the components. Exhibit A: The GD'd rims, which provide the required structure while cutting the weight by 18%:

"With generative design it's possible to create structures that we, as human designers and engineers, could never have created otherwise," said Andrew Morandi, senior product designer, Volkswagen Group. "One of the biggest surprises for me was seeing just how much material you could remove from a conventional wheel structure."

They also applied generative design to the sideview mirror mounts, the steering wheel and the rear bench supports:

"A steering wheel is not a particularly heavy component but it's the primary touchpoint for the driver. People aren't really accustomed to touching mounts or supports," said Erik Glaser, principal product designer, Volkswagen Group. "We wanted to put a generatively designed object in a place where people will touch it because not only is it intricate and beautiful, but it can also give a sense of just how strong these parts can be."

This is subjective, but I really do not like the look of these GD'd elements. If you look at the conventional trusses pictured earlier in this entry, you see the hands of man, historical progression. The timber frames, the structures and the Ducatis were designed by the same species.

When I look at the generatively-designed trusses, I see an unnatural combination of organic and technological that read to me as grotesque. I know this is an irrational view; if we look inside the tissue, bones and organs of our own bodies, we'd see similarly optimized and yet random-appearing structures.

Which is where I stand on it--I'd like the benefits of generative design to be largely invisible, used for internal support structures rather than highlighted as aesthetic elements. I'd like for the machine to deliver us the cost and material savings behind the scenes, while human designers are responsible for the forward-facing elements.

Indeed, when I first got to see generative design up close at Autodesk University some years ago, it wasn't the shot of a GD'd chair that impressed me…

…it was a human-bones-based automotive suspension component that drove the potential home to me. It featured a GD'd weight-saving internal lattice that no human could have devised:

As I wrote back then, "The software isn't filling the void with the same repeating pattern. It actually mimics bone by adding material only where it's necessary and removing material where it's not." That's something a human designer cannot do--not in a time-efficient way, in any case--and where the machine can spit out thousands of variants relatively quickly. That is where the machine's strengths lie, not in aesthetic presentation, so I hope that that latter part will be left to human designers.

Ultimately, however, my viewpoint doesn't matter; it will be up to the current and next generation of designers who have the agency to decide how they will incorporate GD into their designs. It will then be up to our corporate masters to greenlight those designs, and finally for the end users to vote with their dollars.

Given the choice, do you think designers should nakedly expose GD'd elements? Is this something that ought be accepted as an aesthetic in its own right?

_________

Up Next: What do practicing industrial designers think of generative design? As it turns out, Core77 forum members have been having this discussion--starting nearly ten years ago. If you were to print out the entire discussion to date, it'd be more than 100 pages. We'll cull through the entire thing and present you with the salient points.

NiCE Ltd. is seeking motivated industrial designer to join their family. They are an internationally renowned branding and packaging design studio with a foundation built on design mastery and a passion for delivering creative solutions. The ideal candidate has to have the ability to think and collaborate across disciplines and mediums. They must possess a creative approach to problem-solving, a positive and collaborative attitude, a meticulous attention to detail, and a fine-tuned eye for desig

See the full job details or check out all design jobs at Coroflot.

Welcome to the second leg of the Core77 Design-Athlon, where designers flex their design-y muscles! Play along by taking the following brief and mocking up your ideas. The emphasis here is on exploration and problem-solving – translating concepts into physical form, ideally at a 1:1 scale where all the context of real-world use can inform the process.

Our first #c77prototyping challenge is "A Lunch Box for Adults" here is the Brief:

Budget. Diet. Schedule. An adult lunch is defined by restrictions – either embrace or escape these realities of a modern work lunch through physical ideation and iteration. Maquette, prototype, sketch-model, or buck – we are looking for quick form & use exploration of a lunch box. Choose a scenario and ideate quickly, work through it with your hands and eyes, build quickly, find a rhythm and let the process guide you to a resolution. It is not about the destination; this is the journey at the heart of design - take a pic to document your path and post it!

For our prototyping leg of the competition we have special guest-star judge Julie Arrivé of Map to help us pick winners!

Prototyping is how a concept meets the real world and with the Design-Athlon it serves as a bridge between the first leg, sketching, and the final and upcoming leg, rendering. We'd like to slow the pace down here – each challenge is (approximately) 2 weeks long.

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How To Enter

1. Follow us on Instagram

2. Explore the concept of "A Lunch Box for Adults" via prototyping and take a picture of your process

3. Post your picture to Instagram, posting must tag us, @core77, and include the hashtags #c77prototyping, #c77challenge

Good luck!

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Rules

• The contest ends Sunday, July 21st – 11:59PM – EDT . Winner and runner-ups will be announced within 30 days of close.

• Multiple entries are permitted but a participant can not have more than one winning entry per challenge.

• Winning entries will be selected by a panel of design professional(s) and Core77 staff based on skill, presentation and ideas.

• The contest is hosted by Core77 and there are no eligibility restrictions.

• This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Instagram.

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To learn more about our entire Summer-long design skill series, check out our announcement of the Core77 Design-Athlon.

Greenery pic by Dose Juice