KEDZ Covers

If you get a chance take a look at this wonderful story in Rhode Island Monthly about our own Katrina Deil from Barrington RI, founder of KEDZ Covers. We are the artist mentioned in the article and assisted her Dad in the design, prototype and drawings for the final covers. Please click here if you would like to see there website.

Rendering of the cover.

Rapid prototype of cover to review form, fit and function. During the process we made many covers.

We also completed a detailed engineering drawing for injection molding.

CARD'N Keys

Not to long ago we created a product to organize your card and keys. We call this soft case, CARD'N KEYS Case. If you have a moment check out our video for a product description ! 

You can order your case today on our website. just visit our ETSY items tab.

I came up with this idea many years ago and recently decided to patent the product and give it a go!

Patent D680,733 

Do your courtesy cards and keys look like this!

Instead, Organize your cards and keys and other things in a soft durable leather case!

Even has a swivel Key Ring, very clever.

Just fan out your cards!

The cases come in a rainbow of colors!

Design Thinking

Where does your passion and inspiration come from? One of my enjoyments is sailing. I really like the sport and the water, many of our ideas for product come from this passion. Our business tag line is Connecting Art to Part, it is integral to our creative approach to design for manufacturing and problem solving!

In our mechanical work we are guided by the simple approach of form following function so we are acutely aware of the art of engineering in everything we do! This is my passion and many of my product idea inspirations comes from sailing and it's surroundings. Take a look at the gallery by clicking on the picture, there are six photos!

Rescuing Injured Soldiers With An Ingenious Backpack System

THE ULTRA-LIGHTWEIGHT HARNESS ALLOWS SOLDIERS TO STRAP FALLEN COMRADES TO THEIR BACKS, THUS KEEPING THEIR HANDS FREE.

One of the toughest parts of war is evacuating wounded troops. While the Pentagon and NATO have been discussing the feasibility of using UAVs to fly injured troops to safety (PDF), an Israeli company is offering a new solution: high-tech plastic backpack/sling/bungee hybrids that allow troops to carry injured comrades to safety--on their backs.

Agilite Gear markets the Injured Personnel Carrier, a lightweight (0.8 lb.) high-tensile plastic cord system that straps to a wearer’s back and can hypothetically hold up to 2,000 lbs. The padded cord wraps around the injured party, who is then carried around on the back of the non-injured soldier like a human backpack. Unlike traditional war-zone rescue products, the Injured Personnel Carrier is hands-free--rescuers are able to hold weapons and other objects while returning their comrade to safety. The heavy straps also assist in lifting the injured off the ground.

The company, which just launched the carrier on the American market, is supplying (Hebrew-language link) the United States Marine Corps and Australian Special Forces with IPCs. In addition to foreign militaries, Agilite is also targeting military contractors, search-and-rescue teams, and emergency services. The carrier’s origins lie in a practice among several Israeli Defense Forces units of tying together four rifle slings to use as a backpack.

The IPC retails for $95 in single, non-bulk purchases with free shipping to the United States. Non-military purchasers for the product have also included hikers and cruise ship emergency staff who purchased it due to the ability to use in confined spaces, according to Agilite’s Elie Isaacson. Apart from the personnel carrier, most of the company’s other products are vests, backpacks, and rifle slings of various sorts.

Extracting injured troops from battlezones has been a persistent problem for the Pentagon. The military and defense contractors, who are deep in the throes of drone-mania, have been flirting with the idea of replacing medevac helicopters with unmanned drones. A variety of extraction tools are currently used for on-the-ground evacuation of injured troops, but tactical stretchers--many of which have armor or medical accessories--are most frequently used overseas. For Agilite, the big challenge will be marketing an extraction method in which the injured party is not lying down. Slinging injured troops into a “human backpack” cannot work in all situations; earning viable sales will depend on convincing troops and search-and-rescue organizations that the IPC is better than a stretcher.

source: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670472/rescuing-injured-soldiers-with-an-ingenious-backpack-system

Watch: A Peek Inside the Apple Recruitment Process

Dress Shirt Keeps You Cool With NASA Technology

Hard on the heels of our story about Empa’s self-cooled bulletproof vest comes word of a like-minded innovation back in the world of everyday clothing. The creation of MIT-derived startup Ministry of Supply, the new Apollo shirt taps NASA heat-regulation technology to keep its wearer comfortable and cool.

Massachusetts-based Ministry of Supply aims to create “the next generation of business wear,” in the company’s own words. Drawing upon a combined experience that includes space suit design at MIT, the company has been working on its shirts and proprietary fabric for the past eighteen months. Now, its new Apollo dress shirt features a special fabric blend that offers not just anti-microbial functionality and moisture-wicking construction, but also a way to keep the body at a more comfortable temperature using technology borrowed from space suits. With the ability to both absorb and release heat, the wrinkle-free shirt pulls heat away from the body during a hot walk outside, for example, but then can release it back again as the wearer returns to the air-conditioned indoors. The video below explains the premise in more detail:

Bike Expands To Fit Child's Growth Spurts

Grow is a line of children’s bicycles created by industrial designer Alex Fernandez Camps for Orbea, a cycling company based in Spain. Even though most traditional bikes allow for height adjustable seats and handlebars, the frames remain fixed, which leaves many kids riding bicycles that are either too large or too small during their periodic growth spurts.

Having an appropriate frame-size protects against unnecessary strain and discomfort to a rider’s body. By incorporating an adjustable frame into the design, Grow bikes can last a child around 5 years worth of growth while ensuring a healthy fit.  This focus on the longterm also eases financial stress on families who may have otherwise bought twice as many bicycles, as well as the environmental concerns of bikes becoming useless once outgrown.

The four models of Orbea Grow bicycle are meant to carry a child throughout their development. The Grow 0 is a balance bike for toddlers ages 1.5-4 or between 78-105cm (2’6″-3’5″), depending on which level of ‘growth’ has been set.

Two mid-level bikes, the Grow 1 & 2, should be great vehicles for kids between 2.5-9 years or between 90-135cm (2’11″-4’5″).

The upcoming Grow 3 will be meant for children around 8-14 years or 130-165 cm (4’3″-5’4″) after which point a final growth spurt would presumably leave them ready to invest in a full-sized bicycle.

Premium Underwear Made in the U.S.A.

Manufacturing is starting to come back to the USA. Not all of it, and not even a lot of it. However, it only takes a trickle to turn into a stream, and then a river.

Seeing instances of garment manufacturing being brought back to the US brings shivers to my spine. The USA used to be a hub for well-crafted garments until Asia took over in the mass-production of labor and the development of newer technologies. America just couldn't keep up. However, the fashion trends are now pointing to buying less, but buying quality. Manufacturing garments can move back to America because while we may not be able to produce incredible volumes of product, we can produce small(er) batches with exceptional quality.

Case in point: Flint and Tinder, a premium men's underwear company owned by Jake Bronstein. The line is entirely made in the USA. While Bronstein has no intention of using the "Made in America" line as a marketing ploy, he does want to stress to consumers that he is making a premium product here in the States that is better than its foreign counterparts.

Fast Company has a great interview with Bronstein about Flint and Tinder here.

Color-Enhancing Glasses Let Doctors See Disease and Emotion

source: http://www.good.is/post/color-enhancing-glasses-let-doctors-see-disease-and-emotion/

The ability to see the world in a broad spectrum of colors is more than just a wonderful gift—it's a survival mechanism that humans evolved in order to identify both threats and food. But color vision also helps us read each other. Research by evolutionary neurobiologist Dr. Mark Changizi's traces the development of color vision to the need among primates to understand changes in skin hue associated with different states of emotion or health. Flushed cheeks, for example, correspond to embarassment, exhaustion, illness, or anger associated with different levels of oxygenation in the blood. The ability to detect those states makes you more likely to survive. It's an evolutionary advantage.

Building on that work, Changizi and collaborators at the human cognition research center 2AI Labs have developed a set of eyeglass filters that amplify the eye's natural ability to detect changes in hues beneath the skin. The target market for the eyewear, named O2Amp, is medical professionals who could use the filters in examinations to pick up on cues about patients unavailable to the naked eye.

One filter would make veins show up more clearly, so no more jabbing the wrong part of the arm when a nurse is seeking an insertion point for a needle; another would allow doctors to easily detect trauma beneath the skin; and a third would apply a mood ring-like range of color associations to a patient's blood. The blood of an anemic person, for example, would show up with a greener hue with the shades on.

While the glasses are currently being tested by medical professionals at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, Changizi argues that they have more that just a medical purpose:

Typical sunglasses shade the world but also end up shading one’s connections to other people; this is exemplified by the way people tip up their sunglasses to get a better look at someone. Ourtechnology shades the world but not the social; for the O2Amps, one sees other people better by keeping them on, rather than tipping them up.

In addition to the healthcare applications, Changizi envisions a role for his new technology in poker, sports, dating, and security.

Volvo Ocean Race To Enter New Era With 65 Foot Design

source: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/6640_Volvo-Ocean-Race-to-enter-new-era-with-65-foot-one-design.html

The Volvo Ocean Race is set for a new era after CEO Knut Frostad today unveiled a one-design concept that will significantly reduce the cost of mounting a campaign and bring the size of the fleet to 8-10 boats for future editions.

The 65-foot (19.8-metre) monohull racing yacht will be used for the next two editions of the Race. It will be designed by the United States-based Farr Yacht Design and constructed by a consortium of leading boatyards in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Switzerland.

Under an agreement between Volvo Ocean Race and the consortium, a minimum of eight boats will be built to contest the next two races.

Work will begin in July and the first of the racing yachts in the new class will be completed by June 2013, well over a year before the start of the 12th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, leaving from Alicante, Spain in the second half of 2014.

"This breathtaking new design, and the agreement to build at least eight yachts, will take the Volvo Ocean Race into an exciting new era," said Knut Frostad, the Race's Chief Executive Officer.

"It represents another major milestone for a race that has never been afraid to move forward in our 39-year history. This move to a one-design gives us an enormous head start in our planning for the next two races and puts the Volvo Ocean Race in even better shape going forward."

Despite being five feet (1.5 metres) shorter, the new boat will be almost as fast as the Volvo Open 70s that are contesting the current race.

The boat will be designed and built with the latest video, satellite and content production facilities to further enhance the work being done in the unique Media Crew Member programme that has been in place since the 2008-09 race.

The agreement announced in Lorient has been made possible after Volvo Ocean Race S.L.U. secured financing that will underpin the process of designing and building the boats according to schedule.

The Volvo Ocean Race, which began life in 1973, is owned by Volvo Car Corporation and The Volvo Group, who together reaffirmed their open-ended commitment to the race at a news conference ahead of the start of the current edition in Alicante in November 2011.

"We at Volvo Cars are fully behind these initiatives, which we believe will secure the future of this great event on all levels but also stay faithful to the very basis of the Volvo Ocean Race as the sport's premier offshore competition for the world's leading sailors," said Stefan Jacoby, CEO of Volvo Car Corporation.

His counterpart at Volvo Group Olof Persson also gave firm backing to the moves.

"Volvo Group believes the plans presented to us by Knut and his team will take the Volvo Ocean Race to the next level with an innovative boat design which keeps us at the forefront of ocean racing while giving us the best possible chance of building bigger fleets," Persson said. "I am delighted as CEO to confirm my absolute confidence that the Race is taking the best route to an even brighter future."

The boats will be sold by U.K.-based Green Marine Ltd, who will carry out the final assembly. MULTIPLAST in France, Persico S.p.A. in Italy and DECISION S.A. in Switzerland will manufacture different components.

“For us it’s a great honour and a great challenge to be involved in this project and a race that is part of our heritage,” said Marcel Müller, managing director of Green Marine. “It’s the opportunity to work together with some of the best professionals in the marine industry including the other boatyards and the designers. We’re ready to create something very special.”

The process will significantly reduce the barrier to competing in the Volvo Ocean Race and the cost of mounting a competitive campaign, which CEO Frostad said would be possible for less than 15 million euros.

The “ready to sail” cost of the boats, including sails for the pre-Race period and the Race itself, will be around 4.5 million euros, while further significant cost savings will be made possible by the pooling of resources.

"Our clear goal throughout the planning process for the next race has been to make it easier and less costly to mount a campaign in the Volvo Ocean Race," Frostad said. "This is a big step towards that goal.

"This new one-design is fantastic looking and will be ultra-reliable and great to race. We're heading into a new era of this great race with a future that it's more exciting and more secure."

Patrick Shaughnessy, President of Farr Yacht Design, said his team were well placed to take on the challenge of designing the new boat.

“We’re super enthusiastic about the challenge we have in front of us,” he said. “It’s a big challenge but I think we’re well suited to meet it, and we’re really excited to be part of it.

“We’ve been involved in the Volvo Ocean Race and the Whitbread Round the World Race for over 20 years so it’s a great honour to be part of what’s considered going forward.”

The six boats contesting the current edition of the Volvo Ocean Race are about to embark upon the ninth and final offshore leg, leaving Lorient on July 1. The race will finish on July 7 with the final in-port race in Galway, Ireland.

To download a factsheet on the new design, click HERE.

GREEN MARINE LTD

Green Marine is an established performance boat builder in Lymington, UK, and has been building many of the world's best known racing and cruising yachts for 28 years, including Volvo Ocean Race contenders, America's Cup challengers and cutting-edge cruising superyachts. Green Marine, part of the Vitters Shipyard group, has earned a worldwide reputation as a leading specialist in advanced carbon fibre moulding techniques.

DECISION S.A.
DECISION S.A. are specialists in the use of composite materials in construction. Since 1984, DECISION has been active in the boatbuilding industry and from 2000 to 2009, the company built the boats used by Team Alinghi, including America's Cup winners in 2003 and 2007. The Switzerland-based DECISION has wide experience in other areas of construction, the space industry, aviation and telecommunications.

MULTIPLAST
MULTIPLAST are pioneers in composite boatbuilding with an outstanding 30-year track record in the world of offshore racing (Route du Rhum, Jules Verne Trophy, Atlantic record).The combination, within the same company, of an office of naval architecture and manufacturing workshops for composite parts is unique and provides a comprehensive professional approach. For the current edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, MULTIPLAST built the Volvo Open 70 Groupama 4.

PERSICO S.P.A
PERSICO is one of the world's most experienced and versatile mould-engineering specialist companies with automotive, rotomoulding, engineering, marine and aerospace/aeronautics divisions located in an area of 60.000 square meters in Nembro (Bergamo), Italy. Persico Marine has been involved in projects including Moro di Venezia | 1992 (bulb and keel), RC44 | 2004 (hull-deck-helm mould), Luna Rossa 2007 and Luna Rossa 2012, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing 2011, Artemis Racing wings (plugs & moulds) 2011-12.

FARR YACHT DESIGN

Farr Yacht Design, Ltd. has a long-running record of achievement dating back more than 25 years and including 40 World Championships won in Farr designs and a multitude of design successes at internationally prestigious grand prix yachting events such as the Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup, Vendee Globe, Sydney-Hobart, Barcelona World Race, Transat Jacques Vabre, Copa del Rey and many others.

Founded by Bruce Farr and Russell Bowler in 1981 as Bruce Farr & Associates, the present-day Farr Yacht Design has grown to a design team comprised of 18 members providing an enormous range of talent and skills.