Recent Blog Posts

Seat Shape

This post is a bit of a development of design ideas. Sometimes it’s good to go through each stage of a design and explain why it has been rejected. Of course, like any design process there’s a good deal of opinion, approximation and guesswork to it, so be sure to add a comment below if [...] read more…

Cockpit Clearances

Designing a cockpit to accommodate a range of rider sizes is more complex than laying out the controls to fit one rider; especially having a steering wheel control for such a reclined operator instead of underseat/tiller steering or a moveable yoke. To account for different height riders while still keeping the rider’s eyeline above the [...] read more…

Git Un-Merge

When I last merged a development branch of add-rel-lightbox into the master branch and realised that I’d not finished testing the changes, it was off to the internet to find out how to undo a merge. After a couple of goes at git revert -m 1 refused to do anything, and a little more searching, [...] read more…

About

"The days of companies with names like 'General Electric' and 'General Mills' and 'General Motors' are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people."

Cory Doctorow, "Makers"

...maybe not yet, but it is already beginning.

The world still lives with mass-produced products; designed to averaged, normalised, focus grouped specifications, where one-size-doesn't-quite-fit-anyone. It buys proprietary products, locked boxes with stickers that say "warranty void if opened". But contrary to popular misinformation, products are never finished. There is no "best" design. How is what you need the same as what everyone else needs?

What if a product was open? What if you could see the work that went into it? If your ideas were as valid as the designer's and made-at-home was just as good as made-by-us?

That's what we do. Open Source Design Engineering.
read more…