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Saving the world is great. In theory. But when it comes to the nitty gritty of making your ideals a business reality, you need to swap those rose-colored glasses for some eyes-wide-open realism. Yet even in this complicated world we live in where multiple realities vie for attention, you can still do a lot of […]
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On July 13, Fictiv CEO Dave Evans participated in the Slack hardwarestartup group’s very first AMA. The group was spun off from the popular hardwarestartups group on reddit, and its members love to chat hardware entrepreneurialism. The group is over 500 strong, and you can join here. We’ve recapped some of the most interesting insights […]
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Understanding Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is critical to a successful build, even at the 3D printing stage. The right design paired with the wrong 3D printed material will lead to underwhelming results. There are several 3D printing materials from which to choose that each utilize a unique build process, but PLA is a common choice, due to its widespread […]
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Creating innovative mechanical designs is hard (I should know—I do it for a living). Sometimes, you’re pushed to the very limit to imagine a concept or mechanism that could actually work. At times like this, manufacturing is a distant utopia that we can only hope to reach, so we ignore it. But, at the end […]
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These days, it’s rare to encounter a consumer electronics (CE) device that isn’t “smart.” Intelligent features — heart rate monitoring or GPS tracking, for instance — mean that CE devices require more power than ever in order to provide consumers with the applications they care about, all within smaller, portable devices. As a result, battery […]
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We’re insulated from the cost of our garbage in America. As kids, we were trained to carefully place trash in the cans lining our streets. I’ll never forget the shock of seeing that same trash scattered along the streets in urban West Africa, but it did get me thinking: They can see their waste. What […]
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Why was Boeing’s 747 such a huge success, while BAC’s Concorde is currently out of commission? It’s because Boeing thoroughly researched their target market before developing their product, while BAC jumped right to the development, skipping the research. Boeing’s research revealed the need for a plane that could carry more passengers, while BAC incorrectly assumed […]
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The Apple aesthetic is easily recalled even by people who aren’t consumer electronics design enthusiasts. What do you think of when you are asked to describe an Apple product? Metal and glass? White? Minimalist? Someone once commented that a prototype I had built looks very “Apple.” It was a rectangular prism with rounded edges, constructed […]
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All startups have challenges. Funding. Staffing. Marketing. Sales. Customer service. If they’re hardware startups, they need to add supply chain, prototyping, and manufacturing to the mix. That’s all assuming their product or service is rated G. Lioness, a startup in the hardware manufacturing space, has an extra challenge—they design and manufacture vibrators for women. This […]
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In today’s rapidly changing manufacturing environment, engineers are constantly trying to find their way through a very complex ecosystem to gain a competitive advantage and leverage the right tools to build their next product. Just last month, we hosted an event where a Abby Soong, a Mechanical Design Engineer at Momentum Machines, said that her […]
