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Teardown

Ultimate Lightning Mcqueen Teardown

As robotics technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, we’ve seen an increase in robotic companion products come to market, intended to simulate human interaction. Sphero’s latest product, Ultimate Lightning McQueen, displays the company’s engineering and design mastery of life-like robotics technology. Similar to the BB-8 Droid, this new product in partnership with Pixar is packed with […]

Article

How to Design Assemblies to Be Self-Locating and Self-Fixturing

There’s a reason kids love Lego. When I was a kid, nothing was more valuable to me than my big blue bucket of the multi-colored bricks. Even when my parents encouraged my interest in engineering with more complex Fischer Technics, nothing replaced the joy of quickly snapping pieces together in increasingly complex shapes. Wouldn’t it […]

Article

An Introduction to Solenoids

Like cavemen did thousands of years ago with fire, you might have just struck upon an incredibly revolutionary idea. As you coin down your concept and think of ways to make it as simple as possible, you’ll probably come across mechanical functions that require linear action. Energy can be converted into linear motion by an […]

Article

Keeping Copycats Away: A Guide to Patents for Hardware Products

As an entrepreneur, you’ve probably heard this many times: “Ideas are worthless until you get them out of your head and see what they can do.” Every big idea starts with a small first step and many leaps of faith to get it realized. However, you’ve probably also seen big Kickstarter projects get funded, only […]

Article

Spring Design Part 3: How Springs are Manufactured

According to our 2017 State of Hardware Report survey participants, the second most useful website in existence is YouTube. Not surprising—where else are you going to find a quick CAD tutorial, learn about manufacturing, and watch a blender shred a brand new iPhone? As such, we’ve compiled a list of YouTube videos that show how […]

Article

Helpful Design Constraints vs. Over-Constraint: How to Find the Sweet Spot

If you design products, whether you’re a full time in-house engineer, a professional freelance industrial designer, or a moonlighting inventor, you’ve likely come across situations in which there is no solution to the design problem you have come across. I’m not referring to a scenario in which you cannot come up with a solution; I’m […]

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The Great Robotic Vacuum Showdown Part 1: Roomba 650 — Navigation System

In the first part of our Roomba teardown, we looked at the components that allow Roomba to move around and suck up dirt. Now we’re going to see what allows Roomba to actually navigate around your room semi-intelligently. The first sensor is actually a mechanical component—the small caster wheel found on the bottom of the […]

Webinar

On Demand

How to Format Your Bill of Materials

For accurate manufacturing cost forecasting Join us for an exclusive webinar with Scott N. Miller, founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation, and Fictiv’s Sylvia Wu, where you’ll get practical advice on how to structure your Bill of Materials in a way that enables early insight into your complete manufacturing costs. During the webinar Scott and […]

Article

Design and Sourcing Considerations for Springs

Springs are absolutely everywhere, from jewelry clasps to large industrial robots. The probability of a fresh-out-of-school mechanical engineer encountering his or her first spring design problem within the first year of graduating is not 100%, but it’s pretty high. Most of the time, it’s not practical to go straight into making a custom spring in […]

Article

The Engineer’s Guide to Small Scale AC vs. DC Motors

While electric motors drive vastly different applications, their core function remains the same—to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy. Numerous articles highlight the characteristics of each unique motor on the market, but they can be simplified into two overarching categories: AC (alternating current) motors and DC (direct current) motors. Each type has its own pros […]