Mechanical Engineering

A coffee pod system without a plastic pod. Headphones that read your mind. A touch-sensitive prosthetic hand. Check out the biggest innovations to influence product design in 2022.

Home self-testing kits have played a crucial role in managing the spread of COVID-19 in the US, but a steep environmental price is hidden in the societal benefit.

The vehicle expo area of CES has been one of the most exciting parts of the trade show in recent years.

The list of industries experiencing huge disruption fueled by “technology” is growing by the day.

Badger Shield gave me the opportunity to collaborate with an amazing group of men and women this year – designers, suppliers, manufacturers, and customers. I expect to have built lifelong collaborators and friends through this trial by virus. (For background, read the article in Wired).

More often than not, designing your cool new product relies on some new widget. You’re not sure if you should design your own or buy one from a supplier. What if there was a straightforward way to decide?

Days after receiving their first shipment of Badger Shields from Midwest Prototyping, the University of Wisconsin Hospital sent Lennon Rodgers of the UW-Madison Makerspace a list of their top 10 most critical needs to build up a supply of protective equipment ahead of the anticipated mid-April peak of COVID-19 cases in Dane County. Near the top of this list were Powered Air Purifying Respirators (PAPR) blowers and hoods.

All right, who do I blame for this?

As 2019 winds to a close it’s time to make my annual appraisal of some of the more noteworthy products and events shaping world of design and Innovation. And the last year certainly saw its fair share of significant steps and missteps. So, let’s wade in with a few things I’ll remember that helped define 2019 for me.

Robots unleashed; the emergence of hearables; sustainable plastics and processes — we weigh in the biggest innovations of 2019 to influence product design.

Have you ever considered what happens to the materials you put into the recycling bin after they are picked up from your curb?

We weren't setting out to invent something radically different, but we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could make our own split-flap display.

The term design review can have a lot of different meanings depending on the context in which it is used.

With the growing demand for rugged design across sectors, product developers need help figuring out when to accommodate military specifications.

What happens when all the engineers from Delve's three offices gather in Madison? We buy stuff and tear it apart to understand how it is made. Our product of choice? The robotic vacuum. We picked two competitors – the Roomba from iRobot that created the category and the Pure Clean knockoff.

As far as I can remember cycling has always been a part of my life in some form or another.

Though we work in the service industry for larger corporations on a day-to-day basis, some of my favorite opportunities come in the form of community work.

So I promised our marketing department I’d do a blog on our recent adoption of a telemedicine benefit for our employees.

“Wait. Is that it? Did the needle already go in? I can’t believe it!”

The only intellectual property Design Concepts “owns” are the brains of our team while they are working on sticky problems for our clients.

The “fuzzy front end” of product development can pose some unique challenges for engineers.

Who needs eating utensils when you have perfectly working hands to rip and tear at the food on your plate and stuff it into your mouth?

In a world where we can go from a CAD model to a 3D printed part well within a typical working day, it’s easy to get excited about just how fast one can iterate and explore design alternatives.

At Design Concepts, we have a pretty great mission statement: “We design cool stuff to drive business success and make life better.”

Engineering details, manufacturing processes, and material choices can all be used to inspire your own designs and decisions.

I was given a personal example of the power of a multidisciplinary approach to innovation a few weekends back when I found myself coincidentally working on very similar parts of cars built in two very different eras.

Recently, I was asked by the University of Wisconsin to share my thoughts on the future of engineering education as the keynote speaker at their 2016 Engineering Innovation Showcase.

If you’re developing a product, you’ve probably come across the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach.

We recently met with the adaptive sports experts at No Limits Kids Fitness to choose one of several design approaches for our hand cycle.

In late 2014, Design Concepts worked with No Limits Kids Fitness to launch an Indiegogo campaign to help us build a prototype of an adjustable hand cycle that grows with kids with physical disabilities.

I’ve played squash since I was a teenager.

Light emitting diode (LED) technology has developed quickly over the last decade. Once only the familiar red dot indicating power was “on,” LEDs can now replace traditional incandescent and fluorescent lighting as our primary source of illumination.

We recently heard from a valued client of ours and learned some great news. Using the BioReactor we helped design and manufacture, Dr. Richard Hopkins and his team at Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, have been able to reach a major milestone in their development of a process for replacing heart valves in children.