DailyDirt: Interesting Designs For Common Items
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
A lot of products have been revolutionized by relatively simple re-designs. Velcro. The spork. Sometimes it’s little changes that make a big difference. And sometimes there’s just too much of a barrier to overcome for old designs to be replaced, no matter how much improvement could be gained. Here are just a few designs that you might see more often someday.
- Airlines are always looking for seat designs that can squeeze a few more passengers into their planes, so how about a two-level armrest design that avoids some elbow room distress? This design doesn’t make the middle seat any more desirable, but it’s a nice concept for skinny airplane passengers, at least. [url]
- Gull-wing (or Falcon-wing) door designs are so 1980s. The 1990s spawned the disappearing car door design. A disappearing car door would have been so much cooler on the next Tesla model, right? [url]
- Fire hydrants are normally just boring pieces of outdoor plumbing, but a re-designed fire hydrant could make public water outlets into more efficient fire-fighting devices. However, more expensive, proprietary fire hydrants might not stand the test of time. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: airplane seating, armrest, design, disappearing car door, fire hydrant, innovation
Companies: jatech
Comments on “DailyDirt: Interesting Designs For Common Items”
Gullwing: That?s 1950s, not 1980s
Gullwing doors were first introduced with the Mercedes-Benz 300SL in 1952. You know why? Because it was a space-frame design. And the more holes you cut in a space-frame (for pesky things like doors and windows), the weaker it becomes. So they came up with this compromise door design that didn?t require as big a hole as a conventional swing-door.
Fake
You know the disappearing doors are fake, right?
Re: Fake
Source?
The video looked like a pretty convincing prototype.
Re: Fake
Looks pretty real to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUSYk9o7dEI&feature=kp
Sedation
Why not just start sedating everyone on the plane? That way you could stack ’em thick without complaint.
Re: Sedation
But then how am I going to catch up on the movies that my partner isn’t interested in watching?!
Re: Sedation
Just think of the fun baggage handlers would have.
Car Door
The disappearing car door isn’t fake. It was a concept designed by Lincoln back in 1993. What they don’t show you in this video is the equipment necessary to move the doors, which takes up about half of the trunk space.
Re: Car Door
What they don’t show you in this video is the equipment necessary to move the doors, which takes up about half of the trunk space.
That’s too bad, because that thing looks awesome. Might even be worth giving up half a trunk. Koeniggsegg has great doors as well if you haven’t seen those.
Re: Car Door
Electric motors have become much more efficient since then. It might be entering the realm of practicality now.
Is it safe?
You’ll be losing that side B-pillar, or at least its connection to the frame. Can it stand up to side-impact collisions? There might also be some structural issues in roll-overs, though I guess no worse than convertibles currently face.
Re: Is it safe?
You’ll be losing that side B-pillar, or at least its connection to the frame. Can it stand up to side-impact collisions?
That might be an issue with a retrofit like in the video, but if a car were designed with these doors from the beginning, it would be no problem. Look at the Mazda RX-8 for example. It has the same large door opening with no B-pillar as these cars, it’s just with conventional doors.
Fake
Think about the fact that the door has a glass window, which means that the door cannot bend (also, doors have to have structure to resist impact, latch properly, etc.). Now think about:
1. Where is the bottom of the door, when the door is half down?
2. If that doesn’t convince you, think about where the middle of the door is, when the door is half way down?
3. If that doesn’t convince you, take a look under your car and ask yourself if there is room to stow a door under there.
4. The sills provide much of the structural integrity of cars. This “door” appears to require complete removal of the sills.
5. And finally, if this door system is so wonderful, why are there no videos with actual news reporters looking at the doors? Why are the only videos made by the company that claims to make this door?
Re: Fake
Shut up, it’s cool! 😉
Creeping hyphenitis
No hyphen in redesign
No hyphen in firefighting
But looks like gull-wing can’t fly without one