Episodes
Counter insurgency warfare demands split-second decision making and real time information. In this episode, Vince and Allison review the design of a throwable reconnaissance robot.
Published 07/25/12
Lee Valley Tools design engineers are "judged against history" when developing new products. Vince and Allison take us through the redesign of a block plane that keeps the comfort and familiarity of previous tools while improving the overall performance.
Published 07/18/12
Vince and Allison show the egg shaped Tamaggo, a soon-to-be-released camera whose unusual 360 degree image created unique design challenges.
Published 07/11/12
Ram Racing redesigned their Formula SAE car to increase stiffness by 100% and reduce weight by 10 lbs, leading to big reductions in lap time.
Published 05/30/12
Aston Martin Racing takes lessons from the race track to inform their consumer car designs.
Published 05/23/12
Whether you’re producing plastic or metal products, you’re likely using machines to shape them. In this episode of The Product Design Show, Vince and Allison talk to JR Automation Technologies about their design of an assembly line that manufactures coolant reservoirs for car radiators.
Published 05/16/12
Designers from System Group wanted to build a fully autonomous packaging machine that could build a box for any sort of product. Allison and Vince show how they incorporated bar code data to predetermine the right size box. The result is the very cool “Freebox” machine, as shown in this episode.
Published 05/02/12
Drafting helps cars go faster on the race track, but NASCAR fans were complaining that too much drafting makes races less exciting. So on Jan 10th, NASCAR changed the design rules. That’s good news for fans, but bad news if you are a design engineer for a NASCAR team. The Product Design Show spoke with Drew Kessler, Designer on the PENSKE racing team, to find out how they got ready for race day.
Published 04/25/12
Even professional design teams can learn a few things from the FIRST Robotics competitions. In this episode, Vince and Allison report on a project to design and build a robot that can shoot a ball into a basket. The student team faces a lot of the same challenges as commercial design teams.
Published 04/11/12
Design engineers put a lot of effort into commercial cleaning vehicles, as Vince and Allison discover. All those scrubbing, squeegeeing and drive train components have to fit together somehow.
Published 04/04/12
What's the ultimate tool for demolition? In this episode, Allison and Vince talk to designers who went well beyond the sledge hammer to create a portable tool for tearing down infrastructure.
Published 03/28/12
Architects designed a huge cantilevered canopy for the new Francis A Gregory library in Washington DC. Problem was, hanging a canopy 40 feet from its support isn’t an easy engineering challenge, as the engineers from CST Covers pointed out. Vince and Allison walk us through the solution.
Published 03/14/12
We’ve all heard the distinctive rumble of a performance car. This week we spoke with Pat Hodgins, Chief Engineer of Callaway about how they design that signature sound into their cars.
Published 03/07/12
Prosthetic designers face a fascinating range of issues when designing devices that simulate normal walking. In this episode Vince and Allison review how designers control the proportional loads from walking by capturing and harnessing the ground strike forces.
Published 02/29/12
Indy cars can flip after an initial crash, like Franchitti's famous crash in 2007. Allison and Vince talk to engineers at Dallara about their redesign that makes such famous flips less likely.
Published 02/22/12
Allison and Vince show a range of collaboration tools that help designers collaborate with suppliers on product concepts without sharing the full intellectual property of their designs.
Published 02/15/12
In this episode Vince and Allison show us the intricacies of designing and manufacturing a carbon bicycle frame, and how one mountain bike company benefitted from incorporating one of their vendors into the design process.
Published 02/08/12
In this episode Vince and Allison focus on tools to help an internal design team collaborate, from Social Media to Top Down Design to Skeleton models.
Published 01/25/12
Fit and alignment are the keys to making prosthesis wearers achieve a proper gait. And gathering good data is the key to getting the alignment right. In this episode, Vince and Allison show how designers measure the complex forces and moments in a human stride.
Published 01/18/12
There are already police robots currently on the market. However, in this week’s episode, Vince and Allison show us one that can also climb stairs…and be built at an economical price.
Published 01/11/12
Green-powered vehicles typically look anything but cool. This week Vince and Allison show us an electric motorcycle that really turns heads.
Published 01/04/12
In this episode Vince and Allison share tips and techniques to incorporate the voice of the customer into your product designs.
Published 12/14/11
Firemen need a steady flow of water through the nozzle to safely put out fires. In this episode, Vince and Allison explain the design challenges of matching water flow to the different water pressure available at a variety of fire sites.
Published 12/07/11
This week Vince and Allison take us on a tour of a high-speed warehouse that features packing machines operating at ground speeds of over 70 mph. Imagine how fast you could pack for your trip to Vegas, baby.
Published 11/16/11
Architects typically consider the reflection of light in their work. In this episode, Allison and Vince show us how it is becoming increasingly significant to engineers, and their designs, as well.
Published 11/09/11