This is nuts. An inventive Russian YouTuber has figured out how to turn plastic bottles into string, using purely mechanical means. After "unraveling" a single bottle he's left with what appear to be several yards' worth of filament, which he then uses to bind things together. Hitting the resultant plastic twine with a heat gun causes it to partially melt and shrink, more or less fusing it into place.
He's used the resultant string to lash logs together to build a primitive structure, and to bind logs together so that he can bore through several of them at once. And he's also created some nifty tool handle wraps. What I'm hoping will happen next is that others in less developed areas will watch his tutorial on how to build the tool, duplicate it, and come up with their own uses for the string. The electricity required to run a heat gun may not be available in these areas, but at the very least, they could probably come up with some creative uses for the unmelted string.
True industrial design seeks out problems that can be solved with objects. The more common the problem, and the easier it is to produce the item you've designed to solve it, the more successful you'll be. And the Holy Grail, of course, is to find that common problem that no...
At least one inventor of a famous machinegun has spiritually grappled with having invented a tool for killing. But Stephanie Kwolek, a scientist for DuPont who passed away last week at the age of 90, accidentally invented something that protected people from firearms: Kevlar.Carnegie Mellon grad and chemist Kwolek was...
It's probably not what London-based artist David Mach has in mind, but I can't help but imagine that the angst-ridden expressions of the sculpture in his ongoing series "Coathangers" resembles my own when I encounter a mass of tangled metal hangers. Known for taking unexpected materials and creating larger-than-life sculptures...
The creation of metals is an often forgotten but critical business involved in most modern innovations. And since startup fever is all over innovative techniques, startups are starting to spread to those slower-moving industries that can support the "disruptors." Infinium is one such startup. They've found a cheap and environmentally-clean...
Create a Core77 Account
Already have an account? Sign In
By creating a Core77 account you confirm that you accept the Terms of Use
Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password.