Let me tell you about Abe, a skittish recluse, who gets nervous when you get close. As you approach, he tries to dissuade you from proceeding further by pretending he’s not home.

If you persist, however, and approach too close to the door, you’re soon greeted by a blaring alarm and flashing lights to attract the authorities and chase you away!

How do you design a product for a category wherein the ideal scenario would be NEVER having to use said product?

Much innovation wisdom these days speak about making a product both useful and desirable, but how do you make someone desire a product that they never want to use?

Perhaps an automatic plunger? Or would the best innovation in the plunger category actually be a toilet that does not ever clog?

A quickly assembled facade of an ambulance with Arduino powered lights and sounds.

I am excited about this course and look forward to sharing my designs as they grow (hopefully) out of this very beginner stage.

The top sides of buildings are often ignored when considering the aesthetic, aren’t they?

Yet, clearly a two story height is not tall enough to keep the roof out of the public eye in Brooklyn.

Looking down from a friend’s apartment, I see a thoroughly rusted-out roof on this gas station, and I begin to think:

• Is this why gas station canopies always seem to leak in whichever spot I park?
• What does this say about Mobil gas?
• Funny to see this kind of roof when BP is out there fitting their gas station roofs with solar panels.
• If I’m paying so much per gallon, why can’t they fix the roof?
• Does it even need fixing? Or is it still structurally sound and just looks bad?

Cruising in a 1975 Corvette Stingray Convertible from Conall Dempsey on Vimeo.

Come along and join me on my Summer 2011 Roadtrip through Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, Minnesota, Iowa and just into Canada.

Go on and browse my curated photo collection from the 2 week, 2,500 mile journey: Corvette Tour of the Midwest!

You have to be pretty confident (and as it turns out, also wrong) that toothbrush handle shapes are not going to significantly change over the lifetime of your bathroom to install a ceramic toothbrush holder directly into the wall!

My current toothbrush barely fits, but my previous one did not fit at all and had to lay across the top.  Do you think your toothbrush would fit?

If you’re in Austin, it’s definitely worth stopping by the bridge to watch.   And for the vast majority of you who are NOT in Austin, this video may be the best I can do for you right now.

Many mornings, I wake up when my alarm goes off. I get out of bed, and I begin my day. Many other mornings, I don’t.

Instead of getting up right when the alarm rings, I press “Snooze” and sleep longer.

This morning, as I was preparing for my day over tea and some light reading, I got to thinking about this snoozing tendency and wondering what the design thinkers of the world would say.

Here are some initial thoughts.

• The body needs sleep.  Trying to guess how much sleep it needs, and letting factors such as your morning schedule dictate sleep time to your body, rather than letting the body decide, is not a very user-centered design.
• Applying the 8 hours a night rule steadfastly seems an awful lot like a “one-size-fits-all” solution.
• Snoozing is a way to rapidly iterate through different sleep lengths to discover the one which matches your specific needs for that day.
• With all the variety in our daily activities and upcoming activities, can we ever expect to have a more accurate gauge for how much sleep we need than when we are “in the moment?”

Unfortunately, my case for why snoozing is good, from a design thinking perspective, runs in to some scientific barriers (based on sleep cycles) and more devastatingly, some realistic barriers (based on your morning schedule).  Still, I enjoy exploring the concept of making daily adaptations to one’s sleep length, even if implementing such a routine is unfeasible.

Go on, let me know what you think!

It is usually unwise to cross the path of a train at the same time as a train is crossing. In certain cases, however, such an action is not too terribly unsafe.

Ponder this lengthy arrangements of fuzzy caterpillars crossing a hilltop path. Lined up head to tail, each caterpillar is a car hitched on to a long train. Each car is part cargo and part engine. This train displays remarkable capabilities to split, re-connect, divide into multiple paths and rejoin into one.

Bonus points go to anyone who can count the total number of caterpillars on this train.

This post may be best if accompanied by the Quad City Dj’s – C’Mon ‘N Ride It (The Train)