Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

As a sufferer of extreme carsickness, I’d do just about anything to make it stop… including zapping myself with electricity! This is essentially how the wearable antiemetic CinvStop device works, only the shock is entirely unnoticeable. In fact, it’s about manipulating your nerve signals rather than distract from the feeling.

By releasing a specific low-frequency pulse, it can adjust the vagus nerve signals traveling to or from the stomach so as to prevent transmission of nausea signals from the brain to the stomach. Additionally, it slows the frequency of abnormal gastric peristalsis.

Simply place it on the wrist so the two electrodes make gentle contact with the skin, give its single button a click, and voila! You’ll be free of nausea, and gastric pain from a number of causes including pregnancy, chemotherapy, and motion sickness almost immediately.

Designers: Zhiqing Ji, Yang Ye, Hengchong Yu

We love it when a student project takes off, going from the concept realm to being realized into an actual product… more so when it’s a medical/social-awareness project! The Flo is a wonderful product that creates an easy, efficient, discreet, and healthy system for women and girls in rural areas to wash, dry, and store their sanitary pads.

The social stigma around menstruation still exists even today in rural areas, to the extent that girls often avoid going to school while on their period, lest they be teased or shamed. Even worse, only 10% of families can afford to buy reusable sanitary pads (most families rely on rags and scraps of cloth), and the families that do purchase sanitary pads refrain from washing them properly or drying them out in the sun, under fear of allowing the rest of the society to see them. Flo creates a complete system for storing, carrying, washing, and drying sanitary napkins in a way that is efficient, engaging, and discreet, in an attempt to slowly remove the stigma behind menstruation while making sure the girls stay healthy, at an affordable price.

Rather than being a revolutionary sanitary pad (there are too many, say the designers behind Flo), the Flo is instead an entire kit, going all the way from a playful washing apparatus, to a concealed utility belt for carrying used and new pads, all the way to a box in which washed pads can be dried and fresh pads can be stored. We’re especially in love with the washing apparatus that uses plain physics (torsion) to spin a tiny drum at high speeds, effectively washing as well as drying used pads. The apparatus is hand operated and can be done solo, using virtually no energy!

The Flo is a beautiful and elegant solution that works because it looks at the entire problem right in the eye. Rather than redesigning the pad (which many people have tried over years), or trying to change society’s perception (which requires incredible amounts of time and patience), the Flo just provides a highly affordable solution that works perfectly in the present scenario, allowing young girls to stay healthy, comfortable, confident, and definitely not miss out on school and life!

The Flo is a winner of the IDEA award (Gold), and has also secured the prestigious James Dyson Award.

Designers: Mariko Higaki Iwai, Sohyun Kim, Tatijana Vasily, Charlotte Wong & Benjamin Freedman

Wash.

Dry.

Carry.

No two people prefer the same settings when it comes to jamming out so why should our speakers be the same? Taking this concept into consideration, Split provides an interactive way to tune the speaker to exactly your taste.

Splits into 3 sections for woofer, midrange and tweeter, each can be pushed or pulled separately to control the intensity. Different users can adjust it to their liking, or it can be adapted to different genres. Over time, you’ll not only recognize the sound levels you like, but the what it looks like visually on the unit!

Designer: hs² design studio

Volume control.

Treble control.

The new airlines electronics ban is truly a bummer… but some Altoids should make your ride much more entertaining. How, you ask? Why, Sudomod managed to fit an entire Raspberry Pi based gaming console into the Altoids tin! Looking just like any unsuspecting tin of mints on the outside, the tin is actually a vintage gaming holy-grail on the inside with titles like Zelda and Donkey Kong in all their glory! TSA may think you’re an absolute clown, but the MintyPi 2.0 (that’s what these cuties are called) is pretty much flight-compliant!

Just like the Altoids come in flavors, MintyPi does too, adorably color-coordinating their bodies with the Altoid flavors! The MintyPi consoles are all hand-built, with the bodies, buttons, and joysticks all being 3D printed. Sadly, the MintyPi is just one of Sudomod’s incredibly wacky personal DIY projects, but plans for making your MintyPi are in the pipeline and will be available in the weeks to come, right on Sudomod’s website!

P.S. The MintyPi consoles also make perfect companions for boring dates, lectures, and meetings. Although we do not take responsibility if you’re caught!

Designer: Sudomod

This is a DIY project and is by no means connected to the Altoids Company.

All our life if there’s one stereotype that has been emblazoned into our minds, it’s that the wheel is round. Right from those caveman cartoons, all the way till our fastest race-vehicle, the wheel may have changed in material and size (also becoming hubless), it still always remains round. Well, forget all that now, because according to designer David M. Patrick, the perfect wheel isn’t circular, but rather a scientifically calibrated blend of the circle, square, and the sine-wave.

The Shark Wheels designed by David for Sidewinder Formula are a Shark Tank success story. Designed to actually provide a faster, smoother ride with much more control while skateboarding on all sorts of terrain, this rather striking looking pair of wheels actually use lesser material but provide a larger wheel-base. Also, they look amazing as they spin, turning the sine-wave shaped tread into a hypnotic, spinning design!

Designer: David M. Patrick (Sidewinder Formula)

BUY IT HERE: $49.99 $70.00