The magic Tumblr Dice! Drag the picture to roll, reblog with your result!
Roll a six and you are officially awesome :)
A visibility study I made for the Led Brakelight + Turn Signal Helmet concept design on Quirky. The base of the study is a product image from an existing helmet brakelight product.
I am overall not convinced of the results:
- as bikes have to slow down to turn the brake light and turn signal are on at the same time
- the 25W mirrored lights of the bike dominate the visual landscape, the helmet light leds are barely noticeable (even high intensity LEDs produce only a piercing light without illuminated surface area that is normally procuced by a curved mirror behind the light)
- because the turn indicators are so close together (the width of the helmet) there is no strong visual indication of left or right
- because the turn indicators are sitting in the middle of the vehicle they do not mark or draw attention to the dangerous side of the vehicle. Drivers have to assess how wide the vehicle is and a turn signal in the middle is no help.
Turn signals are only effective if they are placed on the outest possible edge of the vehicle and clearly indicate turn direction! This way the signal lights draw attention and clearly mark the dangerous edge of the vehicle. It allows other drivers to better assess the turning vehicle spatially and thus avoids accidents!
I am giving away a $25 Quirky Gift Card to a lucky winner!
Here are the rules of participation:
- Follow me
- Reblog this post
As soon as the notes count reaches 100 I will pick a lucky winner from the notes list. If the lucky winner is following me I will contact him/her via her ask box. I will only need your e-mail address for delivery (it’s a coupon code you can pay with).
What Can I do with my $25 Quirky Gift Card?
You can submit 2 genius ideas to Quirky (normally $10 each). If the community supports your brilliant idea and the design staff finds it marketable the product gets made. You will earn a bunch of money for every unit sold on Quirky.com or via any of the retailers. Check out the details here.
Alternately you can use your $25 to buy cool inventions already made and available in the Quirky Shop. Just a few examples:
PowerCurl
Wrapster
Bandits
Mugster
Bobble Brush
Cordies
Contour
Split Stick
These are all below $25 items from the shop.
Disclaimer: I am not an employee of Quirky. I am volunteering my own hard earned earnings for this giveaway. Why? Because I have earned a few hundred dollars with Quirky but I am too lazy to do the international tax sheets to have it paid out. I also want to see how the e-mail delivery on gift cards work.
Also if you want to exchange bitcoins for Quirky Gift Cards drop me a note in my ask.
Because it’s Inventor’s Day your favorite inventor is dusting off his 1 million dollar idea with which he happens to be obsessed with. A turn indicator for bicycles! Cars have one, motorbikes have one, so why on earth isn’t there a turn signal for bicycles that doesn’t suck? Why do cyclists zig-zag in front of cars like there is no tomorrow? (well, you pull that trick often enough and one day there will be no tomorrow just a quick ride in the ambulance).
I commute by bike. I am not an urban ninja, neither a freedom fighter, nor a Che Guevara of the metropolitan traffic. I don’t ride a fixie, biking is not a religion for me. I just want to get safe to work and back. Okay, I do want to enjoy my ride. I love the rush of creativity as oxygen hits my brain cells, and it gives me a certain kick that I get to work and back without burning a drop of oil and do some exercises every day as a bonus.
The point is: you can help! Dust off your facebook IDs and go to Quirky! Show your support, vote, comment and help me kickstart my invention! Reblog this post and help me spread the word!
Amazing video footage from the Mars rover
- animated by yours truly with GIMP
View Larger Reblog if you still remember the old Tumblr error messages!
Animated from the beautiful original by yours truly.
People of Earth, stand by while we clean your orbit of annoying life forms
(The Empire Strikes Back)
The truth about Tumblr maintenance..
When I ride my bicycle in the city I am constantly afraid that a car or a fellow cyclist will hit me while turning.
You are supposed to wave your hands to signal your turn. Honestly: while braking with one hand, looking back over your shoulder for approaching traffic and leaning the bike into a turn can you really let go of the handlebar for several seconds to do some waving?
Well, I don’t and apparently none of the other cyclists do. So cyclist just zig-zag in front of cars and each other risking accidents several times a day.
Please vote for my Bicycle Turn Indicator to
- help avoiding bicycle accidents and save lives by the dozens.
- protect the planet: Cycling is the most healthy and environmental friendly way of commuting.
- make it safer to ride
Quirky - unlike advertised - is not at all about the idea alone. To be successful one needs:
- an acceptable idea
- the right timing
- strong marketing
- a strong network
Telling an aspiring inventor that “good ideas prevail” and the right way to go about an invention is to submit it and wait patiently is about the most naive and worst advice you can give!
Many promising companies have been ran into the ground on the lines of “we don’t need marketing: we will take the money other companies spend on marketing and use it to build better products that everyone wants to buy”. This is a foolproof recipe for failure.
This is the single most important takeaway form the Quirky experience that will benefit both your career and business: Marketing does matter. Understanding the game does pay off. Don’t trust the system to know what’s good for you. Take initiative wherever you can!
