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To the surprise of many, fanny packs have made a comeback, with brands like Patagonia, Lulu Lemon and of course Jansport all offering them.Backpack brand Hex's stylish streetwear-style line is less likely to be hauling heart medication for boomers, and more likely to be carrying drones, DSLRs and oversized phones by younger generations. They're waterproof, feature padded compartments to carry electronic delicates, and wearing them "cross-body" apparently makes them cooler.Hex's $30 Aspect Sling is their entry-level, minimal single-pocket offering.

At least one of Elon Musk's newly unveiled robots can't walk yet. But Agility Robotics, a spin-off company from Oregon State University's College of Engineering, has made a robot that can run. The trade-off is that it doesn't have a torso or arms.To create some publicity buzz, Agility had their 'bot, Cassie, set the Guinness World Record for the fastest 100-meter sprint by a bipedal robot:Admittedly Cassie doesn't have

This peculiar portable light source is called the DarkMaster. It looks like something that would've come out of the Bauhaus, if they had the technology back then.

When it comes to crashes, cars have grown ever safer—provided you're inside the vehicle. In the event of a collision, passengers are swaddled in a comprehensive cocoon of airbags that would've been impossible to imagine 30 years ago.However, things have grown no safer for those outside the car. A cyclist struck by a car in 2022 has pretty much the same experience as a cyclist struck by a car in 1922. Modern helmets can only do so much, and each year in America nearly 1,000 cyclists die in crashes, and a further 130,000 are injured, according to the CDC. (Not all of those are the result of being struck by a car, but the vast majority are; of 1,260 cyclists killed in 2020, 806 died in motor vehicle crashes, acc

Paris-based industrial designer Hiroyuki Morita designed this Sheep hamper using a minimum of materials. I especially like the simple, elegant clamping mechanism for the bag:

Every year, MIT holds REX week (residence exploration week) whereby the various residence halls host activities to entice first-year students to join their dorms. For this year's REX activity, residents from East Campus' ten dorms—all engineering students, it seems—decided to build a roller coaster(!).The students, some as young as soph

"The inspiration for this project came from the observation of a swing* inside a city park in Milan," writes product designer Andrea Barbazza, of his amusing Swing piggy bank concept.*(Note: In Italian, both a swing or a see-saw are described with the same word, le altalena.)Barbazza's concept is sort of like a swear jar, but with the possibility of reward:

I've never slept in a sofa bed that was comfortable, and I don't expect this one to be, either. But it certainly looks easy to transform.

"There are some problems with folding furniture," observed mechanical engineer Chi-Hao Chiang, who left his native Taiwan to pursue a Masters in Industrial Design at Pratt Institute. "Folding chairs can be folded flat and the seat height is proper, but it's too long for people to carry, especially those who are short. Folding stools are easy to carry, but the seat height is too short for people to sit comfortably, especially those who are tall."As one of his first projects at Pratt, Chiang set out to create an easy-to-carry portable chair with the appropriate height. His ME background peeks out a bit in the sketches:Ideation & Mockup

These Core77 Awards entries caught our attention for their optimistic approaches to the future.If there's one political issue most people can agree on, it's that cities and towns need better infrastructure. The vast majority of America is unwalkable, hospitals are depressing, and sprawling urban design makes neighborhoods feel lonely, especially for the most vulnerable populations. But it doesn't have to be this way, and many designers and engineers are sketching out the blueprints for cities that are more compassionate, accessible, and organized.Plenty of entries in this year's Core77 Awards focused on healthcare, with designs that reduce strain on an exhausted system by making it easier for individuals and communities to monitor their own health. Others focused on charming, scalable, green transportation that would make everyday life eas