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3D Printing Makes the Lightest Materials on Earth

Boeing Corporation released a video recently announcing the development of a new metallic material, considered to be the lightest ever created. And depending on who you ask, it probably is. But over the last several years there’s been a lot of talk about which is the lightest – we keep pushing the boundaries of material […]

AddSub: The Ideal 3D Metal Printing Solution

There’s been a lot of talk zooming around lately about the wonders of additive manufacturing and 3D metal printing, but along with that a lot of misunderstandings about the benefits of this technology for product designers, tooling engineers and prototype makers. We want to take a moment here to clarify some of the confusion and […]

Star Rapid Plays Host To Shenzhen Accelerator HAX

For the third year in a row, Star Rapid played host to a group of young entrepreneurs and visionaries who were part of the “accelerator” program of HAX of Shenzhen, China. This year was the best yet, demonstrating Star’s commitment to reaching out to the larger prototyping community to encourage makers to bring their ideas […]

Designing The Perfect Music System

There’s no more sure-fire way to kick up a cloud of dust among music lovers than to bring up the old digital-vs-analog argument. It’s almost as bad as asking who’s the greatest rock guitarist, or which Beatles album is the best (answer: all of them). No matter what you say, someone is going to disagree, […]

Celebrating 5 Great Prototype Design Winners From China

The Red Dot awards are a prestigious, internationally recognized symbol of product and prototype design excellence. A panel of judges from a number of design disciplines is tasked with reviewing tens of thousands of product ideas relating to transportation, housing, energy, education, public spaces, lighting and many more. To receive a Red Dot award is […]

Pad Printing: Fast And Durable

Star Rapid has just increased our capacity with the introduction of our latest piece of equipment, the Kent G-Turbo 90 S/2 pad printer. This is an industrial machine with two independent pads capable of printing in two colors. It has a solid granite armature for maximum stability and is specially rated as a “green” machine […]

5 Reasons To Rethink Autonomous Cars

We talked last time about five reasons why the advent of so-called “driverless” cars would be a great idea. But for those of you out there with a skeptical bent, we would like to present the other side of the story. Here then are the top five reasons why self-driving cars will be the ruin […]

5 Reasons Why Self-Driving Cars Will Create Heaven On Earth

In this first of a two-part essay, we’ll discuss some of the technologies of and advantages to self-driving, autonomous vehicles. This subject has been bandied about quite a bit over the last few years, and now of course Google is investing some very real money into trying to make so-called driverless cars a reality, so […]

5 Great Ways To Get Started In Design

Think about the products you use on a daily basis. Whether they’re physical products like laptops or digital ones like apps, we’re surrounded by innovative product design examples everywhere we look. These products represent the work of product designers. From a consumer perspective, we only see the end result and don’t know what took place […]

Maker’s Mark

Back in the day, American public schools had a varied curriculum to provide to their students. In addition to the traditional courses in math, history, geography and English literature, there would be elective courses in one of several practical or shop-related skills: wood and metalworking, electronics, or small engine repair for example. These skills were […]