Near End Tools for a Cosmopolitan Landscape

We’re discarding the helmet idea for now, and focusing on the other element that we had conceived of earlier and making it into a series: the spear antenna. We want to make a series of hand-crafted and digitally fabricated spears that reflect neighborhood personalities in New York. So far we’re envisioning a Midtown Spear, an East Village Spear, a Williamsburg Spear, and maybe a Coney Island Spear, as if these neighborhoods are tribes.

In addition to being weapons (for self-defense and hunting) the spears would have other functionalities as well. One will be equipped with a wifi antenna (Super USB WiFi Antenna 3 – High Power Long Range 802.11 B G N Wireless $99), the other a flask of whiskey (as a medicinal tool), maybe another one has other medicinal products, maybe another one has a more high-tech function – these are the things we’re still brainstorming on.

Our product deposits itself as a retail concept that is part of an emerging interest in survival gear marrying contemporary technologies, one that is specifically catered toward a metropolitan New York audience. There are examples of this as a successful retail model, found in products such as Best Made Co.’s urban axe line, or even in fashion oriented, jewelled derringer revolvers for women.

Also, there is a development in accessory objects under way, further enriching and driving our narrative for offering such a novel design to public consumption. I (Jason) am building a flotation vestdress for downtown women in flooding conditions, as well as a brownstone/limestone/brick urban digital cammo print for fabric.

The midtown spear will be composed of several 3d printed buildings. Here are some pictures of those buildings in google sketchup.

UPDATES AS OF 12/5:

We are currently 3D printing at AMS, continuing to work on the flotation vest, and have ordered all materials for both spears.

After so much turmoil at AMS (over 2 days) we finally have printable files. From google sketchup pro, we had to open them up in cinema 4D, optimize them, then transfer them to zbrush where many edits had to be done. We’ve made holes in the models so we can insert our walnut dowel, and we’ve divided the topologies to render them a little deformed. We’re still working with scaling, which is a nightmare in zbrush, and then we have to pick the output material.

After that, we’ll have to lathe the wood down to make rabbit joint, and adhere with epoxy. If we decide to treat the wood with a stain, oil, or wax, we’ll probably end up doing that first.

Then we might decorate it a little with some sinew thread.

We won’t have time for this, but before the show we want to house it in a wooden crate with veneer labels that say something different than “FRAGILE” but along that same vein. We’ll line it with wool felt.