Weekly Product and Tech Briefs: New Drone Kit, Showroom and Design Competition

TAKING FLIGHT
Drone company 3DR announced a new, complete aerial analytics solution for capturing data and high-resolution imagery to import for use with Autodesk products. Called Site Scan, it includes a kit with a Solo drone, a Sony Xperia tablet preconfigured with the app, a Sony or GoPro HERO4 Black camera, unlimited 3DR Cloud storage and unlimited processing with the Autodesk Cloud.

Essentially, the platform offers a safer and easier way for anyone in the field — from construction managers and architects to infrastructure professionals — to inspect, survey and scan project sites. It will even automatically calculate the drone flight plans and prevent flying into “geofences” as defined by the user’s fingertips on the tablet. Alerts also notify users if the drone is about to fly into restricted airspace.

While the Sony camera kit will not be released until June, Site Scan with the GoPro camera is available now and costs $3,249 with a monthly service fee of $499 paid annually.

WEST ELM WORKSPACE
Popular Williams-Sonoma brand West Elm launched its office furniture division with veteran contract manufacturer Inscape at NeoCon 2015, making waves and winning awards while also initiating its first showroom right there in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. Not even a full year later, West Elm Workspace is set to open its fourth showroom, this time in Tampa through a partnership with Commercial Design Services (CDS), a locally based furniture dealership.

The nearly 5,000-square-foot space will display four collections comprising more than 75 product lines that range from workstations and desk accessories to lighting and reception seating. The companies also anticipate lending its conferencing spaces to designers to meet with their clients and host CEU sessions and events.

WHAT’S BREWING?
FirstBuild, the product co-creation community founded and backed by GE Appliances, has developed the technology for a rapid cold-brew coffee maker — but it still lacks a great-looking design. The community is therefore launching a design competition to create the look of what it’s calling the Pique Coffee Brewer.

Interested creatives can sign up for free on the FirstBuild website and download a free version of Autodesk Fusion 360 to work with the initial CAD design files for Pique. Aside from potentially having a design realized with the release of this cold brewer, the winner will be awarded a portion of proceeds from the Indiegogo campaign, up to $30,000. The entry deadline is March 27. For more information, visit piquecoldbrew.com.