Working Name, Kicka$$ 1P

New tent for 2014. And no, we haven't set our color scheme to "circus" setting (yet). Fun color schemes are often an unexpected result from prototyping.

Any guess to the GDP of Red Bull, if it were a country?

At some point in the last 7 or so years, it became apparent that Red Bull has resources beyond most of our means. Which is really a polite way of saying that they have an operating budget that would undoubtedly put them in the top 10 list of countries listed by highest GDP.

Every industrial designer in the house can't help but to be utterly impressed by some of these prototyping capabilities.

Camping Gear List of Yesteryear

I don't know about you, but the "sleeping pocket" looks like a pretty cozy place.

[via the yard]

Signs of Nerdiness at NEMO

Clairvoyance? I think yes.

Helio Q&A

Helio Pressure Shower arrived in our warehouse a couple weeks ago (and has since been shipped out to stores). We've already heard back from folks that have been playing with their new toy and had a few questions about the product.

Q: Given the color, I assume it's meant to be left out in the sun the way other camp showers are. How long do I need to leave it out before it warms up?
A: The long answer? It depends. It depends on what temperature the water starts at when you put it in, how much water you put in, the temperature outside, whether it is exposed to direct sunlight, and what you want the final temperature to be. But to give you a data point in space, when we were out at Trail Days in Damascus, VA, we filled Helio halfway up with water from the spigot (~55F) and let it sit in direct sunlight where the outside temperature was about 85-90F. It took the water inside the tank about 3 hours to warm up to what felt about 90F.

Q: How strong is the hanging strap? Am I messing with disaster if I hang a full Helio by this strap?
A: The strap is a carrying strap, not a hanging strap. It is meant to be used to carry Helio a short distance, and should NOT be used to hang Helio—unless the tank is empty and is just being dried. Hanging the weighted tank by the strap puts undue stress on the welds. Over time, both the material and welds can be compromised by the constant loading. Plus, the beauty of Helio is that you don't have to hang it. The bottom of the tank is structurally rigid, so it can stand on its own, which means you won't have to search for the perfect tree at the perfect height to wash up.

Q: It looks like you open the valve at the top of the foot pump before use. What's the valve at the bottom of the foot pump for?
A: The valve on the underside of the foot pump is just for drainage purposes when you are finished using the pressure shower. Be sure to keep it closed when pressurizing the tank.

Q: What's the best way to store Helio?
You should only pressurize the tank when you're using it. Keeping the tank out and pressurized over long periods of time puts the fabrics and welds under constant tension. Over long periods of time, this can affect the durability and longevity of the product. So when you're done showering/rinsing dishes/etc, take the time to properly depressurize the tank. The easiest way to do this is to spray water out of the nozzle until the stream dies out. Then open the valve on top of the tank to let the air out.

If you have any other questions, let us know!

On Innovation

An excerpt from a great piece on innovation in last week's New York Times Sunday Magazine:

The electric light was a failure.

Invented by the British chemist Humphry Davy in the early 1800s, it spent nearly 80 years being passed from one initially hopeful researcher to another, like some not-quite-housebroken puppy. In 1879, Thomas Edison finally figured out how to make an incandescent light bulb that people would buy. But that didn’t mean the technology immediately became successful. It took another 40 years, into the 1920s, for electric utilities to become stable, profitable businesses. 

We tend to rewrite the histories of technological innovation, making myths about a guy who had a great idea that changed the world. In reality, though, innovation isn’t the goal; it’s everything that gets you there. It’s bad financial decisions and blueprints for machines that weren’t built until decades later. It’s the important leaps forward that synthesize lots of ideas, and it’s the belly-up failures that teach us what not to do

This is what innovation looks like. It’s messy, and it’s awesome.

NEMO Fabrics

Chip This

We've been having some fun over here with Chip It! from Sherwin Williams.
    

The web based program lets you submit any photo on the interweb, and creates a custom palette chip card that can be saved to Pinterest, Facebook, desktop, or personal Chip It! album. Let us know if you need some photos if you're planning to paint your kitchen in the NEMO color palette.

A Delicious Wood Sandwich

Check out Tom Sachs' ode to the indispensable plywood:

We love plywood, too.

2012 Sneak Peek: Transform Tarp

Historically speaking, NEMO hasn't made tarps for the commercial market. They are certainly useful tools to have in both the front and backcountry, but all of the ones out there tend to look the same. When we sat down together to design tarps, we wanted to make them more compelling shelters for all campers out there.

The beauty of tarps is in the openness and sense of freedom the protection gives you. At the same time, this can quickly turn into one of its biggest drawbacks in the wrong weather. We wanted to come up with a quick and elegant way to address this issue, without punishing customers with extra weight.

In the tarp configuration, you have a standard 12'x12' area of coverage. By unzipping one panel, folding back the fabric, and connecting the remaining edges together, you get a protected pyramid shaped shelter with 60" interior height and enough room to sleep 3.

I would say the space is better suited for two people with gear, but you can fit 3 in a pinch. The Transform Tarp has a reinforced pole pocket to protect the area where you would insert the single pole. There are volumizing guyouts that help pull the shelter walls away from the living space (and of course help anchor the tent down). The doors can be tied back for increased airflow, or to just make it super simple to get in/out of the tent.

Overall, we tried to balance a few key features with keeping the tarp simple and streamlined. We're interested to see how customers end up using this, and where the Transform Tarp might fall in the quiver of shelters.

Any questions?

-Connie

Friday is Math Day

We just had a customer email us to ask if the Nemoid Foot Pump (for his Morpho) could be used to inflate Astro as well. The small (packing) pump we made to inflate Astro and other sleeping pads is called the Disco Pad Pump and the customer wanted to know if he could eliminate redundancy in the pumps.

The reason the same pump isn't used in both applications is because, relatively speaking, Morpho airbeams are a low volume/high air pressure (8 psi) product and Astro is a high volume/low air pressure product (0.7 psi). If you use the Nemoid footpump to try to inflate Astro, it would be pretty frustrating and slow because the volume of air that the Nemoid pushes out versus Disco.

It would be like trying to inflate this giant pool toy with this little bike pump.

Since sometimes math is louder than pictures or words, we did some quick calculations here on the volume output of the Nemoid Foot Pump versus the Disco Pad Pump. Roughly speaking, Disco (141 cubic inches) outputs 3.6 times more air than the Nemoid Foot Pump (39 cubic inches). Besides other key differences that involve materials, construction, and weight, the lower volume output alone on the Nemoid Foot Pump would be mean a pretty slow inflation time for the Astro. You can't use a Disco Pump to inflate Morpho airbeams because this simple design won't allow you to generate enough pressure to make the airbeams structural.

-Connie

2012 Sneak Preview: Helio Pressure Shower

One of the products we are most excited about in our 2012 lineup is the Helio Pressure Shower. At first glance, this may seem like a step away from our usual product line, but here was our thought process behind the design and development of this product.

How do you get more people into the outdoors? Part of what makes adventures so unique and fulfilling is that everyone has a different idea of what gets them excited to go outdoors. Not everyone is as enchanted with the dirtbag image of the thru-hiker as we would (like to) imagine. And designing gear that helps break down some of these barriers to "entry" to the outdoors ultimately helps foster a greater appreciation of nature.

All that said, we've integrated our existing Nemoid Foot Pump technology into Helio, as a way of pressurizing water flow in the shower. This eliminates the need to hang your water source at a prescribed height (and the need to find the perfect tree or something strong enough to hang your shower). The water reservoir can sit at your feet—or anywhere really—while you use the nozzle to wash up, clean your camp dishes, rinse off sandy feet, hose off gnarly canyoneering water, warm up after a winter surf session...

The minimum weight for Helio is about 23 ounces, and the 11 liter reservoir is enough for 5-7 minutes of steady water pressure. Occasionally pumping the Foot Pump throughout usage helps to maintain water pressure.

There's still a few small revisions that are being finalized, but we are all excited to introduce this product. And I am looking forward to filling this bad boy up with hot water to warm up my fingers and toes after winter surf sessions in a couple months.

-Connie

Dover Office Update

We felt like it was a great time to share some progress images of our Dover office. We have exactly one week until we are 100% out of our Nashua office!

The following images show various desks and work areas, some more complete than others. 100% of the construction was performed by NEMO employees. I have to say I have learned a lot, and all this construction has motivated me to take on more projects at home.

The workshop.

Chris has the best view from his desk hands down.

Sales, Marketing, Creative, in that order.

Nate taking a break from shelf construction, the guy just cant quit.

Smooth as glass

-Bill

Vote for Your Favorite NEMO Gear Tester

Our Adventure Product Testing Contest and Facebook launch has been very successful, thanks for all who have put the time into submitting an application and for 'Liking' us. Voting ends Sunday night at midnight (EST), so be sure to visit our Facebook page and vote for your favorite tester. We'll be posting the winners here next week.



~Kate

The Princess and the Pea/Pebble

At NEMO, we always try to have an interesting and innovative take on design. Even for something like a sleeping pad test bench, we set the goal of designing the ultimate sleeping pad testing bench. Here were some of the self-assigned goals when considering the design:

• Indestructible. Designed so a 400lb Linebacker could Kneel on it anywhere.
• Have 3 separate compartments (rocks, roots, razor blades, etc.)
• Have a NEMO sleeping pad storage system inside
• Quick assembly and tear down
• Able to be carried on a plane
• Relate aesthetically to the NEMO trade show booth
• Look Cool

After some brainstorming, sketching, and quick modeling, here was the final solution: Using 1.25” aluminum poles, removable railing joints, 2 sheets of 1/16” thick aluminum, and about 3 yards of heavy duty hypalon, and a sheet of plywood, we built a sleeping pad testing bench that could support my Jeep.

-Brandon

Sleeping Bag Testers Wanted!

Calling all outdoorsy people who like to use great gear!

NEMO has officially launched its Adventure Product Testing platform through our Facebook Page. As long as I have been at NEMO we have done extensive testing outside of our labs with ambassadors, athletes, ourselves, families, and friends. While we've had a lot of success in excellent feedback from these groups, we are taking big steps to make a more integrated, cohesive, and connected testing program. This means big things for me...lots more information to work with and a direct line to a variety people with all different shapes, sizes, experiences, and needs.

We are unrolling the program with an entirely new category for us - sleeping bags. They've been in the works for a couple years now, and will debut next year. However, before they get anywhere close to a store, we want to make sure we are putting the best and most innovative product out there. We think our unique ideas make a lot of sense, but in the end, it doesn't matter what we think.

In the Adventure Product Testing program we will be integrating feedback from our designers, engineers, ambassadors, athletes, shop employees, and customers. I want to get all of us into a conversation about what makes a great sleeping bag and make this happen. We can sketch and CAD model and lab test all day long, and we'll never get the same kind insights as extensive real world testing. So help me out!

We'll be testing everything from ultralight down quilts to car camping comfort to arctic mountaineering bags. There is something for all adventures, all body types, and all levels of experience. We want as diverse of a testing team as we can make.

You need to visit our Facebook page to enter, but here's the skinny.

First you make a short video with a fake gear review and tell us why you'd make a great member of our testing team. Note: There are no extra points for how hardcore you are or how many sleeping bags you already own. However, there are extra points for creativity, insight, and presenting information well. If the fans like you, we like you, and you've got some testing opportunities coming up this fall, you're on the team. We'll work with you to figure out what prototypes will be most appropriate for your upcoming adventures, and then you are in charge of using the hell out of them. We have several platforms for testers to keep in touch, communicate with each other, and log data points that will be useful in understanding if our designs are performing to their intentions.

Alright, get out there and blow me away with your videos.

-Suzanne

How Many Steps to Make a Pencil?

More than you think! I was under the mistaken impression that pencils were made by drilling a hole in a cylindrical piece of wood, and then inserting the lead in the said hole. Whether your favorites are 3B, F, HB, or 6H, fellow design geeks should gather round to watch this video. Now.



I am blown away by all the different processes represented in this one video (though it could be the strangely mesmerizing techno music in the background), and may never look at my Staedtler pencil the same again. Check out the testing at 3:11, the 4 coats of paint to cover the wood grain, or the grinding drum at the end that sharpens all the pencils.

-Connie

Where's NEMO

Here's a picture of the Volkswagen Beetle our friends Freely Creative in nearby Vermont are in the process of covering with their beautiful work. They've been an awesome partner for us...you would not believe how many stickers we make with them every year.


We're psyched to be in such good company with all sorts of sweet outdoor and ski industry brands/resorts. You won't see any flower or smiley face stickers here...

A free sticker pack goes to the first three people who send back the image with the NEMO sticker circled. With the red and white, it's a bit of a throw back to Where's Waldo. Send your image to journey@nemoequipment.com.

-Suzanne

New Office Painting Progress

We are winding down on the painting project at our new office in Dover, NH. Still a lot of small detail work and touch ups to go but the major portion is done. Here are a few shots.
-Bill