ROBRADY design stresses a comprehensive speed-to-market plan by collaborating to identify the greatest areas of opportunity and producing profitable product solutions.

ROBRADY delivers design, production, and capital solutions to its clients in support of their research-to-reality philosophy.Chaos Group provides state of the art rendering solutions for architectural, VFX, film, media and entertainment, automotive design, television and other industries.

What more can you tell us about the ROBRADY work environment? Do you work as a team or individually? Do you work in a big open space or in separate offices ? Is ROBRADY a fun place to work?
ROBRADY is an incredible place to work, and a lot of that comes from the open environment. There are no walls between the departments, industrial designers work across the aisle from the mechanical designers, which promotes the collaborative process. All projects are worked on as a team, with industrial and mechanical designers contributing at all design stages.

THE INSPIRATION
Who worked on the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle project and what is their experience in both the industry and with ROBRADY?
The concept work was a collaboration between the Design Director Rob Brady, Senior Industrial Designer Erik Holmen, Industrial Designers Andre Minoli and Antonio Molinari, and Senior Mechanical Designer David Poirier. Each designer has extensive experience in the transportation and power sports industries and has been with ROBRADY for several years. While ROBRADY has been active in this market space for decades, this was the first complete bicycle project for the team. Once the concept level 3D models were completed, they were handed off to partner DK City’s team of production engineers for the next phase.

How did the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle idea originate ? Why was it chosen as a project for ROBRADY? And how/why did DK City and ROBRADY team up for this project?
The relationship between DK City and ROBRADY was put together by an expert in the electric bicycle field – he believed that the two companies would make a great team. The DBO bike project simply started out as an exercise to design a new folding electric bicycle DK’s expanding lineup of products.

From idea to physical product, how long did this project take to create?
The industrial design phase for ROBRADY starting in May 2009, and completed in August of 2009. There were some production design modifications that took place through January 2010.

THE BACKSTAGE EXPERIENCE
How did ROBRADY use V-Ray for Rhino in this project? Why did you choose V-Ray to visualize this project? And how did V-Ray help in the production?
ROBRADY uses V-Ray for Rhino in all rendering animation applications. The quality level of the renderings is a huge asset when communicating a design to the client. Once of the nicest features of V-Ray is the ability to launch DRSpawner on multiple networked machines in the studio, drastically cutting down on render time.

What was the biggest challenge in creating the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle?
The biggest challenge centered around the folding aspect of the folding bicycle. We wanted to make a design that, at a distance, looked like a folding bike. But you have to work very carefully to make the design function and articulate correctly. It took close collaboration between ID and MD to make sure the concept was groundbreaking but feasible for production.

How long has the team at ROBRADY been using V-Ray for Rhino?
The V-Ray software has been the sole render engine at ROBRADY for about 4 years.

CUSTOMER BENEFITS
Will you share some of the V-Ray settings you used in the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle studio images?
Absolutely, the settings we use are actually very simple. We start with the standard high quality setting, and set the lighting and reflection maps to a studio HDRI environment. This is the regular setup for most renderings the studio does. We will sometimes change the lighting/reflection map depending on the subject matter, but when rendering products and vehicles, I rarely have to change the core settings.

What V-Ray features did you find most useful when rendering the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle?
The ability to map reflections and lighting is extremely useful, but the distributed rendering has to be the best feature as it has saved us countless hours of render time. The ability to use the engine with the Bongo animation plug-in was huge in communicating the folding qualities of the bike.

What are some upcoming projects in which you will rely on V-Ray for rendering?
Every project that enters the studio requiring a 3D model will be rendered with V-Ray.

As seen on the Chaos Group website. Chaos Group provides state of the art rendering solutions for architectural, VFX, film, media and entertainment, automotive design, television and other industries.

When Dr. Stephen Lee first approached ROBRADY design with his concept for a product that eliminates menstrual discomfort within minutes, we knew we were on the verge of something unprecedented. Dr. Lee’s concept was radically different from typical ROBRADY projects like the Vectrix Electric Superbike, the Segway or Xtools. These, and other projects for companies like Parker-Hannifin, Mercedes and Dell had a certain level of…well, testosterone. We did not let that intimidate us. In fact, we were intrigued by the challenge. We saw the spark of something great in Dr. Lee’s idea and we wanted to create something amazing from that spark.

We believe we have done that with Ziivaa.

After speaking with Stephen and seeing his original mockup, ROBRADY Founder Rob Brady knew there was more to Ziivaa than just another woman’s product. “Ziivaa goes beyond replacing pills or eliminating side effects, it puts control of a woman’s life back in her own hands,” says Brady.

Brady realized his vision was bigger than a single product concept. A passionate, focused team collaborated at the ROBRADY studio to develop the state-of-the-art product and much, much more. The development of Ziivaa grew into the design of a progressive company—dedicated to creating a dynamic solution for empowering women to live their best lives.

A Capital Idea
Firmly convinced of Ziivaa’s commercial and consumer potential, Brady also decided to make the venture a cornerstone of the newly formed ROBRADY capital division.

In a demonstration of their commitment to Ziivaa, ROBRADY capital has put the full force of its time and resources behind Ziivaa in order to guarantee that Ziivaa is brought to market by capable hands. Very soon, women around the world will be able to live better lives, free from the limitations of menstrual discomfort.

The Innovative Edge
The ROBRADY team is enthusiastic about innovative ideas that improve lives through imagination and execution. “Ziivaa is a perfect case study for what our group does,” says Brady. “We design fantastic companies that produce fantastic products.”

Achieving a great fit sometimes means stepping beyond one’s comfort zone. Rob Brady is a man with the right experience and expertise, educated at Auburn University and the Art Center College of Design. He has two decades of hands-on, integrative experience, where he has honed his design skills and the ability to create and deliver the “Innovative Edge,” time and time again.

The Ziivaa challenge, however, required something more of us. “With Ziivaa, I had to look beyond my usual design instincts and open myself to a different voice… an exclusively female voice.” Consulting with female employees, focus groups and women in his own household, Brady realized these new voices were blending to form a unique and ultimately perfect result.

“At the time, Ziivaa was a real challenge, a real departure,” reflects Brady. “But that’s what innovation is all about.”

Stay tuned. This story is just beginning.

Q. Of the experience you have gained managing different projects and teams, how does that contribute to managing a diverse team like ROBRADY?

Q. What do you think is the most important part of the design process?
In the last question I spoke a lot about making mistakes. I think failure is a hugely underrated part of the design process. The key is “failing early and often” and then building upon those failures to generate a positive outcome. The key is not making the same mistakes twice. This sounds really negative, but in practice its how design gets done. You try something, it doesn’t work/fit/feel/look right, and so you make an adjustment and try again. Soon you have a solution that has been proven out during the design process. Then, when you implement this solution your chances of success are far greater than if you didn’t go through this iterative design process. The biggest challenge is understanding that this is not a linear process. Many times an early failure sends you off on a completely different track. Most designers understand this intuitively but most business people want to know why we didn’t just do that the first time?

Q. What do you like and dislike about your design related education? Was it worth it?
My educational experience is a bit unique. I entered Industrial Design school right out of high school in 1990. The first two years of my education were a blast. I was like a sponge soaking up everything I was being taught. But by my third year I was starting to struggle with figuring out how all of this stuff was going to come together and create a meaningful career for me. Right about that time I landed a summer job that turned into a 16 year career. In 2009 I returned to ID school to finish my last year and get my diploma. That was a terrific experience! I really enjoyed sharing classes with the up and coming generation of designers and learning about the way they view the World. My biggest frustration was how little real world experience design school provides towards preparing students to enter the workplace. So yes, it was worth it but not for the obvious reasons. The skills I learned in school have more to do with what I took out of the experience than what was on the curriculum. I just wish I had had that revelation 18 years ago!

As Design Manager at ROBRADY, Donovan manages the daily activities of the studio. He came to ROBRADY from Techtronic Industries, where he was the brand manager for the Ryobi TEK4 line of electronic tools. Prior to that he built and managed the in-house design team at Griffin Technology, the world’s largest Apple accessory brand. Donovan has an Industrial Design degree from Auburn University and has spent the last 18 years building and managing award winning design teams.

Fun Fact: During a school assembly in 4th grade I was misbehaving with some friends by making chicken clucking sounds while the Principal was talking. She heard me and called me up on stage to make my sounds for the whole school in hopes of embarrassing me and teaching me a lesson. Armed with a microphone, I went to town and the whole assembly quickly degenerated into a cacophony of barnyard sounds and laughing. After spending the rest of the day in the Principal’s office I was then assigned the lead role in the upcoming Christmas play.

As the Design4 Conference draws closer, the conversation of “what do you Design4?” is one that I have been having with a variety of designers around the country. From creating a system for transporting clean water in third world countries, to solving more local challenges such as humanizing products in the U.S., people design for a variety of reasons. This past week, I spoke with Rob Brady of ROBRADY design on what he designs for.

For Brady, what gets him up each morning is the dynamic series of events in getting a product to market. “Trying to get products designed and developed, then to actually get them to market,” he says. “It’s a real noble effort because if you can do all that and then get it to market with a handsome margin, then the company, of which you are working through, prospers, which means that all the people who go to work there prosper, which means all the kids get to go to college or they get the house or they pay off their bills.” He says this based off seeing both sides of that paradigm, from companies shutting down entire departments after the bill of materials for a project skyrocketed, losing the product. “To me, it’s been an emotional connection, wanting to be successful with fantastic products, because I believe that a fantastic product will survive anything.”

After discovering the field of Industrial Design, Brady realized it was something he had been doing his whole life. Building GoKarts, different vehicles, and other mechanisms as a kid, he was not far off from the work he does today. From the Vectrix electric bike to The GMP LifeSync (R) Wireless ECG System, ROBRADY design has dabbled in a wide array of fields, designing everything from industrial and consumer products to medical and marine tools.

“What’s beautiful about Industrial Design is that you can stay within Industrial Design, but jump from designing vehicles to designing jet boats to medical products to industrial products to consumer electronics; it’s incredibly diverse,“ says Brady.

In the evolution of his own career, Brady found himself further and further from that hands-on design process vetted in creative problem solving as the company grew larger. “I really had to battle with that for a while; what I came to realize was as I was taking on more of the contractual business, the growth elements, what I really love is creativity. If we’re doing business and we’re trying to set up a new opportunity, or a new studio like at the University of Florida, it’s about the creative aspect of making that deal work that really charges me.”

Over time, that passion for creativity only grew. As of lately, Brady finds himself excited about the ‘humanizing’ of design. “So many companies come to us with new technologies; what’s really needed is to humanize that technology. Fuel cells, as an example, electric vehicles, bring new challenges back to the same human being.” Currently in studio, Brady finds himself solving performance, medical, and ergonomic challenges in the realm of Ziivaa, their latest design venture.

“We’re challenged with trying to solve what’s necessary from a humanizing standpoint, with those new products, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

Carly Ayres is an undergraduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design, student representative to the Industrial Design department, and co-founder of RISD-ID.ORG.

Syndicated from: IDSA

Source

Q. What fascinates you in building prototypes?
The most fascinating part of building prototypes is that the nature of our work forces us to research, explore, experiment, learn, and develop innovative models day in and day out. Just as products are redesigned and developed so are the materials and processes used in the fabrication. There is very little mundane or repetitive when creating the variety of prototypes found in the concepts developed in the ROBRADY Prototype Lab.

Q. What’s your favorite material to work in?
That’s a tough one; I have always had a passion for woodworking, but enjoy working with any material that allows forgiveness; wood, plastics, and modeling boards.  All of these materials can be utilized in an additive or subtractive process during modeling. I also enjoy the material that is unknown, or new to me; using unknown materials allows the team to explore, learn, and recognize applications where something new and different can be introduced.

Q. What’s a typical designer’s toolkit for you?
This varies depending on the project and could be as small and simple as Exacto blades, 5 minute epoxy, a Dremel and bits, or a variety of drawing tools; rulers, guides, compass, protractor and templates. Other times we work with tools as large as a table saw, Mig welder, or Bridgeport mill. Occasionally projects require us to create custom tools, if I had to limit myself to one tool; it would have to be a good sanding block.

Q. What do you carry around and can’t live without?
Mastercard.

Q. How did you discover you had a talent in design?
I dropped out of the University of Washington School of Business, and enrolled in the School of Art. During my second semester of pre-requisites my 3-D Design professor told me I was a natural for Industrial Design. At the time I didn’t even know what Industrial Design was, the more I learned the more I enjoyed the experience of product development.

Ryan Donahue is a Sarasota native and Graduate from the University of Washington, with a BFA in Industrial Design. He has been working in the Design industry for 8+ years. When Ryan’s not working you can find him fishing, running, snow skiing, and/or just about anything outdoors.

Erik Holmen, Industrial Designer

Q. How long have you been an industrial designer and what is your schooling background?
I trained at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, graduating in 2003 with a BFA in industrial design. Growing up, I loved drawing and designing airplanes and spaceships, wanting to be an aerospace engineer. This was before I knew about industrial design. After a high school art class presentation for the CCS transportation program, I was hooked. I am now living the dream, designing cool new products and vehicles every day!

Q. What are three traits that every industrial designer should excel in?
Creativity, Problem Solving and Visual Communications. Creativity and problem solving go hand in hand; where every product is a three-dimensional puzzle which needs to meet a list of physical and ergonomic requirements, and must be beautiful at the end of the day. Visual communications is extremely important, as is needed to sell your design to others. Traditionally we communicate through sketches and 3-D renderings, depending on the product and stage of completion.

Q. Where do you go for inspiration at the beginning of a project or when creating concepts? Do you spend time researching online blogs, magazines, or print media?
The first step in the design process is competitive / comparative research. This helps to wrap our minds around a product’s market. This is typically done by online searches, or in-store, depending on the product.  For general design inspiration, I keep a stack of art and design books on my desk. I would also advise every designer to keep a “cool stuff” folder on their computer. Everything visually interesting you come across on the net should be kept here for future inspiration.

Q. What software do you prefer? What program do you think is the most vital to know today?
The classics are Photoshop and Illustrator. For sketching and rendering I swear by Corel Painter with a 9″x12″ Wacom tablet. When it comes to 3D modeling and rendering I use Rhino3D and Vray for the render engine. Every industrial designer should have some skills when drawing in the computer, as it is an extremely versatile tool. Knowledge in a 3D program is a necessity, as it enables you to communicate in 3 dimensions with engineers, and can produce photorealistic images and animations of your designs.

One of the largest and most prestigious design awards in the world, the Red Dot is a mark of excellence that serves as a preview of products to come. This year’s competition saw 180 awards issued among a pool of over 3,000 contestants from over 50 countries.

Andy Morrison, CEO of Wizard Machines, maker of the Rescue Wizard, approached ROBRADY with the concept for this life-saving tool unlike anything on the market. Leveraging mechanical and industrial design expertise, the studio exceeded the concept profile, delivering a device with great humanitarian and commercial appeal. Aside from obvious rescue applications, the Rescue Wizard could be indispensable for road crews, the forestry service, the military and outdoorsmen as well.

Andy Morrison of Naples, Florida founded Wizard Machines in 2008. Morrison had the idea for the Rescue Wizard for over 25 years, but until recently, the technology did not exist to achieve his vision for a reliable machine that was both light and durable. Then, in 2008 he discovered a new rope that had all of the attributes of steel cable but at 10% of the weight. Around that time, the devastating Sichuan, China earthquake struck, destroying as many as 600,000 structures in just seconds. These two events motivated him to search for a firm that shared his vision for the Rescue Wizard. His search culminated in a collaboration with ROBRADY design and the founding of Wizard Machines. Morrison has invested the last two years and substantial personal funds to bring make the Rescue Wizard to reality.

ROBRADY design is a multi-disciplined product design and development studio that offers its multinational client base—including General Electric, Mercedes-Benz, Dell Computers, Parker Hannifin, AT&T, Merial and Volvo Penta—progressive industrial design, mechanical design and engineering, graphics /packaging / GUI / web and eCommerce design, market research, brand and retail development, complete rapid prototyping and production program management. ROBRADY design stresses comprehensive speed-to-market product solutions by collaborating to identify the greatest areas of opportunity and producing innovative designs to deliver profitable product solutions. ROBRADY delivers design, production and capital solutions to their clients in support of their research to reality philosophy.

Unappreciated by the world is the fact that in today’s elusive studio of motorcycle design America is a major player – for some, the major player. Dozens of designers, engineers and craftsmen are creating some of the most exciting and innovative motorcycles the world has ever seen – ever dreamed about. This doesn’t just mean “yet another chopper”. It means names like Confederate, Ecosse, Fischer, Roehr, Vectrix (producing an electric sportbike), and MotoCzysz in addition to, and no less worthy in this context, the establishment Harley-Davidson with Buell, Victory, and even Indian. Award-winning author Alan Cathcart visits twenty-five shops interviews the designers and engineers and rides the motorcycles. Each shop, interviewee and motorcycle has been photographed especially for this book.

Check out the following excerpt from the book featuring the rMoto Electrix Superbike. You can also download a PDF file here. To purchase a copy of American Dream Bikes by Alan Cathcart click here.

Is an Electric Super Bike important?

My team and I started to prepare the booth at the ’08 INDY Motorcycle Industry Expo very early in the morning. We had spent the last two days setting up. The show didn’t start until 10:00 am, but we were there at 8:00 am because we were anxious to get everything ready. The truth is we were very nervous. This was the very first motorcycle industry event that Vectrix Corporation had ever attended in North America, and we wanted to make a good showing. This was also the first time that any company had attempted to enter the conventional North American motorcycle market with an E2W machine of this quality, and at this price or performance level. Only recently, Vectrix had attended EICMA, the major European motorcycle industry event in Milan. The ROBRADY/Vectrix Super Bike (rMoto) was “unveiled” with terrific fanfare and attracted tremendous attention from the press and the industry. The momentum had begun.

We only had a little booth at INDY, barely big enough for three or four demo models of the Maxi Scooter sized Vx1 Electric Scooter. The booth was so small, that most of the sales team had to stand in the isles. Even so, I had decided to devote a lot of valuable space to something we wanted the US industry to see, even though it was not something we could sell to prospective dealers.

I had decided that the beautiful, life sized model of the Super Bike was so exciting as a concept, that it should take the front and center spot in the booth as a symbol of what our new brand represented. I was acutely aware of the interest that the showing at EICMA had generated in Europe, and wanted to continue the momentum here in the US.

This was, after all, to be an all-inclusive E2W brand, not just a “scooter” brand.

All of us were a bit worried. We had promised our company that the conventional motorcycle industry was where our machines belonged, not in electronics/appliance retailers, EV stores, stand-alone flag ship stores, or automobile dealerships, as many in the company still believed, although the success at the EICMA show was beginning to change minds. Their concept was that these electric machines were “revolutionary personal transport”, “rolling computers” – anything but motorcycles. That sales tactic had been tried for several years, at great expense, and with no success. One argument held that the lack of success was due to the machines being too advanced and ahead of their time for people to understand. I contended that they were motorcycles, motorcycles with electric drive systems, but motorcycles none-the-less. And that they belonged in stores that had clientele who were or had made the “life choice” necessary to embrace two wheeled vehicles. I believed we needed dealership partners that were trusted by long time clients, so that a new brand, and a new propulsion system, would be trusted by extension, and had all of the expertise, service and accessories necessary to satisfy that prospective end user, or fleet user.

As the morning wore on we took the dust cover off the Super Bike model and did other preparations to make the booth ready for the show to open. No fanfare as at EICMA, we just took off the cover. It was about 9:00 am. A funny thing started to happen. Suddenly, people from the other booths started to wander over to our booth. Before long we noted people taking pictures and making calls on their cell phones. Within half an hour we had a large crowd of industry insiders surrounding our booth, actually surrounding the Super Bike model. The cell phone calls and the transmitted cell pictures continued to bring more and more people to the booth. When 10:00 am arrived and the show opened, the crowd changed character from other OEMs to dealers and dealership staff. All weekend long we had national press, industry association and newsletter reporters, other OEMs and former visitors bringing others with them, back to the booth for another look. We soon became worried that we had not brought enough literature. Everyone wanted pictures and specs. Before the first day was over we had made about 40 appointments to take demo units to dealerships in aid of their adopting our brand, and hundreds of other inquiries. Staff had done dozens of press interviews and made appointments for press visits to the Vectrix corporate facilities.

It was absolutely clear to all of us that the Super Bike model was what caused the excitement. Once the dealers understood that it was the Vx1 that was currently available, and once they had experienced the scooter going in reverse, learned about the regen throttle (being electric we could run them indoors even if only for a few feet), and heard that it could go 62 mph… they were sold. Because we were able to show a convincing road map of planned future products and had the promise (dream?) of having a fantastic electric Super Bike in the foreseeable future, they were interested and anxious to become dealers. The US team went on to open over 100 US dealerships in the remaining 8 months of its current fiscal year and placed over 2200 Vx1s on dealership floors during that time period.

After that show, Company enthusiasm increased dramatically and an all out effort, anchored with the Super Bike model, was launched – continuing the introduction of Vectrix and the Super Bike to the motorcycle world and the world press.

Up until that time, only sporadic forays into E2Ws had been made by any large brand. A few low-speed, limited distance units had been tried here and there in the western world. Meanwhile, a very large number of similar but low performing low-tech machines had begun appearing in the Asian markets and met with wonderful success. Unfortunately, most of these were of relatively low quality and had inadequate performance levels for US or European use. Literally no one had even remotely considered such a thing as an electric super bike. So, when the ROBRADY/Vectrix Super Bike was presented to the world it had an amazing impact.

As recently as last year, Mission Motors produced a prototype electric motorcycle (super bike) that has now set a two way record at Bonneville of over 150 mph. It is said to have a nominal street range per charge of 100 miles to 150 miles. This is reported to be a production prototype.

Shortly after that, Lightning Electric Motorcycle Company set a one way measured mile record at Bonneville of over 166 mph. The same machine placed second at the first sanctioned all electric motorcycle race in the US. It is also reported to be a production prototype.

The Agni bike (a one off proof of concept for the Agni electric motor company) won the Isle of Man GPXTT zero emissions race and went on to win the first race of that type in the US.

Lightning, Moto Czysz, Mavizen, Roehr, Agni and a few others are offering to build race only electric bikes for teams interested in entering these races.

Last year, an electric motorcycle dragster, the KillaCycle, began to do quarter mile races in the sub 8 second times, rivaling all but the fastest Super charged and multi engine ICE drag bikes.

Only a few weeks ago, 13 electric super bikes competed in the first officially sanctioned all electric bike race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA, and in so doing achieved speeds that were very close to those of ICE super bikes, doing laps only 15 to 18 seconds slower than ICE super bikes.

Yamaha, Honda, Peugeot, KTM, BMW, Polaris, and other Legacy 2W OEMs have announced the introduction of E2W machines into their product lines in the next few years.

Recently, Quantya, Zero, Brammo, EVS, and as many as 10 other small specialty E2W and EATV OEMs have entered the market place.

Four years ago, within the motorcycle industry at large, there was no evidence of such a thing as an electric super bike; or for that matter, serious consideration of electric bikes at all. I now know of a few people and some industry insiders that had been privately working on electric motorcycles and scooters in their garages and workshops for many years – but in the industry at large, this was not a seriously considered concept.

So what was the vision for the rMoto? ROBRADY design by that time had extensive experience in the motorcycle industry and had recently begun working with Vectrix on electric scooters. They understood where electric vehicle technology could go. The design for the Vx1 was completed and the beginnings of a product road map – a smaller scooter called the Vx2, fleet specific bodywork for patrol and delivery service, and even a prototype three-wheeled version of the Vx1 were in the works. What they were looking for though was something that could aid in building Vectrix into an iconic brand. The answer to that was the Super Bike, even though the technology necessary to drive such a thing at ICE like speed for any distance was not available or even understood.

When one considers what would drive anyone to go out on this sort of limb, what impetus would drive such a conceptualization, one can only think it was passion. The idea of a commercial industrial design studio being an incubator for this sort of work seems attractive and appropriate, but it’s not at all common. The driver here seems to be genuine passion on the part of all concerned. The nature of a design studio is collegial and only a shared passion could drive such a leap forward in concept… and, why not? This concept combines a lot of elements that are extremely attractive to the creative mind. Once the team was exposed to the Vx1, they were aware of the awesome capabilities of electric drive systems, the positive effect on the environment such machines could provide, the amazing power delivery concept of 100% torque from 0 mph, and the utter silence of these machines in motion. Additionally, I think, there was the passionate impetus to convince this client company, Vectrix, that driving prospective dealerships and end users to their brand, and to continued interest in the brand for the long run, required a brand awareness-“a total brand design”- that encompassed a long term product road map and a unified design of the company now and the future.

How far, given all of that, is it from the Vx1 to the rMoto? I think the distance in concept between the two is actually light years. Am I trying to make the case that this Super Bike was the only reason for the growth in interest in electric E2Ws, or that it was the single impetus for the sudden appearance, so soon after it was shown, of actual electric super bikes; perhaps not. However, I do believe that it was a prime mover, and one of the primary eye opening and imagination generators in the development of everything that has come since. Nothing else in the rapid progress of these developments has had this much influence or this much power to influence the current outcome.

During the ’08 INDY show, and for a long time after, the sales team reported dealer after dealer saying that they had decided to adopt the brand in large part because of the promise of a product line that eventually would included the Super Bike. One dealer agreed to adopt the brand only if he were promised that his would be the first dealership in his state to have the Super Bike.

Clearly, giving credit where it is due, the Vx1 is a good bike and deserved success in it’s own right. It is still the best E2W that has ever been offered to the general motorcycle marketplace in terms of design and performance. It offers acceptable speed (62 mph/100 kph), product differentiation from ICE bikes with regen braking and reverse throttle, excellent handling and decent distance per charge.

But I don’t think it would have achieved such rapid dealer acquisition, and reached the public consciousness so quickly, without the electric Super Bike model.  The Super Bike offered prospective dealers and end users a clear vision of what to expect in the future (a future which is coming about rapidly as noted above), and excited the imagination and efforts of an entire industry.

Bravo ROBRADY design.

The Rescue Wizard is a gas-powered, man-portable winch capable of pulling loads as heavy as 12,000 lbs. (5,443.108kg). Designed for simple operation under the hardest circumstances, the winch can be used where destroyed roads and tight fits make heavy machinery and vehicles unfeasible and when electric power is unreliable, impractical (e.g. in or near water) or even nonexistent. As such, the winch is ideal for emergency rescue workers, forestry personnel, road crews and the military. With the Rescue Wizard, ROBRADY has surpassed the concept profile, leveraging mechanical and industrial design expertise to realize Morrison’s vision for a life-saving device with great commercial appeal. Aside from obvious rescue applications, the Rescue Wizard could be indispensable for road crews, the forestry service, the military and outdoorsmen as well.

The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA®) competition is a celebration of the year’s most inventive and creative product and product concept designs. Of the entries submitted, the judges recognize Finalist, Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards. This year the competition received the most entries since it began 30 years ago. Out of 407 finalists, 38 were honored with the Gold award; while 64 received the Silver award and 88 won the Bronze award. IDSA has partnered with the Henry Ford in Dearborn and all finalists from this year will go into the permanent collection of the museum.

Andy Morrison of Naples, Florida founded Wizard Machines in 2008. Morrison has had the idea for the Rescue Wizard for the past 25 years. Over the years, with every disaster, Mr. Morrison thought about that ideal machine but the technology did not exist to achieve the needs he envisioned for a reliable machine that was light and durable in nature. Finally, in 2008 he became aware of a new rope that had all of the attributes of steel cable, but with 10% of the weight.  At about the same time there was a devastating earthquake in Sichuan, China that collapsed as many as 600,000 structures in a matter of seconds.  Those two events motivated him to begin a search for a firm that shared his vision.  That culminated in his collaboration with ROBRADY Design, of Sarasota, Florida, and the founding of Wizard Machines. Morrison has invested the last two years and substantial personal funds to bring the dream for the Rescue Wizard to reality.