Normally an 8,000-nautical mile cross-Pacific voyage isn’t a noteworthy event. But it is if you’ve done it on a 20-meter catamaran built from 12,500 two-liter plastic bottles.

On July 26, 2010 Adventure Ecology and a crew of six accomplished such a feat, completing a 128-day journey from San Francisco to Sydney in The Plastiki.

The voyage was Adventure Ecology’s way of showing people that would-be waste can be used as a valuable resource. So knowing that up to 80% of total marine pollution consists of plastic materials, the group designed and engineered a boat largely composed of it as an example. The plastic bottles line the boat’s two hulls, keeping it buoyant. Plastiki’s sail is even made from recycled PET.

The catamaran is also equipped with solar panels, wind and trailing sea turbines, and bicycle generators to create onboard electricity for lighting and cooking.

And as if the eco-friendly boat design wasn’t enough, the crew took saltwater showers, captured drinking water from a rain catchment system and ate various meals grown in an onboard hydroponic vertical garden to further promote sustainability.

Unlike most paper and plastics cups that end up in the trash bin—and eventually in a land fill—after being used, a new disposable cup from product design consultants The Way We See The World is designed to wind up somewhere else: Either in your stomach or as fertilizer in your lawn and garden.

That’s right, these cups, called “Jelloware,” can either be eaten or act as plant food. This is because they’re made from agar agar, a gelatinous seaweed extract that nurtures plant growth. And while seaweed extract may not sound incredibly appetizing, Jelloware cups have a flexible composition similar to Jell-O and are cast in flavors like lemon-basil, ginger-mint and rosemary-beet, so they’re intended to be eaten, too.

According to The Way We See The World, the Jelloware cups re-imagine the concept of drinking and provide a new experience in the way it feels, smells, moves, tastes and—perhaps most importantly—is disposed of. After all, some 58 billion disposable cups find their way into land fills each year.

If you’ve been watching the Tour de France, you may have witnessed a peloton turning into a jumble of broken and bent bikes. Not good. And while the bicycle design innovation from Kevin Scott, a product development student at the UK’s De Montfort University isn’t meant for venues like the Tour, his bike bends in half because it’s supposed to.

Scott’s “bendy bicycle” design features a cable that runs through two segmented tubes connecting the rear part of the bike to the front. This cable can be loosened with a ratcheting device located underneath the seat so that the bicycle literally folds in half, allowing it to be wrapped around lamp poles, trees, signs, etc. This bending allows it to (a) lock to itself with an ordinary D-lock (not clunky chains), which Scott thinks will cut down on bike theft, and (b) become more compact for home storage and public parking purposes. When not parked, the cable can be fully tightened so that the frame straightens back out and it rides like any normal bike.

The bending design may not be the flashiest element to be developed for bicycles, but it could provide a greater sense of security to the 3 million people worldwide who have their bikes stolen annually.

The RapMan 3.1 may sound more like a new rap artist than a prototyping machine, but don’t be fooled. This 3D printer developed by Bits from Bytes is a DIY kit and includes an upgrade that allows a second printer head to be added to the machine. This means two different types of materials can be printed at once, which adds much more versatility to the end product. If you already have a RapMan with one head, the upgrade is available for £149.50 (approx. $230). A new two-headed printer costs £1,050, or about $1,615.

Although Polaroid may have Lady Gaga advising it on design, the camera-maker has nothing on Land Rover, which recently announced that Victoria Beckham—yes, She Once Known as “Posh Spice”—has become Creative Design Executive, working with Gerry McGovern, Land Rover and Range Rover Design Director.

Speaking of the new appointment, McGovern said, “Victoria Beckham is a talented British fashion designer and is extremely knowledgeable about great design and trends. Victoria understands luxury products—she is a Range Rover fan and has been a Range Rover owner for many years. Her fashion business is now in its third year and her designs are loved by critics and bought by many of the most stylish women in the world. I believe this appointment adds a new dimension to my design team as we continue to design products to appeal to a wider audience.”

And some people thought the Spice Girls were only going to get 15 minutes. . . .

With over 5 million Twitter followers, 10 million Facebook friends and album (15 million) and single (40 million) sales that are Beyond Platinum, if anyone can work an audience it’s Lady Gaga. Polaroid is hoping to reach a contemporary audience, too, but for its camera products. So in an effort to appeal to a new generation of consumers, it picked Lady Gaga as its creative director.

The position isn’t just a formality, either. Gaga has reportedly been sitting in on product design and development sessions to help create this line of cameras. Polaroid says its goal in collaborating with Gaga is to create products that blend fashion, technology and photography.

Presumably Polaroid has the technology and photography portions covered. Gaga evidently—and her stage outfits are nothing if not evident--knows a thing or two about fashion. The line drops in November.

While there is some concern voiced by the likes of former senator and astronaut John Glenn about the trimming of the budget for NASA manned flight activities, NASA is still putting people on the Moon. Well, digitally, anyway.

And in a game.

On July 6, NASA is launching “Moonbase Alpha,” a single- or multi-player game wherein the participants must restore critical systems and oxygen flow to their settlement after a meteor strike.

The game, developed by the Army Game Studio (yes, as in the U.S. Army) with Virtual Heroes, isn't to get NASA into competition with the likes of EA, but rather to be a proof-of-concept showing how NASA content can be combined with a game engine such that it could inspire interest in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Clearly a case of some clever product development. After all, as NASA has been the only outfit to put people on the Moon, who better to create the environment than rocket scientists?

It’s 350º F under the hood of a stockcar. Throw in high vibrations (up to 600 g) and high electrical current demands (up to 140 A) and it’s not surprising that the alternator is said to be one of the most problem-prone parts in NASCAR engines. So in an effort to improve alternator temperature cooling (they can’t do much to adjust the velocity forces nor the electrical requirements), NASCAR approved routing a 1-in duct from the side of the radiator shroud to the alternator in 2009. While that was a helpful move, it presented problems for packaging under the hood.

Earnhardt Childress Racing (ECR), the engine manufacturing joint venture between racing organizations Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Richard Childress Racing, attempted to achieve the cooling duct by putting a secondary rear cover with a hose attachment onto the alternator. But the cooling efficiency was reduced by maintaining the original Bosch alternator cover. So ECR engineers, having learned of a polyamide-based material reinforced with carbon fibers during attendance at a motorsports expo in Italy, began using it to develop prototype replacement covers. The material, Windform XT from CRP Technology, allowed them to create the covers via rapid prototyping. However, because the material is partially conductive and because the packaging considerations were so tight as to not permit any electrical isolation, it they determined it couldn’t used for the application.

However, the time investment wasn’t lost because CRP had recently developed a material that is reinforced with glass fibers, Windform LX, which also exhibits strength and thermal resistance. So six alternator covers were initially created and track tested, showing a 20º F reduction in stator motor temperature and excellent durability. Rapid prototyping then turned to rapid production as 50 covers were created for installation onto the alternators in ECR NASCAR Cup engines. In 12 races, not one alternator failed. That’s engineering for reliability in extreme conditions.

XCOR Aerospace made a leap into the space tourism industry with the development of its Lynx suborbital spacecraft, as you may recall from a previous edition of Time Compression. But that’s not all XCOR has done to accelerate out-of-this-world travel. Although less exotic than a spaceplane, perhaps, XCOR has worked for the past eight years in developing better piston pumps for space applications. Most recently, in association with United Launch Alliance (ULA), it developed a liquid hydrogen piston pump over a four-month period using rapid prototyping techniques.

So what’s the benefit of the piston pump vs. the more commonly used turbopumps? Longer life, lower costs, lighter weight and the ability to operate over a wider range of speeds, all of which are important for implementation into the private space sector.

What better way to distinguish your company from others than by developing innovative products? However, not all companies actually do that. So the government of Singapore has decided to do something about it. It’s offering tax incentives for innovative design projects in Singapore.

Yes, government has budgeted a tax incentive over a five-year period for innovative industrial and product design projects as a means to establish more competitive businesses. The incentive is good for up to 250% of total income. After approval of the project, companies must complete the design process and develop an end product resulting in new intellectual property within two years to qualify. After all, those tax breaks have to have some deliverable.

It pays to be innovative, especially in Singapore