Congratulations to Contest Participants

The first Local Motors' Competition is coming to a close. I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge and congratulate the first participants.

MGDesign
Vling
Martin.Atanasov
MagnaMarque
Crisp Angles
Paulo
AmvDesign
DJFearnley
Canay
Me2
marek.rakucek
Filski
gauravbhatia01
Ben-J
Orlando
Braunarsch
Aashishbc

If you haven't yet, check out the designs. The voting windows for some of the designs is still open. Check it out! This is an awesome start, and just the beginning. Many, many more good things will come in the next competition.

Be sure to comment on the contestant's designs, and vote on the one you want to drive.

Congratulations to the contestants!!

The Bun in the Oven & Our New Convection Oven

Congratulations to Jay and Susannah Rogers on the birth of Houston Rogers! We have been waiting to welcome the little Roger and the day has finally arrived. Jay said Susannah is healthy and well, as is Houston. Jay also said that Houston is already a car lover.

My tacky pun of a blog title does not properly express my enthusiasm in celebrating this day. But it so hard to give up an easy pun. So with the arrival of our little "Bun in the Oven", we also received our convection oven! badum-cha!

Yes, the convection oven came in! We took advantage and made some cookies. Who knew Riha was such an amazing baker.


Juuuust kidding. It's not that kind of oven. The oven is meant to bake the parts that come out of the 3d printer. The baking process will remove any residual moisture in the powder of the parts. As result, the parts will be stronger and more solid. To make an even stronger part, you can go forward and perform the infiltration process.



And no, if you bake the part at the right temp for the right amount of time, there is no danger of "browning" (or in my case, burning to a useless tasteless crisp).

Who Won and What's Next?

The first Local Motors Sketch Design Competition ends April 30th. Time has flown by. So now you're probably wondering two things, "Who won?" and "What is the next competition?"

First, the California Competition isn't over yet so if you haven't voted - VOTE! The LM Community is getting better every day, and the competition entries are pretty fierce and pretty sweet.

Ah, the next competition.

A few of you have asked for a bigger prize. Well, you got it. This next competition, a challenge design a Miami Road Racer will pay the winner $10,000. Plus, if your design is chosen for production you could win $10,000 more.

Yes, Local Motors is hosting a $20,000 competition starting May 20th. Are you ready?

LM Hodgepodge: Opportunities and Updates

We are 5 days from the end of our first Local Motors Competition. Though much has been accomplished, I feel that the to-do list is compounding; as one task is checked off, two are added on, then four, then sixteen. As someone close to me is always reminding me, opportunities multiply as they are seized. Each finished task opens new doors, and creates more opportunity.

Now, if there were only more hours in the day!

Much is going on at Local Motors. I feel we are at the point now where we can talk about LM and include not only the team, but the community - and I've been doing that for a while. Tim just returned from his Florida Family Vacation. Jay and Susannah are very close to welcoming their third child. Andy launched the beta version of his lovechild, cameesa.com. Karin is organizing payment and accounting information so that we can pay and reward our very first competition winner (though we don't yet know who it is!). Mike and Dave have been multitasking between training (read about it on the engineers blog), and brainstorming for future competitions. Our friends and community members at ACCD and CCS are CRAZY busy as they wrap up the school year - and I know our other student members are busy as well.

It's kind of crazy around here, but it's fun and it's worthwhile.

Things that Happened Today

Today Vaughan Ling joined Local Motors! This is exciting because I've been following his blog for the last several months. When blogs are good, you get a chance to learn about the person writing and you get a taste for their style. This was the case with Vaughan. I immediately liked his style, and he has such a casual air about him. He's the kind of guy that can probably have a good time in any situation!

He's a youngin', a freshman at CCS. He's headed for greatness.

Check out some of his work.



One more thing happened today and I've been debating whether or not I should share it, but I suppose it's worth a laugh. One of our beloved community members uploaded some awesome pictures to his portfolio. We all checked them out, but only one of us noticed there was a naked gal lingering in the peripheral of one shot. I casually emailed the this guy, told him the naked gal pic was kabashed and he responded with "probably for the best, that's a picture of my old girlfriend". ?$#! What?! I had to laugh!

If this particular guys is reading my blog, you know I adore you and your work. You can take some teasing.

So kids, what did we learn today? First, no frivolous naked girlies on LM please, and second - don't date car designers.

Community Feedback

Since Local Motors is your community, you have the reins. If you would like to see a change on the site, use your voice and make it so. While we may not immediately implement every suggestion (and some not at all - like the suggestions to focus on teleportation as the next "big thing" in transport), we are really, truly listening.

Today we sent out a small Survey to a select group of people. Below are just a few of the suggested changes our community members would like to see on the site - the suggestions are in their own words and are not in any particular order:

1. It would be good if LM had a live chat.

2. Cleaner, simpler site design & more professional branding/ graphic design.

3. Maybe some tutorials... otherwise, everything is fantastic!

4. Full history of comments and checkup. better graphic design and layout.

5. More about Local Motors and their structure

6. A feature that shows various images from people's portfolios on a single sketch wall, rather than having to look through a bunch of names first.

7. A feature where you can continually update the design check ups, instead of separate entry check ups.

8.World map with participants.

9.RSS feed just for pictures of designs: eye candy.

We hear you! You may wonder why I'd include the criticisms along with the neutral suggestions and praise. Well, the answer is that we agree with just about every one of you. It will take time for us to implement every one of these features, but one glaringly obvious fact has been on all of our minds: We need to clarify our message and make the site more simple. This we will do and it will take priority over some of the (awesome) bells and whistles.

Remember, you only found out about us one short month ago! We're growing with you, and we're growing fast. You can expect continual change on the site, a sharper more clarified message, and increasingly mouth-watering graphic design. It's coming.

Stay tuned.

Facebook on Wheels

Today I connected with a new designer who recently graduated from ACCD in California, Yichan Chung. He was psyched to hear about Local Motors and described us as "Facebook on Wheels". I loved it! What a vivid comparison; it was a huge compliment and set the bar high.

I love Local Motors Social Network. Where else can you get to know designers from around the world? I now have friends in Uganda, France, India, Singapore... the list goes on and on! The community is becoming more and more connected because of strong common interest. It's really true that Local Motors is the first website to connect car designers and car enthusiasts in a single place.

It's awesome.

A day or so ago, Adis who is a Local Motors Community Member somehow struck up a conversation at a bar with Jay Goldbach. Adis quickly found out that Jay G. is the guy who designed the Local Motors Logo - small world. This is a special case because both Adis and Jay G. know us personally here at Local Motors. I hope we keep these personal relationships in tact as we grow.

Eventually, when we meet someone who is in love with cars and car design we will automatically assume that we are all part of the same community; we will just say "look me up on Local Motors".

Tim Thomas is Official

According to Tim, in all of his working life he’s never had a job as good as this. He says, it doesn’t even feel like work because he enjoys it so much. He gets up in the morning and races to the computer, eager to start another day.

Today we celebrated Tim Thomas becoming an official team member and partial owner of Local Motors. The Wareham team had a BBQ to celebrate Tim's success, and the success of Local Motors for landing such a talented individual.



Tim has done a fantastic job. As Local Motors' Web Architect he has played a strong and vital role in sculpting the Local Motors Community. He has managed the site's development, and coordinated the many hands affecting the success of Local Motors.

The benefits of a new well-formed business are numerous. If you're lucky, you will find like-minded individuals who share your passion and ignite your will to do the very best you can. If you're really lucky (and if you can hack it), you could earn a share of the business you help create. Since Tim worked and earned his place in Local Motors, it is hardly fair to say that he is really lucky. He is, however, a partial owner and part of the core supporting Local Motors. We are so glad to have him on our team.

Cheers and Congratulations!!

Evolution!

We launched the Local Motors site after much consideration and planning, but we knew it wasn't complete. As the site grew in membership, the community began to give us feedback and bit by bit local-motors.com is becoming exactly what the community wants it to be - and that is so completely exciting!

Since our foundation is our community we really want to hear suggestions and even criticisms regarding the website or anything else. As much as we can, we will implement suggestions to create the best community and experience possible. We hope that the members feel like they are a part of the growth because the input of each person is really invaluable.

Today we launched a simple but highly recommended feature. Now every time someone comments on your Check up Design, Competition Design or Profile Wall, you will get an email notifying you of the message - so simple, but highly effective and highly requested.

Ask and you shall receive! We are making more changes to make the website better, and to make it exactly what you want.

In other news, I forgot that i had these awesome pictures of Mike Pisani:

Mike is a huge Boston Sports fan. On Sunday Mike was at the Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens hockey game. The Bruins won in overtime, and Mike got this fantastic mask as a memoir. Apparently the masks were incredibly difficult to put together... luckily, Mike is an engineer.

I love Mike's passion for Boston. You can catch him supporting just about any Boston team.



I love this picture. check out the guy throwing up the Bull Horns!

Visiting with Ben-J

Yesterday I met Ben-J in person! This was enormously exciting since it was my first day meeting a Local Motors Community member (let alone Charter Member!) in person. Ben-J is originally from Bretagne, France and only recently moved to Auburn Hills to work with a company in Automotive Interior Design. His real passion is for car body design, and you can see that he is super talented.

Ben-J's Electric Supercar

It is so exciting to hang out and talk to someone who shares our passion for Design, Community and Local Motors. I'm excited for future gatherings of the Local Motors Community; Local Motors is already connecting car lovers from around the world. Who knows, maybe next we'll meet a friend or two from Russia?

College for Creative Studies

I stopped by College for Creative Studies (CCS) today, and I'm so glad I did. I knew these guys were talented, I've seen their work and the school has a stellar reputation for transportation design. These are some of the hardest working, creative, and hospitable guys in the game.


Filip Bosevski (second from the right) was kind enough to show me the third year studio and introduce me to his peers and friends. This is a tightly knit group of guys and they were busy working on their final projects - which were pretty incredible. Even though they were sleep deprived and incredibly busy (some of them hadn't even taken time to eat at 6pm), they were all excited about their designs and eager to share.

We talked a bit about their designs and Local Motors, we had some pizza.

I left impressed and hopeful that these guys would be part of the Local Motors Community. They are certainly capable, and they have much to contribute. Some of them are as passionate about sustainable design as we are; and some of them notice the lack of customer experience in the market and they have incorporated "experience" into their final projects. They are really sharp; these are 8 guys who are capable of making a lasting impact on car design - and if they want, they have a ready audience of car and design lovers to share their passion.

Publicity for LM Designers

Yo Designers!

Congratulations on your feature in Wired.com's Autotopia Blog.

Guys, this is awesome publicity for the Local Motors Community.
Wired.com is visited by over 2 million people per month. Pretty sweet!!!

Read the blog here.

Congrats to Victor Uribe Chacon, Benjamin and skukuzi!

More good things to come :o) Stay tuned.

Spreading the Word

Vote for Local Motors at Killer Startups! Click Here.

Today was an exciting day at Local Motors. We had some great press coverage between Mashable.com, Killerstartups.com and several other blogs. Plus we started a simple but important effort to spread word at Trans Design schools.

Adam Palethorpe, a talented designer from Huddersfield U. in the UK offered to spread the word at his school and offered information on how to best do this. Sweet! Initially Adam and I were talking and he mentioned that he had some talented mates who he would "spread the word" to. That was exciting enough. I asked him if he thought hanging flyers at his school would be effective, and he said probably not because they would probably end up on the floor. Then he offered a couple other suggestions to help spread the word, hanging the info on the design block, giving the contest and site information to his department chair, etc. Awesome.

Our Local Motors Community is a strong core group. By increasing the membership in the community and the pool of talent and feedback, everyone will be better off. Adam knew this from the get go, and I think other designers do too. Now I need to give them the information they need and let them work their magic, however they see fit.

Thanks, Adam! This is the push we needed.

Today was a great step forward.


In other news, Dave Mike and Jay went to Brown Bag for lunch in honor of Andy's birthday.

And Andy is getting so old, he couldn't blow out all of his candles at once.

Second Time's the Charm!

Social Networking & Mashable

Hey, Kristen Nicole, my fellow Chicagoan, you are now one of my favorites! Thanks for the stellar Mashable review.

Mashable.com focuses on Social Networking news and they are at the top of the game. Check out what they wrote about Local Motors!

I am pleased that Kristen immediately understood Local Motors' purpose and possibility. Cheers!

As expected, every reader is not an immediate believer. I expected our reception by the tech and social networking scene to rate great to excellent. In terms of knowing the possibilities of crowd sourcing and open source creation, this group has lead the way and is predicting more businesses to follow suit. But not every reader is a believer. Though the number of disbelievers in the tech crowd are few, I find myself really wanting to get through to them.

The auto industry has callused many people into hard disbelief. It will just take a little more time to prove ourselves - and we are up to the challenge!

"If You Can Dream It, We Can Build It"

Good thing we didn't choose this as our tagline! I think it may have been on the docket, and if it wasn't it should have been.

This is the tagline for the new Dodge Journey, a new crossover.

(courtesy msnbc.com)

To me, this looks like the front middle and the back of the vehicle were taken from different cars and put into a slot machine type of a game.... cha ching, cha ching, cha ching... you pull the lever and Voila! You have a new crossover, the front of an almost- sedan, the back of a wagon (actually it looks like a Vibe, another crossover), and the middle is mostly SUV.

In truth, this may be a dream car for some soccer mom drivers. I'm not using the soccer mom thing as a cut down, the Dodge Journey is actually going to be a sponsor of the US Soccer Association, both Men's and Women's. I told you, soccer mom-mobile!

I say, if this is what the market of soccer moms wants then bravo, Dodge!

For the market of car enthusiasts and design lovers, Local Motors is "Driven by Design", but if you can dream it then we can still build it.

How do you like our tagline?

The Story is in the Design

It is amazing how cars connect people. No matter which walk of life you're coming from, you probably have some interest in cars whether it's a matter of necessity or appreciation.

I've been thinking lately of ways to promote our Local Motors designers, and simultaneously spread the word about the LM brand. I had a classic "show them, don't tell them" moment when I realized that the Local Motors Community can represent itself and tell the story of Local Motors through design.

Let me explain. We have been approached by several media sources, so the proper pitch is always on my mind. While I can tell the story in an alluring way, and Jay can tell the story in an inspiring way, the designers can tell the story and flat out make it REAL. By designing for the readers of the magazine, the designers can show the world what Local Motors is about. We are about design, personalized design, and participatory design. If you are a car lover, now is the opportunity to find the love of your life. The LM community can make it happen.

To promote Local Motors and the ability of the LM Community, I think we should design cars for the readers of these magazines. Just think: What would a reader of Outside Magazine drive? What would a reader of Maxim drive? What about Portfolio Magazine? In my mind, each of these readers would drive completely different vehicles.

The Outside Magazine reader will want something with a roof rack. It will need to be efficient, as eco-friendly as possible. A 4wd option would be awesome for this city dweller turned weekend mountain climber. This guy/gal will definitely need room for camping gear.

The Morris Dune, by Sasank Gopinathan, LM Charter Member

The Maxim Magazine reader will need something to impress the Hometown Hotties (don't ask me how I know this). This car must be fast and hot, and ready to impress. If there is only room for two, all the better.

A Z-Dezign, by LM Member Zoran

Finally, the Portfolio Magazine reader. This car will be comfortable, connected, sharp and impressive in an understated kind of way. Think of a Mercedes E63 AMG, a sleek sedan hiding over 500 hp, and somehow it still seems practical.

The Speedstar by LM Member Adis, aka Skukuzi

The story is in the design. Yes, we are going to build awesome cars and I intend to tell everyone about them, but the most important thing is to nurture our community of designers and enthusiasts. The designers are the stars here, and they are the story. Everything about Local Motors will truly be Driven by Design.

Ben-J

Check this out!

Work of Benjamin Louis aka Ben-J

Soon this will grace the front pages of LM. This graphic tells our story; The Local Motors Community will take great design from sketch to road.

Awesome work, Benjamin!

Andy's Birthday

Happy early birthday Mr. Cronk! Today the team ate cake.

Since tomorrow is Andy's last day in Wareham, the LM team is celebrating his birthday a week early. Though Andy will still hack away the new LM website, starting next week he will be working from Chicago.

The website is launched, the competition has begun and there is still plenty more to do. Tim and Andy are working on increased functionality in CarChat, like adding the ability to upload pictures in a message. They are even working on a writeboard so community members can draw examples of things they are trying to describe.

If you have any suggestions, I hope you'll send them our way!

Warp Speed!

Today is the first day of the very first Local Motors Competition. As a huge milestone, this day is incredibly important. So far we are off to a good start! 3 Designs posted, a few more in checkup, and some still in development. All this on day 1!

I'm excited about the competition, but I am MORE excited about the collaboration on the site. What could happen if designers and car lovers from all over the world, already 65 countries, come together and pool their insights and perspectives? ANYTHING could happen! This is what I expect and hope for, to be surprised!

Benedetto Bordone is an awesome designer, he sketches beautifully and has a unique sensibility. Check it out!







(Courtesy Benedetto Bordone, Local Motors Charter Member)

This design was submitted to checkup, prior to submitting the design to the competition. This is just a taste of the feedback he received:

Looks solid. I dig it. With the smooth flowing curves, I feel like this car wants to sail across the sand! Love the hint of shadow along the hood. Could be a great spot for a vent to blow some hot air out of the engine box. Love that you've got aggressive tires with sidewalls incorporated in the design already. Think about line of site from the drivers head to the front of the car. The closer to horizontal that line is, the tougher it may be for the driver to see/avoid close obstacles on the road. Also, think about mud/dust spray if you choose to keep the front tires outboard of the side of the car - a true crawler will love to see their tires, but somebody rollin' for show might not like the amount of care to keep the car clean and maintain a flawless paint finish. You thinkin 2+Gear, or 2+2 for passengers? I think there would be a line for a seat in this ride!

The design is awesome, and this feedback is priceless. The feedback is from WiKID who has spent over 4 years at Chrysler in both vehicle engineering and new product development. This takes an awesome concept and idea to being closer to being buildable at warp speed - how long would it take to do this at a large company? Plus, Benedetto has been receiving great feedback (Green Thumbs!), so now he has great design of his own, buildability as explained by a pro, and marketability through community approval. And, done. Wa-la! A buildable, loveable, drivable kick-ass-off-road machine.

I realize I am making this sound easier than it actually is, I'm just psyched at the warp speed of open-source collaboration. It's awesome.