A: A polished new blog layout, complete with signature colors, categorized posts, and options to share each post on Twitter or Facebook.

So if you like our new look, thank Josh and Colin!

Our involvement in the Toyota Prius concept bike has been a secret until today, when it was announced on Prollyisnotprobably.com. We recently became the envy of Pittsburgh’s bike community when John Prolly spent the day at Deeplocal offices to discuss the project.

While I can’t say anything new here that isn’t already on John’s blog post, I can tell you that the project involves hacking a bike helmet (which we’ve been doing a lot of lately) and partnering with Parlee Cycles (soon we’ll travel to their office in Boston). As a team that largely commutes to work by bike, we were excited to take this futuristic, Minority Report-esque challenge on. Leading the team is Matthew Pegula, Deeplocal’s Lead Engineer, a committed bike commuter, and (as you’ll see from the photo below, taken at CMU) a reincarnated famous roboticist.

Out of

10,000 submissions, the committee cut it down to

4,300 ideas for good. Then

20 finalists were selected online, and

5 winners came this weekend. The youngest was

20 years old, and one winner’s

6-year-old was the inspiration for his idea. After

19,000 people voted online, our

10-person team packed up a lot of tools for

4 hours as evidenced by a

6-foot-long receipt at Home Depot. For the next

3 days, we worked on

5 projects with stuff like SPVS, which creates

59 watts. Our home gym prototype generated

50 watts per push. We later used

1.34 pounds of ground beef to make

12 kebabs for the Pure Air prototype and tested

300 pounds of weights for the gym. Each year,

2 million people die from poor air ventilation and

1/2 million are injured on bikes, which is why

50 people attended, and why Toyota gave

$100,000 in seed money to Carnegie Mellon University to further develop these ideas for good.

Power Plant Gym Prototype

Power Plant Gym- Eamae and Josh worked on Birken’s winning idea, the power plant gym. Birken proposed using Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive to create a fitness center that puts energy back into the grid. After er “weighing” the options, the team successfully altered a home gym to generate electricity using resistance from a multi-gear bike wheel. As an added bonus, they measured energy output with circuit boards and a laptop.

A Better Bike Helmet- While the Powerplant Gym Team tested their prototype by pumping some iron, Dimitry worked on his prototype for Stu’s idea of building a better bike helmet. The helmet uses THUMS (Total Human Model for Safety) technology to gather impact data and help medical professionals as well as the general public evaluate the seriousness of a head injury. Dr. Illah Nourbakhsh volunteered to test the helmet by hopping around on a pogo stick. Disclaimer: No CMU professors were harmed in the making of this prototype.

Pure Air Prototype

Pure Air- Patrick headed up the Pure Air project, working alongside challenge winner Tim. Tim wanted to use Toyota’s Solar Powered Ventilation System to help ventilate smoke out of indoor fires. Many families have no choice but to cook indoors, which causes respiratory problems in areas with limited access to health care. To test the prototype, the team set up a life-sized hut and cooked authentic kebabs inside.

Touch Tracer Prototype

Touch Tracer- Matthew’s Touch Tracer team worked with David, whose winning idea included an ergonomic dome which functions as a mouse and keyboard. Matthew was part hand model, part creative engineer for the weekend as you can see in this photo.

Production Room

When we weren’t working on the prototypes, we shared a break room with the production company. There was plenty of sugar involved.

Day 2 of the Ideas for Good Build Weekend was busy and productive. After an 11 hour day, we headed to Church Brew Works with the awesome people at Saatchi & Saatchi LA and Slim Pictures, and enjoyed some of the best microbrews Pittsburgh has to offer. Cheers!

Setting up before the event

Matthew, Deeplocal's Director of Engineering, listens to a question about his project.

Overall, the first day of Prototyping Weekend was reminiscent of a science fair for grown ups. While no one showed up with a baking soda and vinegar volcano, one table was almost entirely covered in model clay. The winners and engineers discussed their prototypes while onlookers asked questions, curious about the real-world application of each project. Unlike a science fair, however, there were microphones in strange places (Shawn was spotted speaking to his ribcage), a life-sized fire truck, and a reverse-engineered Prius-turned-roller-coaster. Oh, and engineering experts tinkering with highly innovative technology.

Patrick and Shawn rigging the firetruck

Getting your potato battery to work for the science fair judges was stressful in 4th grade, so imagine how Patrick and Shawn felt hooking up the automated firefighting extension ladder guidance system…In front of a camera…On top of a firetruck…In 90 degree weather. Let’s just say the laptops weren’t the only things overheating.

No, really. They're on a firetruck.

The reverse-engineered Prius roller coaster was our special guest.

Our favorite roller coaster is back, and it took a forklift and flatbed truck to get it here. It may look like a jumble of parts, but this machine is a beautiful cluster of organized chaos. Thanks for checking in for Day 1 of the “Ideas for Good” weekend. For more fun pictures, check out Jean’s photos on Notcot.

The Deeplocal Team in Action

Here in the studio, we’ve been hard at work preparing for the big build. We’ve already built a hybrid roller coaster and a solar powered relief tent, and we’re excited to build prototypes with the challenge winners this weekend. Interested? Follow along on Facebook or Twitter.

And since no news is good news without a sexy infographic, Colin has been working on some new projects for them. If you remember Colin’s infographics in GOOD Magazine, you already know he’s “rad.” But you probably didn’t know that he can also magically make pothole statistics look fascinating:

More of Colin’s work in The Daily coming soon to an iPad near you.

Starting yesterday, the first 1,000 Prius owners who sign up at ToyotaPriusProjects.com will get a custom-molded, adhesive-backed vehicle badge. The next 10,000 owners get their badges in sticker form, while everyone else gets their badges digitally. The auto-generated badge artistically reflects the CO2 emissions saved by each individual Prius.

Colin designed this awesome poster for the event.

We’re not your typical band of engineers and artists. We are a pretty active bunch and really like to be outdoors as much as we can. Some of us at Deeplocal are avid marathon runners, too, and love it so much that we wanted to promote the sport.

This year, we were a proud sponsor of the 2011 Pittsburgh Marathon, and we designed the poster for the Pittsburgh Kids Marathon, a one mile run that took place the day before the big marathon.  It is a great way for kids to have fun outdoors and see our fair city. And every child who participated got a finisher’s medal and some awesome swag, too.

We want to thank everyone who participated in making this event a success again this year, especially the marathoners who ran the city course like pros. We are so proud of you. Way to go, kids!