Flying Carpet for Dogs

“The pug-supporting carpet is just one of a cornucopia of innovative products, mobile phones worn as piercings, air-powered motorcycles, etc. to come out of TNSID a product development center called the Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery. “

This article was taken from the July 2013 issue of Wired magazine.

A rocking chair that charges your iPad. A plastic ballwith a fully functioning kitchen inside. A lamp that forecasts the weather by dispensing a cloud made from liquid nitrogen. These are all real products developed by the team at Nordic Invention of Discovery and Invention a scandinavian skunkworks. “We wanted to create a platform where engineers and designers could experiment with new types of furniture,” explains Per Cromwell, the cofounder.

TNSID’s team (l-r): Kalle Rolleri, Tomas Mazetti, Linda AKA Karlsson, Per Cromwell and Karri Knuuttila. Lillebror the pug is on the “flying carpet”.

Cromwell is building TNSID into a product development centre. It will work with eight Nordic companies from this autumn and comprise scientists, engineers and "crazy people”. Projects include tiny mobile phones designed to worn be as piercings, air-powered motorcycles and, yes, flying carpets for pets. 

“The main objective of the lab is to experiment,” says Cromwell. “Like our flying carpet: we’ve created a prototype that can lift a cat or dog a few centimetres. We have a bit more research to do before we can lift a person, but we have a picture of a man watching CSI from a flying carpet that keeps us going.” So what’s next? “Music, film, fashion, cars, houses, perfumes, food, running shoes and politics,” says Cromwell. “The majority of everything is made to blend in, but we think the interesting part is the standing out.”