When it was first posted, we quickly realized that this site actually just sells companies’ free “samples” — the same things materials-folk get at trade shows — for huge markups.

They’ll sell you a “sample” of the transparent concrete for $134 — the “sample” is a miserable 4″x4″. Or a 17″ “sample” of translucent foil for $260. Or a tiny spool of conductive thread for $124.

My heart was in my mouth too when I first saw this, thinking how cool it would be to use this stuff. Then I hit reality.

http://www.inventables.com/technologies/shielding-fabric

to block RFID cards. :)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/8cdd/

Also, I find it amusing that there are things from classic 80′s and 90′s children’s toys like the talking tape (I’ve got several early 90′s action figures that use that) and this which most people will probably recognize as a common toy from the 90′s. If you don’t have one collecting dust in a box in your basement that you can reuse, I guess it’s probably easier to get one from here if you want something like this for your project.

After having looked at several more pages of their products, most of this stuff is not stuff “from the future” as the cool tools blurb puts it (inventables.com doesn’t make this claim themself) – it’s stuff that you’ve probably seen used in products or other applications before. They’re offering it to you in a “virgin” state so to speak, direct from the manufacturers, so you don’t have to buy some product you don’t want to get the materials. The high cost reflects the low volume they’re ordering from the manufacturers (the pet brush still doesn’t make sense, but the cost of the other products does).

I mean, for a lot of this stuff it would be very difficult to obtain it in usable quantities if you had to rip it off of other products. I think this store will be quite useful to a lot of people looking for exotic materials, but it should be promoted as what it is, not a “hardware store from the future”.

But in terms of sheer density of crazy materials – can’t been Inventables! It’s an excellent source of inspiration, but do shop around…

Also, I find it amusing that there are things from classic 80′s and 90′s children’s toys like the talking tape

I noticed that as well…the waterproof sand is sand grains that have been colored and coated in a fine layer of wax or silica. they used to sell this for kids as a product called “Magic Sand”, or “Mars Sand”…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_sand

They have a “Translucent White Concrete” sample available for 134 dollars. You can order the same sample (in 10 different colors) from LiTraCon for ~85 dollars. Furthermore, they intentionally strip all vendor details from the materials, in order to discourage searching other stores. The pricing on the bamboo is especially shameful.

Please put a disclaimer on this post.

Pet stores used to sell these for a dollar!

Some of this stuff is cool, but I think they made a mistake when deciding to carry that brush or when pricing it.