Various materials

hard drive: 3 7/8 x 5 7/8 x 9 13/16" (9.9 x 14.9 x 24.8 cm); radio: 4 11/16 x 11 3/8 x 3 1/8" (11.9 x 28.9 x 7.8 cm)

For his final project in the Design Interactions program, James Chambers concocted a group of products under the guise of the Attenborough Design Group (ADG), named for revered British naturalist David Attenborough. The ADG is made up of imaginary researchers who explore what would happen if electronic objects displayed animal behaviors in response to common problems. The Gesundheit Radio, for example, sneezes periodically through nostrils on its front to free itself of the dirt that may damage its electronic insides, and the Floppy Legs Portable Hard Drive can sense a spill—a tipped-over coffee cup on a desk, for example— and raise itself on four legs above the desk’s surface to avoid being ruined. These objects operate on instinct, programmed to act in the interest of self-preservation, essentially allowing them to survive longer than their competitors and bringing the language of natural selection into the realm of product design.