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A commonality seen amongst garage builders, craftsmen, and weekend wrenchers is often their desire to escape technology. Time spent in the shop is a counter balance to time spent in front of a screen. It's about the unfulfilled daily desire to assemble something with your hands, dial in a torque spec, rejuvenate an old mechanism, and breathe life back into something that has been neglected and long forgotten. Then one day you can ride your creation off into the desert sun on an adventure outside of WiFi hotspots, with your copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance firmly fixed to the back of your seat with some twine.
Well, that's not Toby Grubb and Justin Lewis, members of the digital creative agency Instrument located in Portland, Oregon. In their desire to get some grease between their fingers they took technology with them and let it drive their wrench turning venture.
The duo pulled their inspiration from "the industrial lines of Jonathan Ive's MacPro G5." In some cases, quite literally. After peeling back the skin of multiple Apple devices the team set aside a perforated aluminum panel, a set of ports, a power button, and a release lever. These pieces would become one of the very innovative features of the build...but not the most innovative...
In line with Apple's clean and simple brand language, Toby and Justin set out to free the front end of it's clutter, yet without stripping it of it's functionality. They designed and programmed the Instrument Mobile Dashboard App which combines a digital speedometer, tachometer, odometer, and a GPS tracking system into a clean and highly visible readout that's displayed on your iPhone. The USB charging port make's sure you stay powered while the headphone jack allows you to take phone calls, listen to your favorite TRON soundtracks, or chat with SIRI if you get lonely on your adventure into the future.
