Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is changing lives. On December 3, a national day of giving, you can be a part of the change.

We talked with Lee Blaney, an assistant professor and the group’s advisor, and Michael Brown, a student engineer, about  an important trip they’ll be taking in January and how you can help.

Q: What is EWB planning on doing in January on your trip to Isongo?

Lee: The January implementation trip has one primary objective: to install a clean water system in Isongo, Kenya. Residents are currently collecting water from an unprotected spring. Our previous trip demonstrated that this shallow water is contaminated and represents a public health concern.

On the implementation trip, the team is planning to construct a borehole [a well to draw deeper water] and hand-pump system to provide clean water from deeper aquifers. Once the clean water supply is constructed, EWB-UMBC will help to form and train a village water committee on maintenance and operation issues. The goal is that after this trip, the community will be able to maintain this well.

In addition, EWB-UMBC wants to continue to engage the community in best water, sanitation and hygiene practices.  Ultimately, all three of these elements are required for a successful project.

Q: What do you need to accomplish your goal? How do the donations to your fundraising campaign help?

Lee: To successfully complete this project, EWB-UMBC requires funding to drill the borehole, purchase the raw materials for the hand-pump, and acquire tools necessary for maintenance and operation. In addition, donations will help pay for UMBC students to travel to Isongo to complete the project. Once the water supply is installed, the EWB-UMBC team will conduct water quality testing to ensure that this new water supply is safe for consumption. Your small gift can help benefit the lives of hundreds of people in Isongo for a lifetime.

Michael: The more money we can raise, the more students we can send [to Isongo], increasing the total impact that we can have on the community. One great thing about our fundraising page is that potential donors can see exactly where their money will go.

Q: What does the support from alumni and donors mean to you?

Lee: EWB-UMBC relies on gifts to fulfill our mission of implementing environmentally and economically sustainable engineering projects, while developing globally aware and internationally responsible students and engineers. We especially appreciate gifts from alumni because we believe that EWB-UMBC not only promotes projects in the developing world, but also transformative experiences for UMBC students. In EWB-UMBC, undergraduate students are empowered to tackle complex, real problems on the other side of the world.

Q: What does it feel like to know you’re helping people around the world?

Lee: One of the fundamental canons of engineering is “to hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.” In EWB-UMBC, students are empowered to use the knowledge that they gain in classes to benefit real people. Meeting these people and knowing that our work is helping to improve their lives is very powerful.

[UMBC student] Chris Mullen, who traveled to Isongo on last year’s assessment trip, expressed the impact of these experiences nicely: “I learned just as much in those ten days as I learned in the previous semester. It’s not just about the engineering application or the problem solving, it’s about the experience: getting to know people living in a foreign land that you won’t hear about on the news, good people who will make a bigger impact on my life than I could ever make on theirs.”

Michael: Helping communities in need is exactly why the students in this group give so much of their time and energy. Engineers Without Borders projects are great because the ultimate goal is to give the project over to the community. This creates a sense of empowerment within the community because they are ultimately the ones who are making it all happen.

Yes, I want to support EWB-UMBC and change lives!

To see more of what EWB-UMBC does, check out their Tumblr.

In case you’ve been living in a cave with no internet access for the past few years, you’re almost certainly familiar with Dribbble. But just in case you aren’t, it’s a place for designers to show off their designs, discover and explore the work of others, and even find more work.

Based in Salem, Massachusetts, Dribbble has gone from an enterprising side project to a small but profitable company. Designers and artists of all kinds use the site, including web designers, graphic designers, typographers, illustrators, logo designers, icon artists, and other creatives.

Beyond the Dribbble website, there are also Dribbble Meetups, as well as a blog, Instagram feed, Dribbble on Facebook and Twitter, and more.

Dribbble 101

Dribbble has terminology largely based around basketball. Here’s a quick primer:

New images are called shots. The first upload from a new user is called a debut. A collection of shots created by a Dribbble member is called a bucket.

If an image is voted up by enough members, it can make the Popular section.

If a designer wants to create a response or variation on another’s work, it’s called a rebound. Get enough rebounds, and your work can make the playoffs.

Images on Dribbble are limited in size (to 400×300 pixels). But, you can include attachments to your images that can be full-resolution, full-size versions of your design (as well as downloads of things like PSD files).

Designers and other creatives can upload up to 24 shots per month, which prevents spamming and makes designers be a bit more selective in what they upload.

Uploading work to the site requires an invite from an existing user. This has caused some controversy (but more on that later).

If you’re using Dribbble for inspiration, there are a few different ways to go about it. First, you can sign up for an account and follow designers and artists you like. This way, you’ll get a feed of their work whenever you log in.

You can also browse work on Dribbble, without needing to set up an account. You can browse by Suggestions, Popular, Everyone, Debuts, Playoffs, and Teams. There are browse options for Highlights, Buckets, Colors, Projects, and Tags, too. You can also search the site by keyword, for both shots and designers.

And of course if you’re looking to hire someone on Dribbble, you can browse designers based on a number of criteria, including who has the most followers, where they’re located, the skills they have, their availability, and much more.

A short history of Dribbble

Dribbble was started in 2009 by Dan Cedarholm and Rich Thornett. It launched publicly in early 2010, with much fanfare from the design community. In the early days, Dribbble was invite-only, which meant you had to track down an existing member and get them to give you one of their limited invites.

Not long after the site itself launched, Dribbble launched the Debuts feature. This section highlights the first shot from each new member, making it easier for them to be seen. It helped to alleviate some early complaints about well-known designers dominating the popular pages, squeezing out lesser-known creatives.

In 2011, Dribbble launched a job listing section, as part of its Backboard promotional section. These job ads linked to existing job pages off-site, making them an incredibly simple way for employers to find potential designers.

Most recently, Dribbble has started offering new team accounts. Teams make it possible for organizations and their designers to share work on Dribbble together. Work can be uploaded to both the individual designer’s profile and the Team’s profile. Existing profiles can be converted to Team profiles, just in case you already have a profile for your company.

The Dribbble “elitism” controversy

While you can join Dribbble and list yourself as a Prospect (yet another basketball term), you can’t upload work unless you’re invited to do so by an existing member. This is done as a way to control the rate of growth of the site, but some view it as a form of elitism.

Since Dribbble started out as a tiny, bootstrapped site, they’ve needed to control how quickly they scaled. Requiring an invite is a great way to do that.

Of course, that doesn’t stop some from feeling like the site was exclusionary. But the upside is that the majority of work found on the site is high quality, and the community is much more engaged than some other sites where anyone can join.

So how do I get an invite?

The easiest way to get an invite is to ask someone you know who’s already on Dribbble and see if they have any available. But let’s say you’ve already done that and you’ve come up short. There are a few other options.

First of all, you can search right on Dribbble. Users who have extra invites will sometimes post invite shots. All you need to do is find them before those invites are gone. Search for them right on the site, using keywords like “invite” or “dribbble invite” (make sure you’re searching “latest” and not “popular” so you don’t find old invites).

You also have the option to list yourself as a “Prospect” on the site, in hopes that someone with invites will send you one. While this is a longshot unless you’re already somewhat known, it doesn’t hurt to try it.

How to Find a Dribbble Invite offers a few more helpful suggestions, including some sites for showcasing your work when you’re looking for an invite.

Keys to a popular shot

There are a number of things you can do to improve the chances that your shot will become popular. While these methods are not foolproof (after all, design is largely a matter of taste beyond a certain point, and there’s no guarantee your particular design will appeal to enough Dribbble users to become popular, even if it is technically well-designed).

First of all, if your goal is to have a popular shot, then don’t released unfinished or unpolished work. You want to show off your best projects, in their most complete form. The image below is a good example of a polished, finished design that made the popular page.

Combining multiple finished screenshots into a single Dribbble shot can set your work apart.

Styled design captures seem to do best. That means a plain old flat screenshot probably isn’t going to cut it. If it’s a mobile design, take the time to transfer it to your iPhone/iPad/other mobile device before taking a screenshot. Using an image that’s at an angle, isn’t all in focus (highlighting key areas or design elements), or is otherwise composed creatively is a better way to draw attention to your work.

There’s nothing wrong with uploading wireframes to Dribbble if they’re as polished as the ones below. The angled view gives it a bit more visual interest.

Even just showing your screenshots at a slight angle can make them stand out more.

An animated GIF can really set your work apart.

Another key to creating popular shots is to get involved on the site. Take the time to comment on and become fans of the designs of others. Follow other designers, and interact. Dribbble is a community, and if you expect others to appreciate your work, you need to do some appreciating of your own.

Building up your follower numbers is also a key to getting more popular shots. There are a number of ways to do this, including the volume of work you post (the more often you appear on the debuts page, the more often you’re likely to be seen), promoting the work of others (who will sometimes do the same for you), and being associated with other popular designers.

Where to find more great Dribbble shots

While checking out debuts, popular shots, and other tools right on the Dribbble website can be a great way to find awesome shots, there are a ton of other sources for finding inspiration on Dribbble. Here are a handful of alternative sites for finding the great stuff on Dribbble.

Design Tickle

Design Tickle is a “Dribbble showcase magazine” that curates some great work from the site. They collect shots into various curated articles, generally based on a theme.

Dribbbleboard

Dribbbleboard offers up a simple, minimalist UI for browsing through popular shots, debuts, and shots from everyone.

Psddd

If you’re looking for PSD files on Dribbble, then check out Psddd. You can browse by date or by category, and find all sorts of great shots.

Jourrrnal

Jourrrnal shares interviews with great designers on Dribbble, for a slightly different way of finding inspiration shots.

Freebbble

Freebbble showcases freebies from Dribbble, as well as some premium files you can purchase.

Color Pickers

This one is a little bit different. You can’t actually browse Dribbble shots with Color Pickers, but you can browse color palettes used by shots for various colors. Just click the refresh button and you’ll be shown the color palettes of popular shots that use that color.

Fribbble

Fribbble is another showcase of free resources and downloads from Dribbble users.

Bbbrowser

Bbbrowser has one of hte simplest interfaces for browsing Dribbble out there, with just an ever-changing screen filled with popular shots.

InspiredShots

InspiredShots is an infinitely scrolling showcase of popular Dribbble shots.

Guifff

Guifff showcases animated gif Dribbble shots.

Why Dribbble?

Dribbble is not the only platform of its kind. There are numerous similar sites where designers can share their work with other creatives as well as the public at large. Some of these are very similar to Dribbble, while others take a somewhat different approach.

Probably the most visible of these Dribbble competitors is Behance, which is now owned by Adobe. The biggest difference between Behance and Dribbble is that anyone can create a Behance account and share their work, while Dribbble requires designers to be drafted before they can share. Arguably, this raises the quality level of the work found on Dribbble.

Another major Dribbble competitor is Forrst, owned and recently relaunched by Zurb. Like Dribbble, Forrst requires you to be recruited by an existing member before you can share (and show off) your design work. And while Dribbble focuses exclusively on visual design work, Forrst focuses on both design and development, allowing developers to share code. Forrst is much more focused on feedback than Dribbble, too.

Dribbble has advantages and disadvantages over its biggest competitors. But the great thing is that you don’t have to choose just one site on which to participate. You can have accounts and be active on Dribbble, Behance, and/or Forrst if you choose.

More Dribbble apps and resources

Beyond just browsing Dribbble in different ways, there are tons of other apps and resources out there that you may find useful. These range from resources for learning more about how to best utilize Dribbble to things like WordPress plugins for showing off your work from the site on your own blog or website.

Dribbble Player’s Handbook

If you’re going to join Dribbble, the first thing you should do is read the Player’s Handbook.

Dribbble Blog

The Dribbble Blog is another must-read for any Dribbble users.

Dribbble API

The Dribbble API is the basis of a lot of other apps that let you interact with Dribbble, and the place to start if you want to create your own app or interact with Dribbble data directly.

Hooops

Hooops is an iOS app for Dribbble with a flat design and attractive color palette. It offers pretty much all the functionality you’ll find on the Dribbble website. too.

Nibbble

Nibbble is a free Dribbble screensaver for OS X 10.8 or later (there’s an older legacy version that will work with older versions of OS X, too).

Who Drafted Who?

Ever wondered who recruited your favorite Dribbble users? Who Drafted Who? will tell you.

Jribbble

Jribbble is a jQuery plugin that will fetch shots from the Dribbble API, including comments, rebbbounds, and more.

Liiikes

Liiikes analyzes Dribbble statistics to find the best content.

Highlight Reel

Highlight Reel is a simple WP plugin that makes it easy for you to show off your latest Dribbble shots on your website or blog.

Dribbble WordPress Plugin

This Dribbble WP Plugin lets you include up to ten shots on your website, with a variety of options.

Draft.im

If you’re looking for a Dribbble invite (or have one to give away), then check out Draft.im.

What’s next for Dribbble?

Since Dribbble launched their Teams feature, it’s clear that they’re serious about attracting creative accounts of all sizes, from solo freelancers to large agencies. This is a great move, and one that will certainly draw even more attention to the site. Getting agencies on board, with multiple high-quality employees, will grow the site and (hopefully) increase engagement.

Of course, as the site grows and becomes even more prominent, it’s bound to receive even more criticism. We’ve already covered the elitism argument and the way that some creatives feel their limited access membership is exclusionary. But more recently, some designers and developers have criticized Dribbble for putting too much emphasis on form and ignoring function.

How will Dribbble address these criticisms in the future? I think the bigger question is, do they need to? With a user base as passionate and active as Dribbble has, they can afford to make their own path and pick and choose which criticisms they decide to respond to.

Besides, some designers are already jumping to Dribbble’s defense, showing just how involved and invested they are in the site and its future success. With a community like that, and widespread support from much of the design world, Dribbble is in a very strong position to move forward in whatever way they see fit.

More Dribbble coverage

Tons of blogs and news sites have covered Dribbble in the past, including both critiques and praise. Besides that, there are tutorials for getting more out of Dribbble, and other commentary. Here are some select pieces.

The Troub(bb)le with Dribbble

Are Dribbble Users Blurring the Line Between Art and Design?

Dribbble Is Not For Product Designers (but that’s okay)

Dribbble: 50 designers and illustrators you should follow

10 for 10: Pinterest and Dribbble

How I got myself into Dribbble, a success story

Deconstructing the Dribbble Dream

25 Workspaces of Designers from Dribbble

Interview with Dribbble’s co-founder Dan Cedarholm

How Dribbble became the most influential online platform for graphic designers

How Web Designers Can Successfully Use the Dribbble Network

Create a Portfolio Powered by Dribbble

How my Dribbble profile got me a job

Dear Dribbble, I quit

Has Dribbble gone flat?

Conclusion

Dribbble is a fantastic platform for getting your work out there if you can get an invite. While some designers have become disillusioned with the platform, plenty of others are still active and passionate about the site.

Take the time to do your research and see if Dribbble is right for you, and then get involved! Comment, like, engage, and otherwise make the most of it.

Do you use Dribbble to post work? Would you use it if you could get an invite? Let us know in the comments.

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Across America, you will find  a chorus of economists singing cautious songs of hope about the nation’s economy.

But in Detroit, you will get a sour note.

Once a symbol of vibrant industry and American prosperity, Detroit now resembles an urban ghost town in ruins.

The Motor City’s:

• Population has decreased by nearly 60% since 1950
• Violent crime rate is five times the national average
• Police department takes an hour to report to a crime scene
• Unemployment rate is higher than any U.S. city
• Land is 1/5 abandoned buildings

It’s not difficult to imagine why Detroit has often been referred to as “hell on earth.”

To make matters worse, the city’s 18 billion dollars in debt has forced it to file the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Judge Steven Rhodes is in the process of making the final decision that may determine the fate of the city. 

Regardless of the outcome, mayor-elect Mike Duggan thinks there is hope.

“I have a very clear vision of how Detroit will come out of this bankruptcy: stronger and better”

Is Mike Duggan wise in predicting a recovery for Detroit?

Is Detroit’s tragic downfall an indicator of the future of America?

While the devastated Pacific island nation of The Philippines struggles to recover from  hyper-Typhoon Haiyan…

A different kind of storm may be brewing in eastern Europe.

On November 11, representatives from 190 countries gathered to engage in Climate Change in Warsaw, Poland.

One of those delegates came with a special message. With the death toll still rising in his country,  Yeb Sano from the Philippines has pledged to go on hunger strike until a climate change deal is reached. He says…

“We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here”

For years, scientists have warned us about the potential side effects from global warming, including, the increased possibility of stronger storms. It increasing appears that we may be condemned to a world where storms like Typhoon Haiyan or Hurricane Katrina are the norm.

Earlier this year the Mauna Loa Observatory reported that CO2 emissions have risen above 400 ppm. This definitely isn’t a tipping point –but it’s a sign to numerous world governments that something has to be done.

It’s in this environment (no pun intended) that the Warsaw Summit will take place.

But, after multiple unsuccessful summits and failed treaties, do we really think the Warsaw Summit will be able to fix anything?

With strong defenders such as Mr. Sano, we at USDemocrazy would like to think so.

(Interested in the Warsaw Summit? They’ve got their own YouTube Channel here)

New York City has a new mayor. His name is Bill de Blasio.

Bill is white.

The rest of Bill’s family – his wife Chirlane, his son Dante, and his daughter Chiara – is not (or in the case of Bill’s children, not completely).

The de Blasios are black and white, and their picture represents a growing trend. The 2010 Census showed that interracial marriages now account for 1 in 10 of marriages in the U.S.

Bill de Blasio and Chirlane McCray met in 1991 while working for former mayor David Dinkin. Their relationship has always attracted controversy. Besides being interracial, McCray, a poet, had identified herself as a lesbian in a 1979 Essence article. The couple has been married for 19 years. McCray stands by her words.

 “At the time, it was an important statement to make because black women, especially at that time, we were like invisible in the gay movement…I think that there’s a spectrum, that people can fall anywhere along the spectrum of human sexuality”

It may only be in New York City’s that you would find a first family that represents diversity in race and sexual preference too.

“The family symbolizes everything we are, everything we believe in. By showing it to the world, it’s sort of, one, what you see is what you get, and, two, yeah, I think there are some positive messages.” 

Just like their dynamic home city, the de Blasio children embrace self expression. Chiara has gauges in her ears and piercings on her face. Dante has an afro. As the Washington Post pointed out, the family says it all with their hair.

Some even think Dante’s ‘fro might have won de Blasio the election. After he starred in a campaign video, Dante’s dad picked up some steam.

Politics aside, families like the de Blasios are expected to become more and more commonplace. Will the rest of America be as accepting as New York?  

There are many reasons that Chrome is so popular, but one of the biggest may be its superlative development tools. In today's article, Rob Gravelle takes a look at the Elements and Styles windows and getting a first-hand view as to how they help make Chrome's development tools the cat's pajamas!