This product caught my eye because it reminds me a lot of ID school, or rather, it's something a couple of folks in my class could've used.

Lemme explain--when visiting the dorm rooms of ID or some architecture students, inevitably you'd see someone working on a project in their room rather than the studio, and if it was a model made from wood, blue foam or plaster there was dust every-freaking-where. (Another thing I remember--if it was an ID student and you asked what the model was, you'd get a simple answer, i.e. "It's a mock-up for a hairdryer" or "Gonna be a bike frame;" if you asked an architecture student you'd get a ten-minute explanation of the concept involving lots of italicized German words.) To prevent this when I myself had to work on a project involving sheetrock in my old apartment, I spent a few hours stringing up a floor-to-ceiling tarp to make a sort of dustproof box I could work in. It worked okay but it was a real pain in the ass to tape up.

That's where this product comes in. Called Zipwall, it's essentially a series of telescoping rods with pads at the top, meant to help one quickly erect a floor-to-ceiling dust barrier using plastic tarps. Peep the video:

Of course, even if this was available to us back at school, no student I know would've had the $275 to pony up for the basic kit; but I'm writing about it here because this thing is practically begging for a DIY jury-rig, which any self-respecting ID student oughta be able to hook up. (And maybe some of you architecture guys too, although you'd probably tell us about it for ten minutes first....)