From the way he describes it in his book, Brenden Dawes must look like he’s ready to go on a camping trip any time he leaves his home. That’s because he keeps everything anything he might need to be able to stop and create a design on the spot, including things like a computer, a camera, web cam, and cords to connect all these things together, among other things. He says you have to be prepared to design something at all times; be prepared to expand on an idea the moment it hits you. I can definitely agree with that sentiment. There are times when you feel a rush of inspiration or a perfect epiphany and you know that you have to stop and write it down right then and there. If you don’t, you’ll lose it and it may never come back. Dawes suggests we take it a step further and be ready to implement the idea anytime and anywhere.
Dawes also bemoans the overuse of digital technology to describe who we are. He thinks we should surround ourselves with physical objects; that if you walk into someone’s house you should be able to know what kind of person they are by what they keep in their house. Digital information is too concise, centralized, and hidden. And with only a few mouse clicks it can all be gone forever. In this sense he also believes that having an undo button is too convenient that removes all risk from a project. This has especially true for us recently as we are about to build our touch table and since we have decided to build it out of a more expensive material, Corian, each attempt will cost us several hundred dollars. Unfortunately, there is no “ctrl-Z” in the word of carpentry.
We talked at length about the strengths and weaknesses of being able to instantly undo, step by step, any progress someone might make. On the one hand, being able to undo a typo or a slip of the hand can save hours of work. On the other hand, making a mistake can be a valuable lesson and even warn you that you may have made a more fundamental error in your project. With the undo button, there exists the possibility that you can repeatedly engineer your way around a more fundamental problem without realizing that you may need to go back and question your previous decisions.
Finally, Dawes has a very insightful and relevant quote for us:
Creativity is not about playing safe, and it never should be. It should scare the hell out of you at times. It should put you in uncomfortable places that challenge you at every step.
This project has challenged all of us in a lot of ways. None of us have ever built a table before. None of us have ever programmed or designed applications for touch screens. I’ve personally never worked in a group this large before. We’re all in unfamiliar territory here and it has been confusing, frustrating, maybe even a little scary. But it’s also very exciting.
