I have a membership at a
group workshop/hacker space known as a Tech Shop, which features 5000 sq/ft of
workshop space with nearly every machine needed for manufacturing available.
These machines include Mig/Tig welders, CNC mills, powder coaters, grinders,
pipe benders and even a water jet that can cut through steel with a high power
water stream. Additionally, we have vacuum formers, laser cutters, a machine
press, 3D scanners and printers and even a full computer lab with Autodesk
software to help render your creations in a 3D environment.
You would think with all these machines available,
that any project that gets started should easily reach fruition, with money and
materials being the only limiting factor. However, surprisingly enough there is
a very high amount of projects that get started but are never finished. These
are not done by amateur’s either, but rather professionals who are well versed
in the area of expertise in which their projects are based and have the
financial means to finance the project.
So what happens?
On the surface, it’s very easy to get caught up in
the atmosphere of the whole thing, and would be inventors immediately run out
and start buying equipment and tools with only an inkling of an idea of what
they want to build, or if it’s even viable to create such a project. They just
want to build something and they just start the process with a hope that it will
somehow start putting itself together after a few initial steps.
For example, most projects that I see get started
and fail spectacularly are mostly revisions to existing products with either a
solar panel added or an electric drive system replacing a gas motor. Most of
these fail to reach fruition because mid-way through the project the inventor
realizes that aside from fulfilling the ever rampant “green agenda” that seems
prevalent in the Bay Area, adding a solar panel or electrical drive system to an
existing product serves no other purpose other than decreasing the reliability
of the product while increasing the manufacturing and purchasing costs
associated with it.
It seems that if people took a step back and
understood the implications of what they were trying to put together before they
actually stepped into it, then a lot of heart ache could have been saved.
Another problem that I see is miss application or
complete disregard of any type of design systems metric or planning. Another
example that I saw when I joined was a college student who was attempting to
assemble, from scratch, a one-seater electric car. He had a pretty good show
going on with close to 3500 dollars of raw materials laid out on the shop floor.
This included aluminum beams, brand new wheels and tires, suspension components
sourced from ATV’s, and other associated products like a seat and a steering
wheel.
However, as good and impressive as it looked it
quickly appeared that aside from having the credit to source the materials,
there was actually no plan to build the vehicle. Every day he would be at his
parts, trying to piece together these raw materials into a vehicle that would
one day be flinging him down the road at near highway speeds. I offered to help
him one time, and I asked him where his notes were. He had no notes. What was
his plan? He had no plan other than to seemingly make it up as he went along.
Additionally, he had no experience with working on or building cars so he had no
practical wrenching experience, therefore he was making very seemingly
elementary mistakes. It seems strange that he would take on a project of such
magnitude without having at least an iota of practical experience in the
automotive field itself.
Lastly, another problem that I see is the failure
to incorporate teamwork into the process itself. Many people for whichever
reasons they see decide to one man band the projects on their own accord. They
take on the entire project with the idea of tackling the aspects that they don’t
understand and learning as they go along. This usually results in a very
strained timetable as they haphazardly build the project up, and usually end up
having to incorporate a new person on an accelerated timetable to reverse
engineer their project or correct previous mistakes that were made.
When
putting together a project, even one on a very small scale a newfound
appreciation can be gained for the ability to take a project from concept to
prototype. You develop a respect for projects that are conducted on a grand
scale and the sheer amount of moving parts that must be synchronized to come
together at the proper times to form a final product.
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