Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

It seems Scott Adams insights sometimes reach beyond his disturbingly accurate satire. I have written before about my iterative approach to designing the things I make. such as my attempts at furniture and more recently enclosures for various projects.

In the workshop today I had a selection of freshly laser cut.completed cases for several single board computers out on the desk. I was asked by a new member of the space how I was able to produce these with no failures?

I was slightly taken aback at the question and had to explain that the designs I was happily running off on the laser cutter are all the result of mistakes, lots of them. The person I was talking to was surprised when I revealed that I was not simply generating fully formed working designs first time.

We chatted for a while and it became apparent that they had been holding themselves back from actually making something because they were afraid the result would be wrong. I went to my box and retrieved the failures from my most recent case design for a Raspberry Pi model B to put alongside the successful end product to try and encourage them.

I explained that my process was fairly iterative, sure I attempted to get it right first time by reusing existing working solutions as a basis but that when the cost of iterating is relatively small it is sometimes worthwhile to just accept the failures.

For example in this latest enclosure:

• my first attempt (in the semi opaque plastic) resulted in a correct top and bottom but the height was a couple of mm short and the audio connector cutout was too small
• second attempt was in clear acrylic and omitting the top and bottom. I stuffed the laser cutter setup and the resulting cutouts would not actually fit together properly.
• third attempt went together ok but my connector cutouts were 0.5mm high so the board did not sit properly, this case would have been usable but I like to publish refined designs so I fixed all the small issues.
• Fourth version is pretty much correct and I have tried all three different Raspberry Pi model B boards (mine and the spaces) and they all fit so I am confident I have a design I can now use anytime I want a case for this SBC.

Generally I do not need this many iterations and get it right second time, however experience caused me to use offcuts and scrap material for the initial versions expecting to have issues. The point is that I was willing to make the iterations and not see them as failures.

The person I was talking to could not get past the possibility of having a pile of scrap material, it was wasteful in their view and my expectation to fail was unfathomable. They left with somewhat of a bad view of me and my approach.

I pondered this turn of events for a time and they did have a point in that I have a collection of thirty or so failures from all my various designs most of which is unusable. I then realised I have produced over fifty copies of those designs not just for myself but for other people and published them for anyone else to replicate, so on balance I think I am doing ok on wastage.

The stronger argument  for me personally is that I have made something. I love making things, be that software, electronics or physical designs. It may not always be the best solution but I usually end up with something that works.

That makespace member may not like my approach but in the final reckoning, I have made something, their idea is still just an idea. So Scott I may not be an artist but I am at least creative and that is halfway there.