Pete's Log: Taking Inventory
Entry #2628, (Meta, Smokepacking)(posted when I was 46 years old.)
I spent some time today going through my electronics supplies and found some cool things I'd forgotten about. Adam Savage in his book Every Tool's a Hammer talks about "visual cacophony" and his organizational philosophy of trying to keep things visible. He even rants "Let me tell you my philosophy about drawers: F*CK DRAWERS! Drawers are where stuff goes to die."
Now I am not a drawer hater, but as I look at some stuff in my drawers that I haven't seen in a couple years, I am reminded of decades ago when I complained for months about forgetting about CDs because they were in my CD binder before I finally moved them back to jewel cases. The CDs I could see were the CDs that got played.
On the other hand, clutter gets overwhelming fast and I don't have the luxury of a lot of space to keep things visible. I do have a pegboard I could utilize better.
But I wasn't looking through my drawers to reminisce, I was actually looking for parts for a project I'm trying to get off the ground. I have an idea I'm excited about (details to remain secret for now), but no clear plan of how to make it real. And so I need to take inventory not just of what I have, but also in a metaphorical sense. What are the skills I can use to make this idea real, and what are the resources available to me?
At a high level, there are three major components to this project: a case, some electronics, and decorations. For the case, I think my preference would be a custom wood box, but I don't think I have the woodworking skills to build what I want. The electronics are mostly manageable, but to truly accomplish what I'm looking for, I'm going to need to use stepper motors or servos, neither of which I've used before. And the decorations are actually the most daunting part to me, because I am imagining an entire storyboard worth of adornments, and I do not have the artistic skills to make them real. I could also use some CAD skills to bring the whole thing together.
So perhaps my skill inventory is actually an inventory of skills I'm lacking.
In terms of resources, the one I am most underutilizing is the maker space at our local library. They have a training course you need to attend before using the equipment, and it's been on my todo list for too long now to attend that training. So there are some concrete next steps I can be taking.
It's exciting to have so concrete an idea of something I want to make, but it is a bit daunting. But even just breaking it up into this vague description is helping me focus my mind. Pete's Log is its own form of visual cacophony, I guess.