Thoughts on Mistakes

I was lead to a blog post from 2009 that struck a cord in me. You can click above to read the entire thing, but I am going to paraphrase it here. Mark Love, the author, wrote about Risk and how there are two types of risk or mistakes one must endure: physical and mental. He wrote in the context of being an artist and craftsman, and I can't agree more. Some may use different words, perhaps emotional instead of mental for some.

Physical mistakes involve things that you have done yourself, such as bang your elbow on the door jam, broken a piece you are working on, or perhaps chipping a tool. We take these sorts of mistakes in stride. We know that is bound to happen sooner or later, and while maybe not totally prepared, we know what we have to do to over come it.

Mental mistakes are a little harder to pin down. It is that which we do to ourselves, that had we had the time to think about, we probably could have avoided. This would include such actions as cutting something too short, or reversing numbers in your head due to fatigue. These types of mistakes are harder for us to overcome, simple because we are the only ones at fault.

For me, it has always been the mistakes that I struggle with. Call it second guessing if you want, but I am sure I am not alone. When it comes to the types of art I create, it strikes even closer to home. A great piece and a mediocre piece are separated by a very thin line, with mental and physical mistakes precariously balanced on that line. It can teeter at any moment, towards any direction. When it does it always causes me to question myself because I know that at any moment "I’m only as good as the thing I’m about to do." The pieces that have come before only indicates how good I was, not how good I am, or where my potential might lead.

I've had a few good pieces wrought with my hands, some I am very proud of. When I start a new one, they are always on my mind, making me wonder if I'll surpass my previous achievements, or if I've already hit my stride and am now on the down slope? I don't ever know the answers until I complete a piece, and it is that personal challenge that keeps me going, full steam ahead, damn the mistakes.

Return of the SolidWorks Haiku!

I have written some haikus related to SolidWorks in the past, you can read them at: http://mysticmango.blogspot.com/2007/03/solidworks-haikus.html

Now it is 2010, and time for some new ones. I have a co-worker that is having emense trouble with his upgrade of SW2010, and this inspired the following:

Warm days of Winter
My new CAD burns me daily
Damn computer crash

The excitement builds
Install SolidWorks upgrade
Now I cannot work

Excitement of fall
upgrade is without peril
CAD offers no joy

CAD vixes me so
Chasing solutions in vain
Oh the joys of work

What is this "Design Intent" I keep hearing about?

Design Intent is not a buzz phrase like "ideation funnel" or "value streaming." It is a real term, with a real purpose. Ok, so those other buzz phrases are real too, but I'm just not talking about them at the moment.

Design intent could be better understood simply by reversing the order of the words. Does "intended design" make any more sense to you? Design intent comes into play when using parametric solid modeling programs, such as SolidWorks, ProENGINEER or Catia. As a refresher, "parametric" refers to a model that has features with a meaningful relationship to other model features or data. It is these meaningful relationships in the CAD world, these parametric relations, that make 3D modeling so powerful to us in the engineering realm.

Back in the days of 2D CAD (way back to the early 1990s), programs could not incorporate design intent into a model. It could display geometry of a design, but the model itself did not contain any information beyond the start and end points of a line, or the diameter of a circle to construct the model. In the mid and late 1990s 3D CAD powered onto the scene, allowing the model to become a virtual representation of a design. Associated data became contained within the confines of the model file, not simply the geometry required to construct the model. These other data covered information such as density, material, and the locations and sizes of features. This data could then be retrieved and modified at any time. When these modifications were changed, due to parametric relationships, the entire model would update itself. Of course as some of us have discovered, the extent and scope of these "automatically updating" features were highly dependent on design intent.

To build a robust parametric model (that is also easily editable), some design intent in the form of forethought on how the model is to be constructed must be given. After all, designs are conceived to fulfill a purpose. Take for example a strip of metal requiring a hole in the center of its width, much like a lawnmower blade. The design mandates a hole to be drilled in the center of the part's width and length. If you model the design by dimensioning a hole half the width from the edge, it is indeed "in the middle" of metal strip, but you have ignored the design intent of the hole. If the width changes in the future your hole would still be a half the original width away from the edge, and no longer in the middle of the part. Had you placed your hole in the mid-plane of the metal strip, no matter how the width changed the hole would remain in the middle of the strip. The design intent of the hole was maintained, and all it took was a little forethought during the modeling process.

This forethought does not stop at the part level however, as parametric relations are not confined internally to part models alone. Parametric relations can span between several models, along with their associated drawings, or be driven by the top level assembly itself. For this reason, design intent is very important and should be considered early on in the design phase of every project.

Cans of Corn & Energy

Everyone knows if you drop a can of corn on your bare foot from the kitchen counter, it can hurt. Everyone knows if that same can of corn was dropped off your roof it would hurt more. Drop it from a bridge? Yup, that equals more pain, bare-foot or not. This is a pretty simple example of turning potential energy into kinetic energy.

Everything has potential energy; air, water, cheese, Parcheesi dice. Some folks think of this potential energy as "free energy". Nothing is free, except maybe choking on your tongue while you are sitting on the porcelain throne ... even that situation takes money, so I'll stand by my words- nothing is free. It amazes me that there are people out in cyberland that try to prove to others everyday that some things can be free, such as free energy.

People try to use the concept of utilizing potential energy as a source of free energy. If I walk that can of corn to my roof or the top of a bridge, I had to exert some amount of energy to get there. That spent energy costs something- a hot dog, a slice of Spam, a few Skittles. The higher I try to get that can of corn, the more energy I'll require. The bigger the can of corn, the more potential energy, but again, the more energy I have to exert to get it higher to release that potential energy and turn it into kinetic energy.

potential energy + time = kinetic energy.

In the example above, the component of time takes the form of the can accelerating through the air as it plummets towards your foot. I'm not sure where I am going with all this, just be careful of things that sound too good to be true. If someone is claiming something amazing, you'll hear about on the news.

SolidWorks Haikus

Being in the manufacturing and engineering field, there are certain tools I use on a dailey basis. One of these tools I have used for the past 10yrs is SolidWorks. It is a 3D solid modeling program. Over the years it has grown more functional and feature rich. A downside to this it that is has also bloated in size and requires far more computer resources that it once did. This is to be expected.

All that aside, it is a great program and it has inspired me to write a few haikus.


Old files from the past
SolidWorks pushes forward
New does not save old

Poor display of lines
Flow forth from Autumn drivers
Update and rejoice

AutoDesk gray skies
Parametric is the way
SolidWorks sunshine