Sunday, May 15, 2011

Learning




After repeated problems with the helmet-neck interface, I've found the culprit--a poor design decision of my own, rooted in impatience--and now have the problem in hand. It is very simple, and I find a repeated pattern in my building process"

1. research leads to understanding of a principle
2. I rush to apply the principle with a 'get it working' mentality
3. I get the system very close to working, but rushing has led to errors built 'deep' in the design
4. I have to strip down the entire 'build', and rebuild, having learned by working backwards from the full build to find the original problem

So -- good to know that, and be more proactive and intelligent with my design / build process.

In the photos above, I'm doing a gluing episode, inspecting a leak in the rear of the helmet mount, and looking over an array of 1/16th inch steel cables that are at the heart of the problem. With the problem sorted out, I discover that most of what I get at the hardware store turns out to be waste, as it is used in one iteration or another of the system. That's OK, the entire budget so far has been very low, say $20 a weekend, on average,and the knowledge and understanding I'm generating, of course, is priceless.

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