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I have been amassing stuff for a long time. My friends call me a hoarder, but I shrug it off. Every time I move I have boxes and boxes of stuff to bring with me

I have been amassing stuff for a long time. My friends call me a hoarder, but I shrug it off. Every time I move I have boxes and boxes of stuff to bring with me. It's a pain. But, I am getting ever so close to the day when I wake up in the morning with a good idea, and before I go to bed at night I have a functional prototype. Talk about momentum, if you can go from nothing to functional (for something somewhat complicated) in a single day. It's easy to do with software, all the parts are there, there are zero expenses to getting a prototype working, but oh so much harder with all the things you could need in the real world. There's nothing that puts out creative fire like waiting for parts. When you first think of something, your mind is most easily changed. I like thinking of thoughts as crystallizing idea space. The more you think about something, the more real that idea becomes. When you need to wait a week, and you have only your thoughts to throw at your project, you'll start to put the fire out. Your mind will be less able to change because it's creating a thought structure based on only your first ideas and how you will implement the parts that are on the way. Experience fuels the fire, thoughts put it out.

graeham 14y ago
I mostly agree with you, including the pains of moving my hoards of parts (or junk, as my friends call it). Ideas need time to ferment, but they spoil if they are left in the mind for too long without manifestation. This is exactly why I advocate early prototyping at the dollar store (or hardware or electronics stores). Often a lot of that stuff can be sourced quickly and locally, or something close to it. Let the hoard stay in someone else's place. Beyond that, McMaster-Carr, EBay, and Amazon have delivery times under a week to Canada, I expect its only a day or two to the USA. This is also why I advocate CAD prototyping. You don't need any parts around, but once you are happy with your design, it is quite quick to order or make parts, unless something particular is required.
- mercuryrising 14y ago
  I'm working on making a 3D printer to speed it up (and to force me to learn CAD). But most of the stuff I do is electronic, so if I don't have a specific part that a) I don't have, and b) the surplus store doesn't have, then I need to wait a while and pay $7 in shipping for a $0.35 part. If I had more money where the $7 convenience fee of storing the junk at someone else's house wasn't a big deal, I would totally keep it all there. It's kind of like Amazon Glacier, it takes a while to get it, and it's expensive, but you can put everything there. If it's on disk drives in your garage you can store a bunch, but it takes a little bit to find. If it's on SSD storage on your desk, it's the quickest to iterate, but then everything is right there.

graeham 14y ago

I mostly agree with you, including the pains of moving my hoards of parts (or junk, as my friends call it). Ideas need time to ferment, but they spoil if they are left in the mind for too long without manifestation. This is exactly why I advocate early prototyping at the dollar store (or hardware or electronics stores). Often a lot of that stuff can be sourced quickly and locally, or something close to it. Let the hoard stay in someone else's place. Beyond that, McMaster-Carr, EBay, and Amazon have delivery times under a week to Canada, I expect its only a day or two to the USA. This is also why I advocate CAD prototyping. You don't need any parts around, but once you are happy with your design, it is quite quick to order or make parts, unless something particular is required.

mercuryrising 14y ago
I'm working on making a 3D printer to speed it up (and to force me to learn CAD). But most of the stuff I do is electronic, so if I don't have a specific part that a) I don't have, and b) the surplus store doesn't have, then I need to wait a while and pay $7 in shipping for a $0.35 part. If I had more money where the $7 convenience fee of storing the junk at someone else's house wasn't a big deal, I would totally keep it all there. It's kind of like Amazon Glacier, it takes a while to get it, and it's expensive, but you can put everything there. If it's on disk drives in your garage you can store a bunch, but it takes a little bit to find. If it's on SSD storage on your desk, it's the quickest to iterate, but then everything is right there.