Factories are just rooms

I went into my kid’s school a couple months back and spoke to the year group about manufacturing. Honestly it was the most rewarding speaking gig I’ve done all year. It was about the process of making my AI clock and I have a ton of pics from my factory visit to Shenzhen (mostly pics that I have only shared with Kickstarter backers). I talked about where ideas come from and the value of playing around, and how it’s neat to learn new techniques that you can combine together. I talked about prototyping and design – and was sure to use the words “prototyping” and “design”. I showed exploratory sketches and what CAD looks like. I handed round various iterations of e-paper screens, and electronics from breadboard to PCB, and various iterations of plastic parts. It’s interesting to see how a plastic enclosure comes apart, and to connect that to what an injection moulding machine is doing. (A lot of the kids are familiar with 3D printers, so I showed a timelapse of a 3D print – it would take…