Building Open Source Hardware: DIY Manufacturing for Hackers and Makers

5. The Design Process: How to Get from Nothing to Something

Amanda Wozniak

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

—Arthur C. Clarke

The creative process can be frustratingly existential. You have an idea for something you want to produce and the concept of going from idea to object seems straightforward enough—yet, it’s never that simple. Every artist and maker knows the deep effort it takes to turn an ephemeral idea into that first functional prototype. In most cases, success comes only after several rounds of failure, backtracking, and reconsideration in a near–continuous cycle of elation and despair. But once you finally hold an object in your hands that does what ...