Show Your Work – Especially When It’s Wrong

I was the type that hated showing my work in math class. Who cares how I got to the answer, it’s correct isn’t it? Math always came easily to me so I’d often combine two or three steps in my head. Being told to show my work felt like an arbitrary and meaningless requirement, or maybe an accusation that I was cheating.

That’s not how I see things today. In my last post, The PicoFox Saga, I showed my process. Dumb ideas, wrong turns, and outright failures; if I left anything out it was for brevity. I did that while trying to market the PicoFox as a product. (I still am – you should buy one.)

Why show the messy process, my own shortcomings, and the blemishes of the product? Because that’s far more useful. The final answer doesn’t show you how to avoid my mistakes (and it’s not nearly as interesting to read).

In my current projects I’m trying to take more pictures, record more video, and keep better notes. Those of you that have seen me work, or tried to read my notes will realize how much of a change that is for me. Here’s a sample from the FoxSniffer project:

That was supposed to be a molded urethane button panel with raised text (sitting on top of the actual switches). Obviously I made mistakes but sharing this image with folks that have more experience helped me identify those mistakes. My mix ratios were off, I didn’t fill the mold completely, I didn’t apply release agent or work it into the surface well enough, and I smeared my white mixture into the cavities that were supposed to be black.

A second attempt is curing and an improved mold design is printing as I write this.

We often say that we stand on the shoulders of giants but that’s hyperbole. We build on the work of thousands of ordinary people who came before us. Each of them learned from those who came before them and added a little bit to the pool of human knowledge. Each of them made mistakes and the best among them documented those mistakes for us.

You don’t have to be a giant, you don’t have to be doing something revolutionary. Just do something and show your work so we can learn from each other.

73, AI6YM