Thinking Outside the Box: Rethinking the Useless Box Design
At what point should you go back to the drawing board and rethink your solution?
It's a question bound to come up at some point in every engineering project; no matter how much work you do up-front to plan for potential design problems, something is bound to go wrong in the implementation, that's just the nature of converting theory into practice.
We know this all too well from the Useless Box project; what was supposed to be a simple, 1-2 month project, has now creeped up upon 8 months with a whole host of problems. It's actually a bit funny, I specifically recall Tyler and I formulating our plans for the first project right after the formation of TauPau Engineering in December of 2022, "Let's do something really simple as a first project, just to get our feet wet." Ha.
There's a lot to learn from this experience, though, and we definitely haven't given up. So let's take this opportunity to analyze what we did wrong, what we should do differently next time, officially retire version 1.0 of the Useless Box, and introduce the next iteration.
Design Limitations
The most exciting phase of any project is the design phase: it's when the ideas are novel, problems have yet to arise, and the bulk of the creative effort is expended. Our brains are hardwired to prefer novel experiences, and we build up a tolerance to stimuli over time, so as a project progresses through to the implementation phase, it's likely that motivation has fallen and the project can become frustrating to manage. It's really important to push through this phase, though, as it's the reason so many hobbyist projects remain unfinished and abandoned.
This is exactly what happened with the Useless Box: the design was completed, components mounted onto the PCB, actuators mounted and ready. I sat down at my work area, wired everything up, and.... uh oh. The DuPont connectors are loose with poor connection, the arm servo mountpoint detaches itself with the torque applied from flicking the switch, the lid servo is almost impossible to access, the signal from the switch triggered every time I even touched the lid.
It's frustrating, and it's really easy to give up at that point. Did we react properly to these issues? Absolutely not. Servo mountpoint detaches? Affix with globs of hot glue. Bad connections? Force the pins in. We just wanted it to work but we failed take a second, step back, and reevaluate.
Back to the Drawing Board
Tyler and I discussed potential options, but we decided that we want to be known for following through with initial design specifications, and for our devices to meet them with as close to 100% performance as we can manage. It's transformed itself into a new overall philosophy we want integrated into the fabric of TauPau Engineering: knowing when to go back to the drawing board.
Now, what exactly does that entail and how does it change our design process? Well, we want to focus a lot more on the functionality of individual components, significantly dividing our testing efforts into smaller, more manageable chunks. For example, testing the lid and arm actuators individually, then doing integration tests at later stages of the project. And these methods will of course be transferred to other ongoing and future projects.
It is also important to recognize when significant design changes need to be made, and when to retire an iteration for a new one. Nobody ever gets it on the first try, and that's perfectly okay.
Goodbye 1.0, Hello 2.0
With all of that in mind, we are officially retiring version 1.0 of the Useless Box. Was it a complete failure? No, here's a video of it kind of working as intended:
But, ultimately, we are not happy with it. Again, we want to strive for a quality implementation, and this does not meet that standard.
Some new changes to look forward to in 2.0 include adding proper servo mounts, making access easier, reimagining the lid attachment system, and much more! We're still in the early phases of the redesign and there are a lot of improvements to be made in addition to being in the implementation phase of the Maize-Made Arcade, but stay on the lookout for more to come of the Useless Box.