Hack Like Heck: DougW

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Name: dougw

Element14 Community member since: October 13, 2013

Plan to Hack Like Heck: Focus on ergonomical packaging design and workmanship fabrication skills.

Notable projects: Pi Chef Design Challenge: The Spice of Pi, The Konker Connection, Safe and Sound - Invisible Hazardous Environmental Factors Monitoring System

More about the contestant:

I know what it takes for a small 1 to 3 person team to crank out a new product every week since I did that for 3 years – in that space of time I designed over 150 PCBs (including schematics) – built them, tested them, packaged them, documented them, and delivered them, often with demo software. It was intense but very enjoyable and I had complete freedom to design solutions the way I wanted.

The logistics for me to get involved in the Hack Like Heck competition are pretty daunting as my life is fully entangled, but hey, its new, its a unique opportunity, its interesting, its creative, its a chance to pass on knowledge and I can't resist a challenge.

What’s your history in making and hacking?

That is a long story. I was always into designing and building stuff that worked, but growing up in the jungle there was no electronics. When I got to university I planned to be a mechanical engineer but I always knew I was going to be a hobbyist maker in addition to doing engineering as a career, so as soon as I figured out that building electronics would be cheaper than owning a basement machine shop, I switched to electrical. My first big school project was to design and build an autonomous robot to run down a path collecting dollar bills, return to the start area and dump the money. This was before the PC was invented, so the whole machine ran on discrete logic. That's when I started learning about Murphy's laws. I've been fortunate to hack my way through the explosion of new technologies that have come along since calculators replaced slide rules.

Why do you hack?

Hacking pushes more of my “like” buttons than just about any other activity.

I like learning new things – hacking really exercises this button.

I find creative activities to be much more mentally stimulating and enjoyable than other types of mental activity. - Hacking is an extremely creative activity.

I like designing “things” even more than creating aesthetically pleasing art, especially things that are useful or fun things that have a purpose. I just find it more mentally stimulating and enjoyable. - Hacking is all about things.

I like building things, especially things I've designed. There is a lot of satisfaction in exercising skill and craftsmanship in building something, especially if it is unique. - This is not my definition of hacking, but I think it fits the modern concept of hacking.

I really love making things work, especially unique things I've designed. For me, making something I've designed actually work is a real thrill, it is so much more satisfying and so much of a greater accomplishment than even a very enjoyable exercise in pure conceptual creativity.

Element14 is a particularly great place to hack as it provides several more layers great of rewards, including interacting with people I admire.

There are lots of other reasons at play as well, like hacking helps me stay current in my technical job; I learn things that help me in my job and in life, it impresses some people I want to impress; it helps keep my mind growing, agile, creative and engaged. Hacking is one of those things that has very few downsides, except maybe that almost nobody understands what you are doing. element14 members help with that.

What is your goal in hacking?

My goal in hacking is to have fun and raise my level of joy. All the above reasons for hacking are fun. When other aspects of life go sour, hacking remains fun. I have a technical job which can be fulfilling, but when I get bogged down in management issues and office politics, hacking is there to keep my creative juices flowing. Or when I am immersed in a long complex product development, usually involving setbacks and compromises, hacking provides much more frequent success, satisfaction and freedom. I have lots of fun in other areas like sports and leisure activities, but hacking provides a balance when some of them are not going so well, such as when I am injured.

Hacking stabilizes my life at a higher average level of enjoyment than where it would otherwise reside.

What are some of your favorite projects or projects you are most proud of?

My favorite projects are the ones where I or we did something that was thought to be impossible, or at least had never been done before. Like when we developed the first LED light that could be seen at one mile in the presence of bright sunlight, or when we developed the first MEMS device that would switch, powered only by light, or when we performed our first fingerprint recognition in under a second. These things are mundane now, but at the time, they weren't thought to be feasible. Some of my most enjoyable breakthroughs involved positively euphoric eureka moments, but are too technically convoluted to describe in a paragraph.

As far as element14 projects, I like lots of them – my Smarter Life project, my LED Lighting road test, my Sudden Impact project, and my Safe and Sound project were particularly enjoyable.

Want to know more? Ask in the comments below and tag dougw!