Thinking outside the box.

[Tin Falcon]

This phrase is familiar to most of us and as home machinist we often live it. In some ways it has become trite. there are various citations of origin.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/think-outside-the-box.html
But if one thinks and examines the words IMHO they do have real value and meaning. every new invention was a result of seeing things in a different light and trying something new. Even inventions that took the old technologies and put them to a new use.
I watched the movie " the man who saved Christmas" the other night. It is a Christmas dramatization of A.C. Gilbert the inventor of the erector set. According to the story the erector sets were not selling. It was not until they thought to take the sets out of the box assemble them and put them on display did they gain interest . Then initial production sold out.

I tend to look beyond the drawing when building my models. I have been known to take a single simple design and make three different engines from the same print. my son made a lego engine. that gets more attention than many of mine. and my see through engines allow folks to see inside the "box" and understand how the little engines operate.

There is something to be said for learning what is in the box in the first place.That is learn the basics learn the existing technology and practices.
Build a few models from existing prints before you design your own. then do not be afraid to mix and match parts and be creative.

My son now 23 was home schooled. I started setting up my home shop when he was about 8 so my shop has grown as he has. when he about 14 he took two of my wobbler plans and made his own. he also build a neat model line shaft machine shop out of Lego. the other day he made a comment to his Girl friend about not being taught what a box is growing up.Whatever he meant by that ??

Hope you enjoy the pondering
Tin

 

[ieezitin]

Tin
Strange you should mention this. It was only yesterday I was in my shop and I needed to drill six holes in a stub I made to accept a chuck to my RoTab. Leaving out most of the facts of the matter my dilemma was I needed three separate moves in the drilling process all involved moving the head because of height restrictions (I have a mill drill) That was a PIA. 4 hours later of intense study I overcome the problem and finished it in one sitting.

Problem solving requires intense energy from your brain, This means effort. Most people would just be frustrated and do something stupid and more than likely ruin the part or the machine, in times like this you need patients, time to think while keeping your eye on the goal. The rewards are outstanding when you apply the gift of logical thinking, everybody has it, it’s a form of self-education.

Thinking out of the box is the driver of all advances plus it gets even better when you brain storm in groups. It has taken me fifty years to get to this form of thinking and the mode of transport to this destination was by the results of stubbornness, arrogance, over-confidence, ignorance and no-patients.

Being a master at what you do runs in this order, Think, wait and think then let your hands speak.

Hopes this makes sense. Anthony.

 

[dman]

My son now 23 was home schooled. I started setting up my home shop when he was about 8 so my shop has grown as he has. when he about 14 he took two of my wobbler plans and made his own. he also build a neat model line shaft machine shop out of Lego. the other day he made a comment to his Girl friend about not being taught what a box is growing up.Whatever he meant by that ??

Hope you enjoy the pondering
Tin

Tin i don't think he meant what you may think he meant. i don't want to embarrass you too much so i don't want to post links but check the "urban dictionary" which is a collection of slang terms and definitions...

if you never heard it as slang there is a good chance that's what he was talking about being he was home schooled and wouldn't have been exposed to as much street slang as others his age.

 

[Tin Falcon]

My son meant he was taught to think outside the box.

I did look up the urban dictionary definitions for box. while my son is aware of the urban definition it was not his meaning . I let him read the post. He was thinking along the lines I expected. One should not spend too much time worrying about urban definition often made up and posted by people wanting to feel important, the definitions are often meaningless.
Maybe you should feel a little embarrassed.
Tin

 

[GWRdriver]

I know exactly what he meant by that, given the context, and it wasn't at all what dman suggests. What he said was simply that his teachers gave him the encouragement and freedom to create solutions which weren't colored, restrained, or hobbled by convention, tradition, unimaginative thinking, or insecurity of the teacher (ie The Box).. I think it should be taken by the teachers as a great compliment.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Tin, I have to agree with you about "Thinking outside the box". I have worked as a design engineer since 1965, and I've designed thousands of machines over the years. Pretty well all of them were an adaptation of something that already existed. My machines have always been succesful, and I have recieved great accolades for my "inventiveness".---To which I always think "Huh---I only changed a couple of parts on something that existed in similar form before!!" In my entire career, I have only actually "invented" 2 or 3 totally "new" things.---And even they were machines using existing principals that were simply combined in a way that no-one else had thought of before. I tell people that most complex machines evolved. Evolved in the way that at one point they were a simple machine, perhaps drawn by a horse or driven by water mill or steam. Then someone looked at the design and thought of a way to change one or two parts to make it faster/cheaper/easier to manufacture, etc. And this kept happening over and over again down thru the years. True, "Out of the box" thinking is a rare commodity.---Brian

 

[Tin Falcon]

Harry and Brian : very well put indeed.
Tin

 

[Tin Falcon]

Years ago I had an acquaintance, actually a friend of my wife's from years past. The guy was an administration type. An US Army Command Sergeant Major. He was not the mechanical type. his hobbies were Photography and assembling plastic military models. his son was about 8 at the time son my son was 7.
My friends son Justin had Lego sets and treated them like plastic models. take out of the package assemble the kit per instructions and place on a shelf. Get a new kit repeat. My son would build as per instructions look at it dissemble and create something different with multiple kits. Justin freaked the first time my son and he were playing as my son began taking apart one of his models to build something different out of it.
Things were worked out but different ways of thinking on the same thing.
Tin

 

[dman]

My son meant he was taught to think outside the box.

I did look up the urban dictionary definitions for box. while my son is aware of the urban definition it was not his meaning . I let him read the post. He was thinking along the lines I expected. One should not spend too much time worrying about urban definition often made up and posted by people wanting to feel important, the definitions are often meaningless.
Maybe you should feel a little embarrassed.
Tin

i apologize i may have under estimated your son. i often over speculate things. being still in my 20's my self i am surrounded by people that still think they are teenagers. but it's not limited to my generation, i have a co-worker in his 40's that still thinks he's in college. i personally dont speak like that but do communicate with numerous people that do. when i hear certain things the way they are taken depends on the context of the conversation. since i wasn't there for the conversation i speculated and honestly got a bit of a laugh out of the hypothetical scenario that things were mis-understood. which wouldn't be too different from conversations between my parents and their friends when they misunderstand slang terms (which happens quite often).

next time i'll keep the speculation to myself. either way i got a laugh..

 

[Tin Falcon]

Apology accepted. my son got a good face palm out of it. Tin