So things move along and sometimes take an unexpected turn!

A conversation was started with the folks over at Steel Tek

If you don’t know them it’s worth going into most any Lowe’s

They have a full selection of speed fittings that make any DIY project much easier 

The convenience of being able to run down to the nearest Lowe’s and pick an odd fitting up makes things much more fluid!

They were excited to see the Hack A Day entry and offered to send some fittings our way in support of the competition

With a box full of fittings (a friend coming into the dining room seeing the box with fittings exclaimed “looks like Christmas came early) we got to work on a new frame! 

This iteration is being used to nail down the final cutting dimensions 

Often the process of “hacking something together” is closer to sculpture then that of engineering

You chip away at this problem and the next, having things evolve and take shape as you progress

But, designing something for production is a very different story

Once you recognize that 100, 1000 units might be built it is no longer a piece of sculpture but becomes an act of engineering!

The decisions you make are no longer about how will I make this particular piece to solve problem “X” but how will 100 of these be made, and is there a smarter solution that doesn’t need that particular piece at all!

So where some might look at the process and think “how do you have the patience” or “how boring it must be to keep having to redo this”

No! The simple fact of the matter is that this is the process, this is how things get built, this is how meaningful change comes, how you make an impact on people’s lives

It is a discipline, it is work!

But the truth of the matter is that it brings us such pleasure, every part of it, it is what we have always done and trust by God’s Mercy what we were made to be!