Share the dead ends too: a hands on argument for sharing your failures
Open hardware and open software run on shared knowledge, but we mostly share the things that worked. The dead ends and half-broken attempts stay private, even though they often save the next person the most time. I want to make the case for sharing those too. My example is a flashlight I tried to 3D print from filament that conducts electricity. The first version barely lit up, and I posted it anyway as a “limited success.” The second one worked. I will walk through both, with real measurements and a straight answer on what the filament is good and bad at. Cheap, printable, open hardware makes it low-risk to share the messy parts. And yes, I will bring flashlights to hand out.
Presenters
Trevor Johnson
Trevor Johnson is a builder and problem-solver whose résumé refuses to summarize: heavy-vehicle mechanic, wind-turbine technician, agricultural specialist, small business owner, and student of poetry. He builds open-source software and hardware under the Johnson Farms name, publishes open, reproducible research with the Idea Fields Institute, and documents failures along with the successes. He speaks enough French to be courteous and enough Spanish to get into trouble.