Getting Human Hands Back Into Digital Design

Hugh Pickens writes "Using computers to model the physical world has become increasingly common as products as diverse as cars and planes, pharmaceuticals and cellphones are almost entirely conceived, specified, and designed on a computer screen. Typically, only when these creations are nearly ready for mass manufacturing are prototypes made. But the NYTimes is running an interesting essay highlighting a little-noticed movement in the world of professional design and engineering: a renewed appreciation for manual labor, or innovating with the aid of human hands. 'A lot of people get lost in the world of computer simulation,' says Bill Burnett, executive director of the product design program at Stanford. 'You can't simulate everything.' Fifty years ago, tinkering with gadgets was routine for people drawn to engineering and invention, and making refinements with your own hands means 'you have to be extremely self-critical,' says Richard Sennett, whose book The Craftsman examines the importance of skilled manual labor. Even in highly abstract fields, like the design of next-generation electronic circuits, some people believe that hands-on experiences can enhance creativity. 'You need your hands to verify experimentally a technology that doesn't exist,' says Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab."

Comments

Simple Reason

[maz2331]

Modeling doesn't actually model everything, and an unknown factor can easily arise. It's easy to design a product, but hard to actually design one that works the first time around flawlessly.

Craftsmen are still needed in meat-space.

Hand Generated Work is Necessary in All Fields

[notseamus]

It's true that in the world of building design as well that designing solely with computer allows you to overlook flaws with a design, and that a physical model is still the best way to test design. It's also true that you can't sketch an idea in AutoCad, and that the beginnings of a design in any field should be sketched/modelled. It's almost as if when something is conceived on computer it's automatically granted legitimacy.

Re:Hand Generated Work is Necessary in All Fields

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that in the world of building design as well that designing solely with computer allows you to overlook flaws with a design, and that a physical model is still the best way to test design.

It's also true that you can't sketch an idea in AutoCad, and that the beginnings of a design in any field should be sketched/modelled. It's almost as if when something is conceived on computer it's automatically granted legitimacy.

I'm sorry but you remind me of some of the older teachers i had when studying architecture, they always repeated the same without having a clue of what they were talking about.

First of all: AutoCad equals a computer as much as a protractor equals hand drawing. Sure, you can't sketch a design using a protractor and a right angle ruler. This debate between computer/hand drawing, hand modeling is pretty useless. Fundamentally the limitations of a computer are 'input' and 'output' (since the computer per se can handle data much better than paper). With a keyboard, mouse, digital stylus and 3d controllers, you can not only emulate paper and hand modeling but surpass it by a long way and try different approaches to designing, like scripting or using parametric relationships between components.

  The fact is that there is a lot of software for designing and does a much better job that hand drawing/modeling. For example, try manually designing an environmentally friendly building. You've got software that displays real time the shadow range the building will cast, thermal analysis, lighting analysis, acoustic response, much more, and all in the initial stages of design, so you can try different layouts quickly, and see what works better.

The only advantage of a physical model is that if you don't have good spatial perception, you'll understand the space better than looking at a flat screen since you are looking at it in stereo, but you can always buy some stereo goggles, Boeing use them when designing.

Americans don't do that. Third world people do.

[Animats]

Americans can't afford to waste their time doing things with their hands. That's what low wage countries are for. Americans have to concentrate on the profitable things, like banking, hedge funds, and real estate speculation. You can't get rich with machine shop skills. Or even with the skills to set up an production line. You don't get any respect for that.

A few years ago, I ran a DARPA Grand Challenge team. We had some bright young people with an interest in robotics and the ability to make complex hardware work. Where are they now? One is running a hedge fund in Santa Fe. One went to Bermuda to work for an offshore financial operation. One went to a search engine company. One headed a group developing software inside the iPhone. They're all making lots of money, but they're not doing robotics. They can't afford to.

Yes, it's sad, Yes, it's leading to the decline of the United States. But if you're young and have college loans to pay off, what can you do?

Digital environments

[pjt33]

A pedant could argue that if you're using your fingers it's already digital.

Isaac Asimov

[Chicken_Kickers]

If I'm not mistaken, Isaac Asimov wrote in Foundation's Edge that the reason why humans have developed a technological society is because we have hands. Dolphins and whales have sizeable brains but they lack hands. He even goes as far to say that humans 'thinks' with their hands, in that the hands are manifestations of intelligence.

You are kidding right?

[PotatoHead]

What you do, is build stuff and fuck the rest of them.

It's that simple.

Perhaps you can't do it on the job --that's the case with me. You can however, do what you want to on your time and the skills you build will provide value for you later on.

There is absolutely no place on this earth where the simple equation for wealth, which is innovation applied to labor over time, does not apply.

We are being told it does not apply here, that we are a consumer economy and that the world would crash if we quit consuming shit.

Don't believe one word of it.

We have the trade deficits today, the economic trouble we do today, for one reason and one only:

We don't carry our weight as Americans. Until we fix that, we will slowly be owned by the rest of the world perfectly willing to carry theirs.