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Unoffice Hours (https://calendly.com/mwie/30min) Book a call (/home/2020/09/24/unoffice_hours) (What is this?) a.k.a. genmon (https://bsky.app/profile/genmon.org) Bluesky (https://x.com/genmon) X/Twitter (https://www.instagram.com/genmon/) Insta (https://mastodon.social/@genmon) Mastodon (https://www.linkedin.com/in/genmon/) LinkedIn Building the AI clock (https://poem.town) Check out Poem/1 Factories are just rooms 15.33, Friday 3 Jul 2026 (/home/2026/07/03/factories) Link to this post I went into my kid\u2019s school a couple months back and spoke to the year group about manufacturing. Honestly it was the most rewarding speaking gig I\u2019ve done all year. It was about the process of making my AI clock and I have a ton of pics from (/home/2025/07/18/shenzhen) my factory visit to Shenzhen (mostly pics that I have only shared with Kickstarter backers). I talked about where ideas come from and the value of playing around, and how it\u2019s neat to learn new techniques that you can combine together. I talked about prototyping and design \u2013 and was sure to use the words \u201cprototyping\u201d and \u201cdesign\u201d. I showed exploratory sketches and what CAD looks like. I handed round various iterations of e-paper screens, and electronics from breadboard to PCB, and various iterations of plastic parts. It\u2019s interesting to see how a plastic enclosure comes apart, and to connect that to what an injection moulding machine is doing. (A lot of the kids are familiar with 3D printers, so I showed a timelapse of a 3D print \u2013 it would take a year to print all my clocks! And then a real-time video of injection moulding, and how that would only take a day.) And then photos of factory floors, and here\u2019s the team, and assembly lines and what a page from an assembly procedure looks like, and packaging too. 7-year-olds have great questions. Like: how does it not break in the post? Well here\u2019s a vibration machine in action and that\u2019s how we test it. And, look, in this cardboard packaging, here\u2019s a cradle, and this was made by a packaging designer \u2013 you could be a packaging designer too if you want. Like: how does the button work? Well you\u2019re right I didn\u2019t pass round the separate button piece, good spot, it\u2019s small and I didn\u2019t want to lose it. So now let\u2019s talk about assembly and about industrial designers\u2026 I don\u2019t like those videos of factories that are supposed to inspire awe. You know the ones I mean: you see a thousand products a second whizzing by on 20 parallel belts. You come away saying wow. When they showed manufacturing on kids\u2019 TV when I was growing up, that was what they showed. \u201cAwe\u201d is the opposite of what I want to convey. Except for a very specific type of person, when you show something with the expectation that \u201cawe\u201d is the appropriate response, you are implicitly saying to your audience: you should step back here and appreciate this from a distance. Like looking at a great work of art. Gasp but do not place yourself in the picture. Whereas! I want to re-home manufacturing. I want these kids to become designers, engineers, inventors, factory owners, and all the rest. Makers of any kind; participants in the ongoing making of our world. So my message is: sure this is complicated but it\u2019s fine, we can do complicated. Factories are just rooms. The stuff around us isn\u2019t divine - these chairs we\u2019re sitting on, the TV at the front of the classroom, the pots for the plants - all this stuff was invented and figured out and made by people. p.s. you can be one of those people. So when I heard the class was learning about inventing, I offered to go in and show that scrappy dead ends are cool actually (it was amazing to speak with a class that already knows the word \u201cprototyping\u201d) and this is electronics and this is going from sketching to plastic and this is what it means to make a product and to sell it. I deeply feel this mission to normalise getting our hands dirty with the world \u2013 when they\u2019re 7 years old, while their brains are still establishing what\u2019s normal. (This is connected with what I was saying about (/home/2026/01/30/efficacy) training for collective efficacy .) And I\u2019m just someone\u2019s dad, you know? So if this guy can do it\u2026 If you have the opportunity to go into your local school and talk about making things too, please do. You will be rewarded with wonderful curiosity, engagement and questions from the kids. Hopefully one of them one day will look around them, think \u201csomeone should do something about that\u201d, remember back, and say - oh that someone can be ME. More posts tagged: (/home/tagged/that-ai-clock-and-so-on) that-ai-clock-and-so-on (15 posts) Auto-calculated kinda related posts: (/home/2025/06/05/upcoming) Two upcoming talks on AI (5 Jun 2025) (/home/2020/06/04/projectors) Experiments with projectors and video calls (4 Jun 2020) (/home/2023/07/18/work) Work update a.k.a. how I\u2019m keeping myself out of trouble rn (18 Jul 2023) (/home/2024/12/30/top-posts) My top posts in 2024 (30 Dec 2024) (/home/2024/01/23/clock) Ok it\u2019s happening, my AI clock is happening (23 Jan 2024) If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social media. (/home/2026/07/03/factories) Here\u2019s the link. Thanks, \u2014Matt. Most recent posts Factories are just rooms 3 Jul 2026 (This post) (/home/2026/06/27/filtered) Filtered for that which motivates form 27 Jun 2026 (/home/2026/06/19/signs) I am obsessed with these two ads 19 Jun 2026 (/home/2026/06/12/wet) Wet thoughts 12 Jun 2026 (/home/2026/06/05/splitbody) Self-driving legs to walk me to the office 5 Jun 2026 (/home/2026/05/30/fedex) How global logistics got me over my fear of personal agents 30 May 2026 (/home/2026/05/20/resident) Resident: vibe coding firmware (our new sandbox library for ESP32 devices) 20 May 2026 (/home/2026/05/15/filtered) Filtered for bad addresses and good emotions 15 May 2026 (/home/2026/05/08/mtv) I want my MTV 8 May 2026 (/home/2026/04/29/syndicating-vibes) We need RSS for sharing abundant vibe-coded apps 29 Apr 2026 (/home/2026/04/24/willows) The Wind in the Willows and reading out loud 24 Apr 2026 (/home/2026/04/21/courier) Courier: real-time messaging for ESP32 with batteries included (new library) 21 Apr 2026 Continue reading: (/home/2026) All in 2026 streak New posts for 327 consecutive weeks (see: (/home/2020/09/10/streak) blogging tips ) New? 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Copyright \u00a9 2026 Matt Webb. p.s. here\u2019s (/home/blogroll) my blogroll and the (/home/2024/10/28/colophon) colophon . 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I showed exploratory sketches and what CAD looks like.\nI handed round various iterations of e-paper screens, and electronics from breadboard to PCB, and various iterations of plastic parts.\nIt\u2019s interesting to see how a plastic enclosure comes apart, and to connect that to what an injection moulding machine is doing.\n(A lot of the kids are familiar with 3D printers, so I showed a timelapse of a 3D print \u2013 it would take a year to print all my clocks! And then a real-time video of injection moulding, and how that would only take a day.)\nAnd then photos of factory floors, and here\u2019s the team, and assembly lines and what a page from an assembly procedure looks like, and packaging too.\n\n7-year-olds have great questions.\nLike: how does it not break in the post?\nWell here\u2019s a vibration machine in action and that\u2019s how we test it.\nAnd, look, in this cardboard packaging, here\u2019s a cradle, and this was made by a packaging designer \u2013 you could be a packaging designer too if you want.\nLike: how does the button work?\nWell you\u2019re right I didn\u2019t pass round the separate button piece, good spot, it\u2019s small and I didn\u2019t want to lose it. So now let\u2019s talk about assembly and about industrial designers\u2026\n\nI don\u2019t like those videos of factories that are supposed to inspire awe.\nYou know the ones I mean: you see a thousand products a second whizzing by on 20 parallel belts. You come away saying wow. When they showed manufacturing on kids\u2019 TV when I was growing up, that was what they showed.\n\u201cAwe\u201d is the opposite of what I want to convey.\nExcept for a very specific type of person, when you show something with the expectation that \u201cawe\u201d is the appropriate response, you are implicitly saying to your audience: you should step back here and appreciate this from a distance. Like looking at a great work of art. Gasp but do not place yourself in the picture.\nWhereas!\nI want to re-home manufacturing. I want these kids to become designers, engineers, inventors, factory owners, and all the rest. Makers of any kind; participants in the ongoing making of our world.\nSo my message is: sure this is complicated but it\u2019s fine, we can do complicated.\nFactories are just rooms.\nThe stuff around us isn\u2019t divine - these chairs we\u2019re sitting on, the TV at the front of the classroom, the pots for the plants - all this stuff was invented and figured out and made by people.\np.s. you can be one of those people.\n\nSo when I heard the class was learning about inventing, I offered to go in and show that scrappy dead ends are cool actually (it was amazing to speak with a class that already knows the word \u201cprototyping\u201d) and this is electronics and this is going from sketching to plastic and this is what it means to make a product and to sell it.\nI deeply feel this mission to normalise getting our hands dirty with the world \u2013 when they\u2019re 7 years old, while their brains are still establishing what\u2019s normal.\n(This is connected with what I was saying about training for collective efficacy.)\nAnd I\u2019m just someone\u2019s dad, you know? So if this guy can do it\u2026\nIf you have the opportunity to go into your local school and talk about making things too, please do. 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