Fab by Neil Gershenfeld

Author:Neil Gershenfeld
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2011-02-02T10:00:00+00:00

Serious work

The USPS operates on such a large scale that in its acquisition and operations budget, there’s a dangerous gap between funding an exploratory paper study and committing to a large-scale deployment. It’s not possible to build a football-field-sized mail-sorting facility as a prototype to evaluate and optimize the design, so there’s a leap of faith to go from a design to actually building the facility. Unless, of course, the football field can fit on a tabletop. Ken started working with Bakhtiar Mikhak and Tim Gorton at MIT to make LEGO-scale models of these big installations, which looked like toys but operated according to the rules of their real counterparts.

He was hooked. As he progressed, with some trepidation we began planning a visit to Washington, DC, to present the project to USPS management. Ken worried that the project might appear to be pretty frivolous when he was seen playing with toys.

We trooped down to Washington, arrived at the executive conference room, and set up his system. The management team then filed in, looking suitably serious. Eyebrows raised when they saw what looked more like a playroom. But as Kenny explained what he was doing, and then did a demonstration, their eyes widened. Managers who spent their days on the receiving end of thick reports asked whether even they could use a tabletop prototyping system to try out what-if scenarios themselves instead of paying high-priced consultants to do the analyses.

The importance of Ken’s demonstration went far beyond the particular mail-handling application he had chosen. Just as spreadsheets became a killer application for PCs because they allowed managers to make models of their financial flows, the computing bricks allowed the USPS managers to model physical flows of materials and information. Business executives as well as kids like hands-on interfaces, immediate feedback on their actions, and the ability to work together in groups to solve problems. There’s very little difference in the technology for serious work and serious play.

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