Making Things and Iteration

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I'd been thinking of creating a curriculum to teach little kids to make stuff on the web. Over the course of a few emails Robin from Snarkmarket sent me a link to his essay from New Liberal Arts (which I must admit I own but have not read yet). Anyway, I posted this quote over at Tumblr and liked it so much that I felt like I had to post it here as well. (Ah the trials and tribulations of having multiple writing outlets.) Anyway ...

Making things is a circle. You start the arc with an idea about the world: an observation or hunch. Then you sprint around the track, getting to a prototype--a breadboard, a rough draft, a run-through--as fast as you can. Your goal isn't to finish the thing. It's to expose it, no matter how rough or ragged, to the real world. You do that, and you learn: Which of your ideas were right? Which were wrong? What surprised you? What did other people think? Then you plow those findings back into an improved prototype. Around the circle again. Run!