This last Friday, I was communicating with GO! Cartoons to confirm and set up my upcoming Skype pitch session (I've talked about this here and here). Just as everything seemed good to go, I received yet another instruction.
"Please email us a PDF of your beatboard."
Shoot.
You see, I had chosen a rather large Moleskine-brand book into which to sketch my drawings, and I knew working with a traditional scanner would be tedious and difficult. Not only that, but I would need to walk all the way up to campus, which is such a long ways away (OK, only like a five minute walk, but whatever).
As I stared at the instruments lying around in my room, I suddenly had a brilliant idea. A wonderful idea.
Running around and borrowing some supplies from my supervisor, I made ... THIS. Behold, from three angles!
To explain what you're seeing, I opened the second drawer and the top closet in my dresser and placed my book inside the second drawer. Taking two of my books of ukulele music, I duct taped them together, as well as to the bottom of the drawer.Taking a clear plastic sleeve I use to carry important documents around, I taped that to the ukulele books and to the bottom of the closet. Then, I taped a plastic pencil case to a flashlight and then taped that contraption to a towel rack.
Boom.
I was fairly proud of this home-made scanner. However, after I tried to take some pictures from the plastic sleeve using my phone's camera, I quickly figured out that, while the quality wasn't terrible, it wasn't where I really wanted it to be.
Even though I never really used it, and even now is dissembled, I don't regret making this thing. Not only did it give me the opportunity to think laterally, it made me feel proud and just a bit clever for coming up with the idea. In a pinch or emergency, I could totally do something like this again, and either way, now I know the drawbacks and have learned from the experience.
When I think of the men who've created all these things that we enjoy, from smart phones to lightbulbs to frozen food, I can't help but feel they likely failed frequently. Imagine what life would be like if they'd given up after the first failure.
Be lateral today!
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