Industrial Basket Weaving

Flexure joystick for Xbox (with 3D printed compliant mechanisms)
Akaki Kuumeri

At lunch yesterday, my nephew was wondering what to do and I somewhat facetiously suggested industrial basket weaving. This popped into my head because the other day I was telling my daughter about a story I read some time ago about baskets. It goes something like this:

An enterprising guy from California is down in Mexico on vacation and he happens across a man making and selling wicker baskets in the local market. He asks the price and the man tells him 'one dollar', which he thinks is a deal so he buys the basket. When he returns home he tells some friends about this fabulous basket he bought for a dollar. His friends all agree it's a heck of a deal, so he goes back to Mexico to strike a deal with the basket maker. He tells the basket maker he would like to buy a thousand baskets, and wants to know how much he would charge. Based on his experience with mass production in the United States, he is expecting a price reduction. He is very surprised when the basket man tells him the price for such a large quantity would be ten dollars for each basket. When he inquires as to why the price would be so high, the basket man tells him that the overhead for his personal basket making operation is minimal, but if he were to attempt a big order he certainly would not be able to do it all himself, he would have to hire people and buy materials and rent a building for the people to work in, all of which are going to drive the price up. I do have one basket I can sell you for one dollar. Would you like to buy it?

Figuring out what to do when you are young can be very difficult. There is all kinds of work you can do, some work pays more, some of it is easy, some of it is boring. So you want to find something where the reward will be enough to keep your head above water and hopefully will be enough that you will eventually be able to afford a boat so you don't have to keep dog paddling to survive.

But that is only one aspect of the work-a-day world. You want something that will engage your brain, boredom is a killer, and only you can decide that. What one person finds boring might suit someone else admirably, and what another person finds fascinating you may find ridiculous. Then there is the working environment. If you are an agreeable person you don't want to be working with a bunch of toxic people, you are better off working with people you can get along with. But some people thrive on conflict, throw them into a pot of toxic people and they might really enjoy themselves. 

So it pays to know something about yourself, and you probably won't really know that until you've been out about for a few years. Try a few things, see how it goes.

Back to yesterday's lunch, in response to my remark, Dennis suggested flexures which brings us the video at the top.

Previous post about flexures.