William Lidwell

William is an artist, author, and entrepreneur. For fun, he can be found practicing martial arts, playing ping pong, or working on esoteric problems over pizza and beer with friends. For work, he splits his time between writing, consulting, and working on bizarre design projects at the Stuff Creators Design Studio. William is author of the book Universal Principles of Design

MAKE: Online Extras

MakeShift 05: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners

In 1960, Woody Norris read a contest announcement in a magazine that changed his life and set him on the path of being a world-class inventor. The announcement challenged readers to submit a plausible but fictional account of a supposed new invention to be published as an April Fool’s joke. Woody took up the challenge. Here is the interesting part: during the process of trying to come up with a product that was both plausible but a bit “out there,” he came up with what would ultimately be his first successful invention. The rest is history.

Coming full circle, Woody is now the one throwing down the gauntlet, challenging you to prove your makeshift mettle by staying alive for 48 hours in bank vault with limited oxygen. Over 100 of you answered the call, and Woody and I had to break open the engineering and chemistry texts to evaluate a good number of the submissions. In the end, Woody selected two winners and two honorable mentions. To say that selecting two winners from the pool of entries was difficult would be to understate matters--it was flat-out hard.

by William Lidwell; July 07, 2006

MakeShift 05: Cameron Stoker's Most Creative Winning Entry
Cameron Stoker's entry was awarded the MakeShift Master Creative award for his solution to MakeShift 05.
by William Lidwell; July 07, 2006

MakeShift 05: Scott Baker's Most Plausible Winning Entry
Scott Baker's entry won the MakeShift Master Plausible award for his solution to MakeShift 05.
by William Lidwell; July 07, 2006

MakeShift 05: C.T. Nak's "Nigel Holmes" Honorable Mention
C.T. Nak won the “Nigel Holmes” Honorable Mention award for his solution to MakeShift 05.
by William Lidwell; July 07, 2006

MakeShift 05: Erik Brown's "Emile Gagnan" Honorable Mention
Erik Brown won the "Emile Gagnan" Honorable Mention award for his solution to MakeShift 05.
by William Lidwell; July 07, 2006

MakeShift 04: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners
Few people know that part of the hiring process at Dean Kamen's research and development firm, DEKA, is a sort of real-time MakeShift challenge: applicants are brought into a large conference room where Kamen and a dozen of his top engineers rapid fire seemingly unsolvable problems at the aspiring makers in order to observe and evaluate their problem-solving prowess. It is trial by problem solving, and the faint of brain need not apply. It is in this same spirit that Dean's team offered the MakeShift problem for Make 04: a rural setting in Mexico, summer drought conditions, and a family in need of a water irrigation solution ASAP.
by William Lidwell; March 16, 2006

MakeShift 04: Matthew Sparks' Most Plausible Winning Entry

by William Lidwell; March 16, 2006

MakeShift 04: Mark Trageser's Most Creative Winning Entry
Mark Trageser's entry won for "Most Creative" in the Makeshift column in volume 04.
by William Lidwell; March 16, 2006

MakeShift 04: Vinnie Forgione's "Zeno of Elea" Honorable Mention

by William Lidwell; March 16, 2006

MakeShift 04: Bobby Joe Snyder's "Hans Christian Andersen" Honorable Mention

by William Lidwell; March 16, 2006

More from Woody Norris
William Lidwell interviewed the award winning inventor, Woody Norris, for MAKE 05. In this exclusive web extra, the conversation with Norris continues. Learn Norris' views on inspiring creativity, selling yourself along with your inventions, learning when to quit, and why inventors shouldn't be afraid someone will steal their idea.
by William Lidwell; February 01, 2006

MakeShift 03: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners
In many respects, this was the most difficult MakeShift to date. No prior art to consider. No books to read. As with most MakeShift-type problems, the variables affecting the solution were typically complex and fuzzy in nature. The best one can do with such problems is strive to understand them as much as possible and then employ strategies like redundancy, factors of safety, and weak links in your design to offset the risks of all the things you don't know. Here is an overview of the winners of the MakeShift 03 challenge.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

MakeShift 03: Chris Rovers' Most Plausible Winning Entry
Creative use of Quikrete, duct tape, and chicken wire—it doesn't get much better. Here is Chris Rovers' MakeShift Master Most Plausible winning entry.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

MakeShift 03: Dan Rubenfield's Most Creative Winning Entry
Though chicken wire would be visible when viewed from rooftops or from ground level with binoculars, its impact could be minimized through careful application and creative use of the cape to hide it. A good chicken-wire wrap would have enormous tensile strength and should work well even if the fiberglass shell collapses. Short and simple.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

MakeShift 03: Andy Seubert's "Rebar of Seville" Honorable Mention
Rebar is the one material at a construction site that is both ample and cheap enough to "borrow" without getting into too much trouble. Here is Andy Seubert's "Rebar of Seville" Honorable Mention.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

MakeShift 03: Vinnie Forgione's "Chikofsky & Cross" Honorable Mention
Vinnie's design makes fine use of common construction site materials to create a sturdy structure with plenty of strength and redundancy. Here is Vinnie Forgione's "Chikofsky & Cross" Honorable Mention.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

MakeShift 03: Bobby Joe Snyder's "Factor of Safety" Honorable Mention
Use of the lifting strap is simple, and securing the cow to the crane cable pretty much guarantees that it isn't going anywhere. Here is Bobby Joe Snyder's "Factor of Safety" Honorable Mention.
by William Lidwell; November 01, 2005

More from Dean Kamen
William Lidwell interviewed übermaker, technology visionary, and science evangelist Dean Kamen for MAKE 04. In this exclusive web extra, the conversation with Kamen continues. Learn Kamen's views on wasting time, creativity, Stirling engines, and his advice to Makers.
by William Lidwell; October 13, 2005

MakeShift 02: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners
Tragically, the MakeShift 02 challenge is all too plausible: the United Nations estimates that approximately 1.1 billion people in the world are forced to drink from unsafe water sources. That is what this MakeShift challenge is about: applying creativity to solve an important global problem, and educating others as to how it can be done. Thanks to all the MAKE readers who took on this very difficult and important challenge. Here's an analysis of several proposed solutions, and the winning entries for Makeshift 02.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 02: Adam Thornton's "Most Plausible" Winning Entry
Adam Thornton's distillation proposal for this challenge wins the prize for "Most Plausible" solution in Makeshift 02.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 02: Jesse Crossen's "Most Creative" Winning Entry
Able to identify and leverage the natural filters surrounding the village, Jesse Crossen's solution bypassed the time and complexity of purifying the water and solved the problem straight away.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 02: Vinnie Forgione's "Schmutzdecke" Honorable Mention
Vinnie Forgione suggested a straightforward sand filter with a more feasible way of making activated charcoal in a two-day time period.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 02: "A.A.B. Bussy" Honorable Mention by M. Cowell, N. Cain, B. Park, and B. Carroll
This group effort by Mac Cowell, Nick Cain, Barratt Park, and Brandon Carroll includes dissolving iron in the mix as an interesting way to deal with the arsenic.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 02: Mark Kissler's "Eichhorina Crassipes" Honorable Mention
Mark Kissler's entry showed great analysis, approach, design, and presentation. The addition of the water hyacinth virtually eliminates the need for activated charcoal, which makes this approach robust.
by William Lidwell; August 08, 2005

MakeShift 01: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners
The first MakeShift gauntlet was thrown down to take the measure of MAKE readers — an intractable conundrum to separate the intellectual and creative wheat from the chaff: a dead car battery in the middle of nowhere; an eight-hour time limit before deadly weather sets in; nothing but your wits, camping gear, and leftover snacks to solve the problem. The result? MAKE readers answered the challenge with audacity and vigor!
by William Lidwell; May 13, 2005

MakeShift 01: Jim Gasbarro's "Most Creative" Winning Entry
Frictional losses in Jim Gasbarro's assembly (wheel to pulley) will almost certainly require more than an hour of spinning, but that's a quibble. His analysis is dead on, and his approach is the soundest of the alternator bunch. Definitely a guy you want in the car when your battery dies in the middle of nowhere. Congratulations Jim!
by William Lidwell; May 13, 2005

MakeShift 01: Sean Cahill's "Alessandro Volta" Honorable Mention
I am skeptical that a battery could be made to work given the time and circumstances. This skepticism wouldn't apply if Sean Cahill were in the SUV, however, as I am convinced that he is Volta reincarnated. An excellent submission and brilliant analysis! If anyone could make it work, I think he could. Congratulations Sean!
by William Lidwell; May 13, 2005

MakeShift 01: Melanie DuPont's "No Stone Left Unturned" Honorable Mention
So I thought I had a pretty good sense of what attention to detail meant until I read Melanie DuPont's entry; no risk of problem-solving tunnel vision with her around! Her battery probably couldn't generate the C/V to get the car going in 8 hours, but no worries--Melanie is clearly ready for any and all contingencies.
by William Lidwell; May 13, 2005

MakeShift 01: Phil Salkie's "Rube Goldberg" Honorable Mention
Phil Salkie is a bit nutty. The bow-drill alternator crank? Impractical. Hanging your partner over a cliff as a counterweight? Disturbed. Despite these eccentricities, his analysis is as brilliant as it is entertaining. Congratulations Phil!
by William Lidwell; May 13, 2005

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