Maker Spotlight: David Carlile

Name: David Carlile

Home: Kansas City, MO.

Makerspace: Hammerspace Workshop in Kansas City

Day Job: Interface Engineer

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What inspired you to become a maker?

My love of making and tinkering started when I was very young, watching my grandfather work in his woodshop making furniture and hope chests for our family. For as long as I can remember, the thought of transforming the materials of the world around me into objects with purpose that I can see and hold has always fascinated me. This fascination carried with me through high school and eventually college where I constantly found myself with a drive and passion to create, but nowhere to let that passion grow. Shortly after moving to Kansas City, I discovered my first makerspace, Hammerspace Community Workshop. There I found an amazing atmosphere of like-minded, ingenious people with knowledge and passion equal to my curiosity and aspirations, as well as all the tools to turn my dreams into reality.

What type of maker would you classify yourself as?

My geeky interests over the years lead me to discover a love of making custom spellbook themed dice boxes and gaming accessories, which has quickly grown into a potential future business venture. Through the encouragement and tool availability at my local makerspace, I have not only grown my skills and portfolio as a maker, but also my love of inspiration, my confidence as a person, and my community of friends, though to me they are family.

What project are you currently working on?

My current project is a portable storage case for roleplaying game accessories made in the style of the journal from the animated series “Gravity Falls”.

The process of making this custom storage case has been a fun learning experience full or trial, error, more trial, and success. One of the many great things about the makerspace environment is that there is always someone around to look at your project with a fresh pair of eyes and give you some helpful, time-saving suggestions that you may have never come up with on your own. It’s also a great extra boost of encouragement to finish what you’ve started when you have so many fellow makers who are as excited about your project as you are.

Any advice for people reading this?

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and to make them often. The most valuable things that we can make as makers isn’t our products, our projects, or our revenue. It’s our mistakes. Obviously, always plan your work as much as you can with what knowledge and experience you have, and ALWAYS proceed with those plans SAFELY. But mistakes WILL happen,  so listen to them and learn from them openly. Mistakes are the experiences that teach us and (in turn) they become the wisdom that we pass on to others. Mistakes are the truest currency of making. Two makers can pass money, tools, and objects back and forth all day long without ever growing as artists. It’s the sharing of their wisdom, their experiences, their mistakes that truly grows them as makers, artists, and as people.