Failure and its inventions

Kid Carpet’s new show, Epic Fail, explores children’s perceptions of failure, so I’ve been researching into failure, failed and useless inventions and the impact they have. Amy Judge - Jumped Up KickStart Apprentice

How seriously do you take failure?

Thoughts to take away

What do you define as a useless invention?

Why care about what other people think about you and what you do?

What will you dare to teach yourself?

Simone Giertz

Simone Giertz is an Inventor and YouTuber that built a business from a niche that she enjoys and has fun making things that are useless. Although many may consider her career a waste of time due to the fact that’s she is not building anything useful, she has stuck to it. One of the most well-known inventions of failure is Simone's wake up machine, which went viral in 2015. When she first became interested in building and creating robotics her mindset was “instead of building (inventions) trying to succeed I was going to try and build things that would fail.” Doing this helped her grow successful because it replaced the pressure from performance anxiety and expectations with enthusiasm. She channelled that extra enthusiasm back into her work and grow her following to over two and a half million subscribers on YouTube.

Dominic Wilcox

Dominic Wilcox is a great inventor and sculptor that likes to reinvent the normal, by not all the of his inventions have a purpose. Some are helpful, but in a bad way. Like his headset that switches the sides of your head that you hear live sounds in. The most fascinating thing about Dominic is his creative process, he believes that at the heart of creativity is playfulness and a carefree attitude. He wants to build and create as much as possible in his lifetime. To get over a creative block he sets himself a speed-creating challenge, which involve creating and making different designs every day for a month. This forced him into making quick decisions and thinking instinctively. He also is the founder of Little Inventors that works with children to bring their ideas to life and inspire them to become the creative thinkers of the future.

“The fear of failure and the usual time spent thinking through the potential pitfalls of a project will not be an option and I will need to react swiftly to my thoughts, observations and experimental outcomes discovered along the way. I am not focused solely on the final objects or images but on the creative journey I take. Complete failures are expected and embraced.” - Dominic Wilcox

Thoughts to take away

What have you always wanted to see created?

What would you create in a speed creating challenge?

Do you think there is a point to making these useless inventions?

Carol Dweck

Carol Dweck is an American Professor of psychology, who did a study with children involving the way that they were taught. The study itself was based around getting the grade “not yet” instead of failure, doing this allowed for a new mind set. By using the “not yet” method of teaching the children, they developed the belief that they had the chance to improve and develop, rather than thinking they were not good enough and had failed.

Thoughts to take away

What does this study reveal about your life?

How will you teach the children in your life?

“In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here’s a chance to grow.” - Carol Dweck

Other examples through out history

Overall throughout history people have always developed inventions to make one another laugh. An example of this is Chindogu, which is the practice of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that seem to be ideal solutions to specific problems that may cause more problems than they solve. It was created by a Japanese's artist Kenji Kawakami, he describes the inventions as “un-useless”. His aim with Chindgogu was to fill the spare pages at the back of the magazine, as well as giving his readers a chuckle. 18 months later at a different magazine, Dan Papia brought the art form to his English readers. Later in 1995 Dan started the International Chindogu Society after bringing Chindogu of the page.

Predating Chindogu there was a French catalogue that contained “not helpful” inventions, it was called Catalogue D’Objects and published in 1969. It included drawings of designs as well as a short description of the design. It featured designs such as an umbrella with a drainpipe and dustpan and brush shoes.

Thoughts to take away

What could you design using the Chindogu method?

Why do you think the Catalogue D’Objects was created ?

Are all these inventions failures to you?

The presence of these types of designs and inventions throughout history, shows that there is a real need for society to not be as serious and that everyone needs a laugh at some point in their week. Therefore I believe this is why they are still around today, making people laugh and inspiring more designers to create more useless inventions for everyone's entertainment and reduce the fear of failure.