The beginning of the year seems like a good time to look back and reflect on the previous year and even though I didn’t start the blog as a new year’s resolution, it coincidentally was near the beginning of the year. I had intended to post regularly so it almost feels like a failed resolution. I started off the blog with “Challenge Accepted” and I feel like I didn’t rise to the challenge, but it’s not all bad.
Hardware is hard, especially when doing it on a tight budget. With software if something fails to compile or crashes you can just try again with no cost, but with hardware there are real costs in failure and long waits between failures. It’s hard to get started when you feel like you can’t make any mistakes.
I’ve been listening to podcasts like The Amp Hour and Embedded.fm, hearing stories of other people with varying levels of success going through all the same struggles as me is strangely reassuring and my confidence level is definitely rising. Others are doing it with the same or less than what I started with, others are being successful starting with simple ideas and iterating, I can do this.
I’ve been accumulating equipment, parts, ideas, knowledge and confidence over the year, now it’s time to really get things going. I think I’ve got a good idea to start on and I’m confident I have everything I need to get something into some sort of small production.
I’ll try to post updates as I figure things out and as things start to take shape, I haven’t officially made any new resolutions for this year and I haven’t set any firm goals yet but I intend to try and treat this phase as a “lean startup” and try to keep moving and being agile.
We’ll see how it goes, wish me luck!