Psychology of creativity

[menace]

I thought I would share this with you guys for the simple reason that alot of the stuff we do involves thinking outside of the box to come up with a solution to our problems.  be it a new a yoke, steering wheel, spinner or sideart we have to use common items to create uncommon arcade equipment.  

One potential stopper to this is a process referred to as functional fixedness.  This means that you are unable to see an object for anything other than its original purpose.  In other words a pencil will always be a pencil to some, while to others it could be an axle, a column, a bridge etc.

I first learned of the term for this in university and am now very aware of how many other uses things have other than their original intent.  As GiJoe used to say "knowing is half the battle"  .Once you are aware of this you can train yourself to see things not as they are, but as they could be.

There's your deep thought for the day

[HaRuMaN]

"Think outside the box."

[abrannan]

My thought processes tend to be similar-ish.  Usually, I'll picture out what I need, then I'll find a way to make that out of other available materials.  

Example:  I need standoffs to mount my motherboard to my cab (before I saw ultimarc's nice standoofs).

Solution: use small (1/4") lengths of plastic tubing around a screw to create a standoff that has the added benefit of giving a little shock absorbtion as well.  Total cost: less than $.50 for enough standoffs to mount the motherboard, drive cage, and encoder, three times over.

[menace]

I just realized I used that damnable "think outside the box" expression    I blame large corporations and their buzzword management slogans for brain washing me--now I'm going to have to flush my brain with beer to kill those persistent brain cells!