Related to MAKE 05, MakeShift

MakeShift 05: Analysis, Commentary, and Winners

by William Lidwell
July 07, 2006

Introduction

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 a 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.

It is interesting to note Woody’s unique method of evaluation. Before he would evaluate any of the responses, he felt like he had to submit himself to the challenge and solve his own problem. He even set up an electrolysis apparatus in his lab so he could get empirical versus theoretical measures of power consumption and 0/H production. Then, he used his solution and data as reference points to evaluate the entries. Woody’s Solution is included here for your review.

Thanks to the MAKE readers who took up Woody’s challenge—-and sorry for the delay in getting the winners selected. He has been busy, busy, busy!

Winners

Winners receive Make T-shirts, to celebrate and show off their unique brand of genius, and the ultimate MakeShift Master tool—-the SWISSMEMORY USB Victorinox 256MB—-equally useful for hiking and hacking. Honorable mentions get fame and recognition for their excellent contributions. In exchange, we at MAKE expect great things. Go forth and solve the world's problems!

The winners of the MakeShift 05 challenge are:

• MakeShift Master – Plausible: Scott Baker
• MakeShift Master – Creative: Cameron Stoker
• The “Nigel Holmes” Honorable Mention: C.T. Nak
• The “Emile Gagnan“ Honorable Mention: Erik Brown

Congratulations to the MakeShift Masters and the Honorable Mentions (applause … accolades … bowing). All did a great job of going head-to-head with Woody Norris, coming up with innovative solutions, and having a great time doing it. I encourage all readers to study these winning entries and share this link with your friends. Until the next MakeShift challenge, happy making!

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