The first failure that I want to address is that I failed to create a 3D printed model of campus. Since I came up with the idea for DuckSpotting: Tracking Tracktown’s Flow of Students, I knew printing a 3D model was something I wanted to incorporate into my project. However, even after taking almost 350 pictures from all angles of the EMU, uploading those pictures to PhotoScan, and doing the photo alignment process, it only produced a patchy image that was not very recognizable. I think the lesson that this taught me was to be as efficient with time as possible. What I mean is that I only started the 3D printing process a week before my presentation date. That game me little to zero time for trial and error, and it turned out that it did not work out so I had no time to try for a better model. The BBC article “Viewpoint: How Creativity is Helped by Failure” mentions the phrase “practice makes perfect.” I believe that trial and error is necessary to any final product, and I did not give myself enough time for that stage. I thought it was really interesting how Ed Catmull, the president of the animation company Pixar stated that their movies suck when they are in their preliminary forms.
He stressed the importance of the iterative process, full of revisions and reworking past drafts. It is inspiring to hear that the president of one of the biggest animation companies in the world still experiences failures just like I do, and failure in a sense has gotten him to where he is today. It has gotten me to start thinking of failures as more of a rebuilding and revision process, than a negative one that has no answer.