Whenever you start a new project, there’s always some question as to whether or not it’s even feasible. For Mach Dice, the main question was whether or not I could come up with a decent enough physics engine given the constraints of the device. For my Mach Banner experiment, the question was whether or not I could update a display fast and accurately enough to create a coherent message. Sadly, the answer was “no”.

But fortunately, I found that out pretty quickly. In college, one of my professors taught us this mantra: “fail early, fail often”. It has a specific computer science meaning but it’s generalizable. If you’re trying to do something that requires a bunch of other things to work, start with the things that are most likely not going to work. That way, you’re more likely to find out early and you won’t have to waste time.

What does that have to do with Project #2? Well, one of the questions I had was whether or not I could do a certain kind of graphical effect and it looks like I can. So now I’m one step closer to proving to myself that this is feasible. Now, it’s mostly a matter of getting all the parts to work and putting all the pieces together. Unfortunately, work is starting to get really busy. (These movies don’t just make themselves, you know…) Fortunately, I still have my weekends left. For now…

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