Forbidden Things

A list of tools, materials, behaviors and methodologies not used in the EDS.

Forbidden Things

The list below has evolved over many years of work with undergraduate students on course projects, research, and competitions. The EDS encourages ways of working that should not require any of these things.

1. Duct Tape / Duck Tape
2. Hot Glue
3. Nails
4. Super Glue
5. Design Thinking
6. Constructive Solid Geometry
7. On-campus manufacturing
8. Closed-source, expensive software
9. Breadboards
10. USB Sticks
11. Meaningless Proofs-of-concepts
12. Valuing "correct" answers over "good" answers
13. Leaving dirty dishes in the sink
14. Having Loud Conversations
15. Using the phrase "I don't know how to..."
16. Waiting to take a course before learning something
17. Using the title "professor"
18. Sprinting to be a unicorn with an obvious idea
19. Tool Training Sessions / SOPs
20. Getting paid to work in the EDS
21. "Borrowing" tools
22. Blaming tools for your bad choices
23. Being busy for the sake of being busy
24. Mistaking a weekend project for a serious project just because you've let it baloon into a monster waste of time
25. Virtual Reality, blockchain, crypto, metaverse, NFT, etc.
26. Chasing trends you've read about in the news.