Celebrated Things

A list of tools, materials, behaviors, mindsets and methodologies that are used in the EDS.

Celebrated Things

The list below has evolved over decades of working with undergraduate and graduate students on course projects, research, external collaborations and competitions. The EDS encourages ways of working that lead to successful outcomes, and the tools, materials, behaviors, mindsets and methodologies listed below can often help. We have a list of anti-tools, as well.

1. A 3-button mouse. BTW, we have written an article specifically about selecting a mouse.

2. A laptop capable of driving two external 4K displays at 60Hz. If your goal is to be productive above and beyond the norm, you simply cannot do serious work on a single laptop, iPad, or phone screen. Having three, always-visible and connected workspaces will transform the way you work. You might think that adding more displays will make you even more productive, but after some testing, the ideal configuration for most setups is a laptop with two external displays. If you travel often and expect to serious work on the road, consider carrying portable monitors. BTW, we have collected some thoughts on setting up displays, as well.

3. Embracing "Type 2" fun. Dr. Rainer Newberry, a geology professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, created the “Fun Scale” around 1985. A "Type 1 Fun" activity is fun while it happens as well as fun upon reflection. A "Type 2 Fun" activity is miserable while it happens but later seen as fun(ny) in hindsight. A "Type 3 Fun" activity is both miserable while it happens as well as when recalling it later. "Type 2 Fun" is the sweet spot in which exceptional work gets done because one is working harder on things that the rest of the world would prefer to transform into "Type 1 Fun". Don't confuse simple suffering for being on track for "Type 2 Fun", though; if it's your first time choosing this path, you may wish to seek some external validation that you are authentically engaging in "Type 2 Fun" and not "Type 3 Fun".

4. Speaking quietly in the EDS (Or any other place where people are using their brains)

5. Leaving places better than you found them

6. Wasting Time.

7. Digging Deep.

8. Cleaning up after yourself

9. Cleaning up after others

10. Strategic thinking

11. Aiming for exceptional outcomes. Incongruously, institutions and bureaucracies enjoy bragging about the "exceptional" outcomes produced by individuals who have, merely coincidentally, walked their corridors. The word "exceptional" implies atypical performance that deviated from the average. An institution, by definition, produces non-exceptional outcomes, on average, so any bureaucrat or policy-slinger should be charged with the mission to, in every interaction, ask themselves, "have I done everything in my power to defang the beast and remove roadblocks to allow exceptional work to happen?" The default posture of a bureaucrat should be one of seeking to make exceptions to policies for those with lofty ambitions. The EDS is a place where exceptional outcomes are expected as a default; we aim to leave all of the average and below average ideas on the cutting room floor. This means you have to have considered and given thought to a whole range of ideas, including those that you have previously loved and have had to painfully divorce yourself from.

12. Aiming for unprecedented outcomes. Institutions misunderstand the word "exceptional", and they similarly abuse the word "unprecedented". Being able to brag about "unprecedented" results is the dream for Press Release slingers. Once again, we need to deconstruct and see that "unprecedented" is built around the word "precedent", something that bureaucrats and policy-slingers often weaponize in one of their favorite phrases, "no. that goes against policy. we don't want to set a precedent." This is, once again, the curse of institutions; they want to claim a causal relationship when "unprecedented" outcomes are produced, but individuals at the core of institutions are typically obsessed with weaponizing policies to prevent the setting of new precedents. Bureaucrats and administrators would do well to ask themselves, "does my dealing with individuals unlock opportunities for people doing the REAL work of my organization to produce unprecedented results?"

13. Killing Your Darlings.

14. Spending time deeply understanding a problem before "picking up a shovel". Professors are terrible at this and pass along a busy-body flavor insanity to students through their anxiety. When starting a project, too many faculty members prefer early prototyping before thinking, an act that often anchors the scope of the outcome to the land of mediocrity. When building a cathedral, sure you need to dig a foundation, but a shovel isn't the first tool to grab; you need blueprints, stone masons, artists, and to understand a whole host of other details before jumping in with a shovel.

15. Understanding that being busy is not a virtue.

16. Understanding that movement is not the same as forward motion.

17. Using software as the place to iterate and evaluate designs

18. Planning for professional fabrication.

19. Understanding international supply chains.

20. Doing more than you were asked.

21. Climbing a landfill, not shimmying up a flagpole.

22. Being capable of understanding the difference between what will be well-received and poorly-received surprises.

23. Back-casting

24. Pre-mortems.

25. Independent thinking

26. Critical Thinking.

27. Assuming that all that is not forbidden is allowed. (As opposed to Assuming that "only what is permitted is allowed")

28. Having Empathy.

29. Having Comfort with ambiguity

30. Having Comfort with changing constraints

31. Parametric CAD.

32. Toolchains.

33. Open-Source. Use it. Produce it.

34. Simulation Tools.

35. Using the EDS as your office for doing serious work, not just homework

36. Not scheduling meetings

37. Quitting sports teams.

38. Quitting on-campus jobs.

39. Zero. Designing for zero.

40. Living on campus and not commuting to NYUAD.

41. Being additive

42. Under-consuming.

43. Understanding that university research is only good at certain things.

44. Understanding that university research is BAD at many things.

45. Understanding that university research is BAD at most things it thinks it's good at.

46. Understanding that university capstone projects cannot produce a "low-cost" anything. If a project is composed of off-the-shelf components, combined in predictable ways that would be obvious to an expert in the field, the creator of that project must provide extreme evidence how they've achieved "low-costs" relative to the costs of anyone else buying and assembling the same off-the-shelf components. The typical claim of "low-cost" is built on a naive notion of placing the material cost of a student prototype (almost always less than $1000 due to capstone budget policies) in direct comparison with the cost of a commercial "expensive" product (typically $5k+). This comparison ignores the cost of keeping the capstone team alive for the year that they worked on the project, the "free" consulting of their mentor, and the "free" access to fabrication tools on campus. The real company that produces the "expensive" product has to pay its employees, pay rent for office space, pay for product certification, provide support, offer warranties, engage in marketing, buy raw materials, absorb losses from overstocking and quality issues, and a thousand other things that, when tallied, must add up to expenditures less than the sum of the total product value sold. Industrial automation, high-volume disscounts, lean organizations, well-crafted supply chains, etc are the typical ways that humanity has opened up access to "low-cost" items. Unsurprisingly, bespoke, one-off products produced in a "cottage industry" are typically more expensive relative to their industrial counterparts because sales volume is low, and, at minimum, the sales revenues need to cover the cost of the raw materials and a single proprietor's living expenses. Low-cost is a consequence of needing to keep a company alive, not something that students should whimsically claim because they couldn't identify anyting unique about the project they're copying from industry. The more honest claim students should makes is that they are producing a cheap, kludged-together, and naive approximation of what already exists in the market; uniquely, though, their prototype has fewer features, works poorly, and falls apart very easily. #LowCost

47. Knowing the rate at which things happen compared with the rate you are observing them or manipulating them. Simple concepts from control theory are often ignored.

48. Understanding that extreme claims require extreme evidence.

49. Understanding that no one is obligated to believe you.

50. Understanding that access to cash is not the problem.

51. Understanding that professors are not good entrepreneurs.

52. Things are important, even if you can't get PR from them.

53. Things are important, even if they are not easily packaged into a FOMO-inducing social media post.

54. Doing things the right way, not just the way that makes it easiest for me.