I like to see the innovations that come from people who tinker with repairing things. Here’s one great example that I’m particularly happy to cite: My old friend Greg Knowles has recently launched his new kite repair business, Comox Kite Repair. Greg is a master at repairing plastics and fabrics, as I’ve witnessed from his years of windsurfing sail and board repair, and he has developed some great techniques for fixing torn kites and kite bladders. Go Greg! Kiteboarders should take note of his site http://comoxkiterepair.ca!
Kite Bladder repair by Greg Knowles
The plastics stuff all started with my first full-time engineering job at GM in Oshawa. I was the “finishing engineer” for the Chevrolet Lumina singal lamps ( everything around the car except the headlamps = front side-markers, turn & signals, rear lamps and back-up lamp ). Working at GM was great with the financial resources ( then – 1987-1990 ) to use robotics and other state-of-the-art equipment, but terrible becasue of the tension between salaried and unionized hourly people.
More recently, it was Dave leading a tinkering effort to fabricate by thermal welding a signal flag we designed to mount on ocean kayaks. MEC sold a bunch, wonder if any are still on kayaks somewhere. We had a lot of fun back in our UBC days ( early 2000′s ), before kids for me, before software development for Dave.
It is interesting how experience from previous work can be recombined in new applications.
Comment by Greg Knowles — March 23, 2012 @ 11:27 am
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