Welcome to Wednesday, aka Hump Day; the mid-point of, and often the toughest day in, most people's working week. Here at Project Ember, we often encounter our own particular phenomenon on a Wednesday – frustration.
Monday is a day full of firsts - meeting new people, acquiring new skills, discovering the week's project, devising initial ideas - it is full of hope and excitement, expectation and enthusiasm.
Tuesday is a day of action. It is a chance to work from yesterday's plans and use the tools, equipment and materials to create prototypes. It is productive and engaging.
And then comes Wednesday...
Wednesday is the day that ideas come together and ideas fall apart. It is the day when we realise that the first idea is rarely the best idea. It is the day for setbacks and failures and learning from mistakes. It is a day of iterations, adjustments, modifications, innovations. It doesn't always feel like progress. In fact, it can be incredibly frustrating. But it is one of the most important days of the project; for all those reasons.
It is a strange and interesting paradox - that frustration can be fun. But we can vouch for it; we see it and celebrate it every single day. To us, fun looks a lot like focus, challenge, teamwork and collaboration; resilience, perseverance, curiosity and grit. We see it in innovative new ideas and solutions, in greater knowledge and deeper understanding of a design problem, in a renewed determination to get it right and make it better and, ultimately, in a greater sense of achievement and satisfaction. But don't just take our word for it, see for yourselves...
As we continue to celebrate failures and frustrations and use them as an excellent opportunity for growth, we look forward to sharing the journey with you.
Oh, we almost forgot to mention the other thing we celebrate on Wednesdays...
WOLF SHIRT WEDNESDAY! We hope our campers will help us to continue this time-honoured tradition - keep your eyes peeled in future blog posts.