Design Philosophy

I was discussing design philosophy with an acquaintance this week. When designing electronics in particular, my style has always been: just do it. I find that many people want to have the perfect idea before they go. I have taken an intuition and 1. first proved the concept, then 2. refined it.  So I have first sought any result at all from my experiments, then pushed the boundaries. When I designed the battery-less wind-up torch / flashlight in 2000, I got just three seconds of light out of the first prototype.  This said to me ah, it will work. The design which is soon to be published in EPE Magazine (see the previous post) will provide half an hour's reading light off 10 seconds' wind.