I’m currently designing some pieces for a *legally distinct enough from* Rollerball board game. I need a tiny roller skater to hold onto the back of a motorcycle with one hand and clutch a ball with the other.
It sounds simple but the design has already failed twice.
My initial design used a ball-and-socket joint. I found the components in the connectors category on TinkerCAD. In in the print, the connection was too tight and it snapped when I tried to separate the pieces.
Failure.
But not wasted effort. I learned how unforgiving tiny mechanical parts can be and that my connection point needs to put a lot less stress on the print.
Version 2 connected with a peg in the skater’s hand and a hole on the back of the bike. The print was functional when we showed it to the 5th graders, but when the preschoolers played with them, not one peg survived. At this miniature scale, the pegs were too delicate. They worked, but they weren’t playable, and this print needs to survive actual hands if it’s going to be a game piece.
Another failure.
Now I’m printing Version 3.
The hands are now hoops, looping over a more robust peg on the back of the motorcycle.
It’s printing as I write this and I don’t know if it will work. But that’s okay! Whether it succeeds or fails, it moves me forward. It narrows the gap between what I imagine and what actually functions in the real world.
We love polished outcomes but we rarely talk about the the snapped joints, the fragile pegs, the redesign that comes to you as you’re starting to fall asleep.
The truth is: innovation is mostly revision.
Failure is not the opposite of progress. It is progress.
When something breaks, you’ve learned something. When a piece is too delicate, you understand scale better. When tolerances are off, you recalibrate. Each misstep refines the next attempt.
You cannot improve something that doesn’t exist.
Perfection is attractive but it can also be paralyzing. If I waited to fully understand every variable before hitting “print,” I’d still be staring at a screen instead of holding a prototype.
I watch YouTube tutorials. I pause and rewind. I try techniques I’ve never done before, and I often do them badly.
That’s part of it.
So make the imperfect version. Break it. Redesign it.
Trying is vulnerable. It means admitting you don’t know the answer yet. It means risking visible mistakes. It means iteration.
Print.
Test.
Adjust.
Repeat.
Before you know it, version one becomes version twelve. And somewhere along the way, the design clicks into place — not because it was perfect from the start, but because you didn’t stop at failure.
So if you’re building something new, a product, a lesson, a business idea, a piece of art, don’t wait for certainty.
Make something.
Let it fail.
Make it better.
Join us for the 2026 Des Moines Mini Maker Faire at the Science Center of Iowa on Saturday, April 11th!
Makers can register here to host an exhibitor booth or lead a workshop in the Innovation Lab.