Jim Correll, director Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College, Independence Kansas 

In a previous work-life, I was the Manager of Inventory, Purchasing and Scheduling at a job shop in Wichita named John Weitzel, Inc. We were a precision machine and sheet metal shop with Boeing as a primary customer. I worked for the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), a woman named Anne Smarsh. There was a total of maybe 8 – 10 people on her staff. She was a good supervisor, respecting our talents and abilities. She didn’t micro-manage but rather worked to make sure we all had the information and tools we needed to do our work. One of the perks with working for Anne was that her and her husband Tom had a cabin on Grand Lake and one time they invited several of us to come to the lake for a weekend of boating. One morning, Tom and Anne’s niece (I can’t remember her name) made pancakes for breakfast. Tom jokingly said that the niece thought pouring the pancake mix into a bowl and adding water was making them from scratch. 

Scratch Has Different Meaning for Different People 

Scratch for some means knowing how to make pancakes, with no instructions, using ingredients on hand. This would include knowing a suitable substitution for any of the usual ingredients not on hand. Scratch for others is following directions to pour a certain amount of mix into a bowl, adding a certain amount of water, stirring then pouring on the grill. A few might even consider pouring batter directly from a bottle to the grill as making from scratch. 

Wood Projects from Scratch 

When I was in high school out in the southwest Kansas town of Satanta (60 miles west of Dodge City) we had a wonderful wood shop. A high percentage of land in the county was irrigated, making for high property values and tax revenues for the schools. When Mr. Wilson asked for a new piece of equipment, he usually got it and it was always of the highest quality. We learned to make projects, really nice, high quality furniture in shop classes from quality hardwoods. We rarely made things from kits, instead making them from scratch. We made a list of materials we needed and went to the wood rack and got exactly what we needed. So, we had the materials and tools we needed to make high quality wood projects from scratch. 

The local lumber yard owner (I worked there summers and after school my junior and senior year) said one time, “Classes like that are good, but young people need to learn to make things with the tools and materials they have available, and many times those won’t be ideal.” At the time, I thought it a bit odd that he would think that way. Now, I think he was exactly right. A big part of being innovative and entrepreneurial is learning to work with what you have and many times with constrained resources. Rarely in life do we get to have exactly the best tools and materials to work with. Many times, we have to learn to make things with whatever we have on hand. 

Camp Projects from Scratch 

When we have boot camps for youth at Fab Lab ICC, we sometimes let them come up with a project they want to make and then help them try to make it. Sometimes they make a list of what they need for their project but many times they go to the scrap bin and find something they can make work. This is a great lesson in life, to be able to make things and get things done using the tools and materials you have available. This teaches them to be resourceful, not thinking they have to have something brand new for their project. It also teaches them that many items can be repurposed for new uses instead of throwing things away at the end of their original lives. 

Keeping Too Much Scratch 

I probably overdo it on the repurposing. I keep pieces of wood in my home shop until they are pretty much too small to use for anything. My wife would agree. She used to want me to throw everything away. Now, she has seen me build entire projects from materials on hand; some new, but many left over from previous uses. We try to strike a balance between keeping too many leftover materials and not having anything with which to work without buying new. 

Making from scratch can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people whether you are talking about food or projects. Learning to be resourceful when it comes to using what we have on hand instead of always buying new leads to more money in our pockets and less materials in our landfills.   

Jim Correll is the director of Fab Lab ICC at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship on the campus of Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349, by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu or Twitter @jimcorrellks. Archive columns and podcast at jimcorrell.com.