You can buy a toaster in a high street store for less than £3.99. Or you can attempt to make one yourself from scratch at a cost of £1187.54, extracting raw materials from the earth, processing them and turning them into components, then eventually assembling these into the final product.
Royal College of Art student Thomas Thwaites attempted the latter for his 2009 graduation show. Thwaites did everything himself, from smelting iron ore that he collected in Wales in a homemade blast furnace to distilling crude plastic from oil. Instead of the 100-odd materials used in a basic toaster,
Thwaites focused on just five essential ones: iron for the grill, copper for the electrical plug and wires, plastic for the case and electrical insulation, nickel for the heating elements and mica for the heating element cores.
His quest to replicate a £3.99 Argos Value Range two-slice toaster took nine months and cost £1187.54.
Similarly creative progress is rarely the result of throwing out all previous ideas and innovations and completely re-imagining of the world.
The most creative innovations are often new combinations of old ideas. Innovative thinkers don’t create, they connect.
Furthermore, the most effective way to make progress is usually by making 1 percent improvements to what already works rather than breaking down the whole system and starting over.
Let’s leverage our collective knowledge and experience to drive meaningful change.
Ted Talk of Thomas Thwaites
