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What is education?

baymax in forest
Summer is winding down as we enter the coming school year.  We are getting our kiddos prepared for school by reading a bunch of books to them.  Each morning we read where they repeat us to help them with speech.  My oldest boy Craig is getting ready to start Kindergarten and boy is he excited!

I have been thinking about what education and schooling is all about.  The definition I found and agree with most is that the word educate means “from within”.  When you think about it, all education really does start within our minds, mixing with our past experiences and our talents and abilities.  In my research I also found a great article on Forbes.com.  It seems that there are many definitions depending on context.  Context here is key.  The article above talks about basically to be educated means to be smart.

Smart in what way though?  Many folks that consider themselves dumb are actually extremely smart. They have just been measured according to a set standard or measuring stick that does not apply to their personal traits. They may not be educated in the sense of schooling but their experiences have given them an education that is specific to them.

This little comic is a fantastic representation of trying to “fit” everyone into a certain mold.


The monkey here will excel on the test and will be looked at as smart. Everyone else will feel different levels of dumb, and look at themselves as not very smart. Especially that goldfish. If the test was to swim the fish, penguin, and seal would excel.

I would not write yourself off as not very smart. I am sure your experiences in life have taught you many things that others do not know. You will excel as you take what you are smart in and run with it.

Henry Ford was thought to be dumb because he only had an eighth grade education. In fact many newspapers wanted to show how dumb he was so they setup a meeting where they would interview Ford and they put together some difficult questions and asked if he would be willing to answer them. He said sure. During the interview when they asked Ford a question he did not know he called someone who did know it. His belief was why fill my mind with all this information if others already have it. He focused on what he was good at and he excelled.

Life is about finding out what talents you have been blessed with and how you can make the world a better place using them.

I have been blessed with a talent when it comes to thinking 3-dimensionally.  I enjoy 3D puzzles like Rubiks Cube, and working with clay through sculpting.  These talents have led me to make the Wowflute and have led to this blog.  I enjoy creativity and I believe it is the key to enjoying your work and education.  Learning is an ongoing process that continually happens throughout life.  I am glad for the opportunity to be a father and to see my children develop and grow in their learning and talents.

The Wowflute is an excellent little flute that is perfect for learning music wherever you may be.  I have found that having a portable instrument I practice much more consistently.  I can currently play over 100 songs that I have memorized on any Wowflute product.  I believe that learning an instrument should be intuitive.  This is why I have designed the Wowflute in a particular fashion.  It is not designed to a standard musical notation because I feel this can impede the creative process.

So rather than the standardized ocarina fingering system I have developed a unique system based loosely on the Native American Flute.  This makes it easier to play by ear.

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New Turquoise Tritan Wowflute

I am thoroughly enjoying the new colors that the Tritan Wowflute is now made in. This transparent turquoise is a favorite.

I designed the Tritan Wowflute over the course of two years and it is nice to finally have a product that works well and is very durable.

The Tritan Wowflute is currently made down at a place called R & R Engineering in Leeds, Utah.  The folks there are down to earth and are great to work with.  They strive for quality.  I am grateful I found them in my backyard (quite literally)!

The Tritan Wowflute was designed with the outdoors in mind.  After I sat on and broke a few of my favorite Swirl Wowflutes I wanted something that would last.  This has been a goal for me to focus on quality rather than quantity.  A few years ago I had produced a bunch of my Wowflute mugs out of water based clay and had fired them and glazed them.  I had ten Wowflute mugs ready for market.  As I was hauling them to my vendor booth I tripped and dropped the box.  Even though they were wrapped and packed well, all but one were either chipped or shattered.   This experience led me to look for a stronger material that would still have the quality without being fragile.

When hiking I use a Nalgene water bottle.  These bottles were extremely tough and would take a beating.  I could drop it on sharp lava rocks and it would be fine.  That is what I wanted my products to do.  I did some research and after much deliberation I chose Tritan copolyesther by Eastman as the base material  for the Tritan Wowflute because it is virtually indestructible.  The Tritan Wowflute can even be driven over (not that you drive over musical instruments on a regular basis).

The name Tritan Wowflute sounds tough as well.  It is currently available in Turquoise, Tangerine, and Emerald.  Listen to a sample:

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Ideas are Things

This Blog is devoted to awesomely designed toys.  I define toys rather loosely to include dual-functionality products that have a fun aspect to them and could be considered toys for the bigger kids (myself).

I absolutely love to inspect and admire well designed products.  I also really enjoy toys.  They make life fun for everyone.  Who does not have a toy that they played with and remember most from childhood?  My favorite toy growing up was Lego because of all the possibilities from just a simple set of snapping bricks.

Some folks think that when you grow up you should not play with toys anymore because they are for children…  Well, to be brutally honest, they can go be sad grownups who work their lives away hoping to save for some kind of retirement so they can enjoy toys again.

Toys do not just appear out of nowhere.  They are being designed and created and tested and manufactured using highly detailed engineering techniques and practices which include various high-tech technologies in manufacturing and design.  It never ceases to amaze me when I look at a clever toy such as an action figure or puzzle that has numerous joints and detailed parts.  Each one of those parts were thought of and sketched out then taken through the conceptual design phase.  Then being created individually inside an injection mold and assembled with skill to achieve the proper movements and quality.

Through my experiences as a product designer I have learned every aspect of this process.  My own cool toy – the Swirl Wowflute has been such an enjoyable experience to work on.  It has been in the research and development phase for nearly fifteen years and may not ever leave this phase – there are always ways to improve upon an existing design.  I find it rather interesting when I compare some of my year old handmade Swirl Wowflutes with newer ones I made last week.  They are completely different!?  I did not intentionally change the design, but it gradually morphed into what works better and better.

I finally decided to make a manufactured version of the Swirl Wowflute in 2012 as part of a University capstone project.  I spent many long hours attempting to use Autodesk Inventor to make a digital replica of my popular handmade flutes.  I look at the design process as a form of art – even when you are designing a manufactured product.  That product was a concept, an idea – that suddenly becomes tangible in the real world.  This is the purpose of art, is it not?  Producing some kind of physical product from an idea.

I got to use the $10,000 3D printer on my project to print out prototypes for testing.  In this capstone project I was not able to produce a working prototype that was tuned because the time was limited in class.  I did get a functional prototype that whistled though and played it as part of a presentation.  It was not enough for me to just make something that was just there.  I like interaction, and dual-functionality.  I wanted an end product that would build on someones creativity.

Onward and upward.  After I graduated college I had the desire to make this manufactured Wowflute a reality.  I could see the prototypes that were once just simple ideas in my hand – it gave me a sense of excitement and awe.  Ideas truly are things!  It was an ah-ha moment I will not easily forget and it’s worth repeating – Ideas are things.

During my final semester at Southern Utah University I had decided to throw out all my required classes and took what I wanted to learn about.  I took a marketing class from a talented Professor Ellen Treanor who knew how to make a subject interesting and exciting.  I always looked forward to her classes.  One class she introduced us to a website called Kickstarter.  The opportunites I saw almost made my head explode!  I saw the potential to make the manufactured Wowflute a reality in a simple project based platform.  After graduation I took a boring job to make ends meet all the while selling my handmade Swirl Wowflutes on the side.  I soon felt the urgency to quit my well paying salaried + commission job and pursue the dream of bring my Wowflutes to a much larger audience.

I acquired some investments from an awesome friend of mine and started on the process in making a quality manufactured version.  I spent the next five months finding a manufacturer and a product designer who knew how to design for injection molds.  I created a high resolution prototype using the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) method and tried it out.  It worked well but was way out of tune.  I asked my designer to make the walls thicker and the holes 25% larger.  This would effectively reduce the chamber size and increase the change between holes.  I had another SLS prototype made and to my great astonishment – it sounded better than expected!  It was in tune perfectly.  The many years of making the handmade Wowflute (30,000 of them) had paid off.

I then took that prototype and ran with it on kickstarter.  My kickstarter project was a success and the Tritan Wowflute was brought to life.  This did not appease my appetite – for I had tasted it, Ideas are Things!

So as you pa-ruse my website, know that I am passionate about design in general and I beleive in making ideas reality.  Optimism is key in anything great.  You will always have the naysayers and the haters who are really just jealous.  You can feel sorry for them.  You can use their negative energy to instill what I call “the Oh Yeah Factor”.  The “You wanna make a bet?”  The “I’ll show him”, this is powerful stuff.  I use it all the time.

Thanks for taking the time to read to this point.  Now I will reward you with some pictures of awesomely designed toys that I like:

The Creepy Face Woody Doll:

woody - ebe whistle wide

The loveable, babylike Baymax:

Endurance is patience concentrated. – Thomas Carlyle 

A photo posted by Joseph Cowlishaw (@joecow) on

Pixar’s Carl Fredricksen from UP:  

Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. – Thomas S. Monson A photo posted by Joseph Cowlishaw (@joecow) on

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Mokume-Gane – Wood Grain Metal

Mokume-Gane

This morning I have been researching the art of Japanese Mokume-Gane, pronounced moe-koo-may gah-nay.  Mokume-Gane literally translates to Wood Eye-Metal.  This represents it’s similarities to wood grain.  While doing research I came across an extensive history of Mokume-Gane by James E. Binnion who has mastered the art in his jewelry pieces.

The Mokume-Gane process was invented by a Denbei Shoami (1651-1728) who was a master smith from Akita prefecture Japan.

mokume-gane-ring
Mokume-Gane Ring by James Binnion Metal Arts

I have been making many Mokume-Gane style Swirl Wowflutes by mixing many different colors of polymer clay such as Sculpey III, Fimo, and Premo brands.  I take four or so different colors of clay and roll them out into “snakes” which I then twist together to form what looks like a giant candycane.  I then divide this cane in half, into fourths, eighths, and sixteenth equal segments.  Each segment is then rolled and twisted into itself until a desired design is achieved.  I then proceed to take each ball and make it into a pinchpot bowl with a bit of extra clay left at the bottom.  Since I have been making these Swirl Wowflutes for almost 10 years, my fingers are accustomed to the required thickness to make the chamber the right size.  The top rim of the mini-bowl is then carefully closed off and is shaped into the mouthpiece.  I then shape this hollow form into the kidney shape the produces the best tone.  At this stage I stamp the flute and tune each one in relation to the inner chamber size.  I almost enjoy making the different colors as much as I do making and tuning the flute.  If the color mixture isn’t right I will smash a perfectly tuned flute.  I am also quite reluctant to smash a nice swirl design even if the sound of the flute isn’t the greatest.

I am really excited to pursue metalwork and I feel this is the direction that Wowflute Designs is headed.  Clay is very versatile, but metal has intrinsic value where clay does not.  I have always been a coin collector and have been interested in the minting process since I was a child.  I still have my original coin collection which includes tons of wheat pennies, and drummer back quarters (bicentennial).  I think this fascination with coins and making something that lasts more than a lifetime is the drive that keeps me pursuing metalwork and combining it with my popular Wowflutes!

Mokume-Gane has so many similarities to my current flutes made out of clay.  I can’t wait to learn more about this Japanese method while creating awesome Relic Wowflutes!

I will keep this blog updated as I delve deeper into the art and science of Metalwork!  Thanks for following.

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Relic Wowflutes

Rough Polished Relic Wowflute

Our new Relic Wowflute Ocarina will be coming soon!  We are still in the development stage and are working on producing a Kickstarter campaign!  Keep your eyes peeled.

UPDATE:

We have launched our Kickstarter Campaign and with the first day we have gotten over 20% funded!  Yay!  The Relic Wowflute is a very in-depth process.  We first start out with a powdered metal.  We used Hadar’s Clay because it seemed less commercialized.  Hadar’s Clay was a great choice because it allowed for much more versatility and control over the consistency of the clay.

Metal clay is quite interesting to work with.  As I was shaping a Relic, the water would flow towards gravity and would pool there.  The top would dry out quickly but the bottom would still be wet.  It definitely will be a  learning curve that I am willing to take the time to develop!

Mirror Finish Relic Wowflute

In the Kiln