# Tool Talk >  Cuban homemade tools and technological disobedience

## Jon

Cuba's economy was bottoming out in the early '90s. Due to long-term embargos, their allowed imports were largely limited to essentials like food and medicine. Much of the world was mad at them for various misbehavior throughout the years, including failure to pay international debts, Cuban government seizures of foreign private businesses, and their chumminess with the Russians and their extra nuclear missiles. Once Russia collapsed, Cuba hit deep economic depression, entering a period of time that their government called "The Special Period in the Time of Peace".

Fidel Castro and Nikita Kruschev in better times:


Petroleum was immediately limited, which paralyzed the transport, industrial, and agricultural systems. Food was so severely rationed that zoo animals and stray cats started disappearing. The Cuban Army, fearing invasion by the North Americans, published a book called "The Book for the Family". The book was a collection of appliance fixing tricks, home medical remedies, plans for survival tools, and copy-pasted back issues of magazines like Popular Mechanics. A movement of Cuban DIYers was spawned, called the National Association of Innovators and Rationalists. 

Two years later, they published another book, composed of DIY ideas that Cubans had contributed, called "With Our Own Efforts". The ideas included things like clothes, furniture, and a now-famous Cuban recipe for grapefruit rind "steak" made from de-bittered and marinated grapefruit rinds. The book was also a goldmine of what history calls "DIY inventions", but what we know as homemade tools.

All I could find online was a grainy original scanned copy of the book, here: Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos. There are some efforts to crowdsource an English translation of the book, but I don't believe a translation has yet materialized.






Around this time, Ernesto Oroza was a young Cuban graduate of industrial design school. Oroza was a new industrial designer, but his country had no industry. He traveled the country documenting and collecting the peoples' homemade tools and machines. He characterizes the resultant DIY culture as something he calls "technological disobedience":




> People think beyond the normal capabilities of an object, and try to surpass the limitations it imposes on itself.
> 
> This kind of object imposes a limit on the user, because it comes with an established technological code, which hardly ever satisfies all of the user's needs, and sometimes he exceeds those needs. He manages to go beyond the object's capabilities. - Ernesto Oroza






This is the rare video I watched twice. Oroza really strikes me when he talks about the "established technological code", and how contemporary ready-made objects exert authority around their intended use. It's reasonably apparent in things like the desire to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone. But Oroza also recognizes the false belief that the tools we're given are the only tools we need, and he realizes that a machine is just an amalgamation of "all of the symbols that unify an object". When Cubans' needs changed, they changed their tools.

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blkadder (Oct 23, 2016),

Cascao (Jan 3, 2018),

gunsgt1863 (May 19, 2018),

HobieDave (Mar 9, 2020),

Hopefuldave (May 19, 2019),

KustomsbyKent (Jan 1, 2018),

Mark Fogleman (Oct 21, 2016),

PJs (Oct 26, 2016),

rctoywizard (Oct 23, 2016),

rgsparber (Feb 6, 2020),

richardcrane (Oct 23, 2016),

rlm98253 (Dec 30, 2017),

rond (Oct 24, 2016),

Scotsman Hosie (Mar 13, 2019),

Seedtick (Oct 24, 2016),

Sleykin (Dec 31, 2017),

Toolmaker51 (Oct 24, 2016)

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## blkadder

An amazing look into what people will do when they have no other option. I would be interested to see more of the things they have made, or especially a look into the books that were published.

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rlm98253 (Sep 25, 2018)

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## richardcrane

Excellent! Thanks for the post.

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## C-Bag

I remember the same thing happening in the Eastern Block when the wall fell and then when the USSR dissolved. We didn't hear much about it here in the west. But one story I read was with the collapse heavy industry and like cars just were no longer available. In this little town gas was tight and there was a guy who'd been making something along the line of electric golf carts. So he went to the city council and offered to work with them to start making these small electric vehicles. It provided jobs, all the light poles had outlets so the cars could charge. The cars could then be turned in and they would be refurbished (providing more jobs) and put back on the road. What a concept, no planned obsolescence and all staying in the local economy. I think this was like in the early 90's and I've never found the story again or an update. But I wonder if this is a lot more common but there just not as many folks documenting it?

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Hopefuldave (May 19, 2019)

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## Clockguy

> ...... But I wonder if this is a lot more common but there just not as many folks documenting it?



Maybe they are taking a lesson from history and keeping their innovations to themselves. Once word gets out, they will be hounded by those with the wish to take the concept, farm it out to some country who can build the concept into a working vehicle for little cost in R&D costs, and make loads of **AD*'s out of the idea that the little country had to help its local economy. 


It HAS happened in the past ........ 

*=*A*lmighty *D*ollar

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## ncollar

you are absolutely right, *=Almighty Dollar
Nelson

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bob47907 (Jan 5, 2019)

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## Frank S

I once had a 5% partnership in a company whose principal owner and engineer was involved in many innovations. I will call him William. Anyway William was solely responsible for the design and manufacture of many machines in his younger years. At a company where he worked and retired from many years prior to forming the company where I worked. one of his innovations was the machine which brought about the stringing High tension power lines through out Central America. The 5 years I was with him at his company I remember dozens of patents being filed each year His biggest failing was his trust in the firm our patent attorneys worked and the attorneys themselves. many of his patents were filed cross filed and counter filed under other names by complex wordings, or just lost in the paper shuffle. Easy to do with the shear volume he and others in the company submitted. The problem was they may have received patents on less than 1% of the ones submitted while upwards of 40% of the reworded ones under other names were awarded. It wasn't until the company was nearing bankruptcy that he or the office staff figured out what had been going on. By then it was too late and they were too weak to fight. When the company finally managed to be sold to a company which actually had many of William's patents. I had a room full of near working prototypes I had been constructing which I torched into oblivion since I didn't figure the new company deserved to benefit any more from William's hard work. 
William reminded me so much of Nicola Tesla not from an electronic stand point but his inventiveness and misguided trust in others. William passed away at the age of 90 in 2012 flat broke

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Hopefuldave (May 19, 2019),

olderdan (Dec 31, 2017),

PJs (May 19, 2018),

Toolmaker51 (Jan 13, 2018)

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## ncollar

That story has been echoed many times down through history. The only conclusion I come up with is do not let too many get that close. But that is hard to do. When I got out of school I fell into a blending operation that bought all the raw ingredients and mixed then bottled and sold the snake oil as a car paint coating. The man that started the company got in a deal with a company in Tampa, we moved to New Orleans and it was not long and the man from Tampa stole all the recipes and started manufacturing his own product. It was not long and our company lost a lot of sales. There are low lives every where looking for an easy way out.

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Clockguy (Sep 1, 2018),

PJs (May 19, 2018)

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## JimP in Oregon

I really enjoyed that video, and would love to see the book they used.

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## Jon

I found a copy of the book. Scanned in, and untranslated, but it's all there: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...-Esfuerzos.pdf

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gunsgt1863 (May 19, 2018),

Scotsman Hosie (Mar 13, 2019),

william73 (Jul 23, 2018)

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## Frank S

An impressive collection of use reuse of available materials on hand. pretty much an ultimate survival summery and guide

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## Jon

I found the cognitive bias that corresponds to Oroza's concept of technological disobedience, and it led me down quite a rabbit hole. I put some notes together for a longer future post, but I did want to mention it here too. It's called: Functional fixedness. There's a decent footprint of this bias in mainstream psychology journals.

What's most fascinating are some of the exercises and practices developed to build anti-fixedness behaviors: to train yourself to look at common objects without becoming fixated on their current forms. A common example given is finding a bur stuck on your clothes. Most people say: "oh, I got a bur on me, I'll pull it off". But someone who is less influenced by functional fixedness would say: "Oh, interesting object, I wonder how it's sticking to my clothes. This would make a great fastening system. I'll call it Velcro."

Note common homemade tools pastimes that we see casually mentioned on the forum, like thehomeengineer's skip diving ("dumpster diving" to Americans), or mklotz's practice of looking around your shop, and imagining what else could be made from the objects you see.

In the research surrounding functional fixedness, these activities are characterized as deliberate practices used to free ourselves of functional fixedness, such that we can view objects beyond perceiving them simply along the lines of their current intended use. This is obviously a core homemade tool skill. Not machining, or woodworking, or welding, or electronics - just thinking about things a certain way, and repeatedly practicing this thinking, so that we can free ourselves of a bias that inhibits invention.

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olderdan (May 19, 2018),

PJs (May 19, 2018)

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## mklotz

Integral to avoiding functional fixedness is nurturing the ability to identify the most elemental nature of the problem you are trying to solve. The shape of a steam engine link is irrelevant; a link is just something to hold two holes a fixed distance apart. If you don't have enough material to make a solid link, make a skeletonized one from rod holding two small endplates with the holes at the proper distance. (Some old full-size engines have such links.)

Another habit to develop is trying to puzzle out the use of, or reason for anything unusual that you might encounter. Why are wheels mounted to car using studs; why not use bolts? Why do some castles have cross-shaped arrow slits where the two arms of the cross shape do not align? What's the best color to paint a fire truck? Why put gear teeth on a twelve foot diameter steam engine flywheel?

Once you cultivate your curiosity and set aside the time to answer the questions it raises, you'll become a much more accomplished inventor.

When inventing, practice the policy of "fail first". When experimenting with an idea, test first the feature whose failure would condemn the project. Don't waste time investigating details that will probably work or which will not doom the initial idea if they fail.

Finally, don't be afraid to publish an idea that doesn't catch on. If your idea sparks someone else to make something innovative, you've contributed in the greater sense.

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Frank S (May 19, 2018),

Hopefuldave (May 19, 2019),

PJs (May 19, 2018),

Toolmaker51 (May 19, 2018)

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## Jon

Couldn't agree more on "fail fast", and of course your last sentence. There seems to be a tendency to wait until a tool is perfect to post it, but there is often an advantage in simply posting your first prototype, or even your first napkin drawing. Note this recent exchange; the "fail fast" reference comes from a PDF published by rgsparber about a homemade power rock rake:







What's interesting here is that rgsparber is no slouch! High level of formal education, plus hundreds of homemade tools built, plus numerous lengthy articles written on tool building, as well as months of discussion on this specific tool. But even in his case, it was advantageous to publicly post his prototype; a relatively unknown user with only 2 posts (now 3) advanced the power rake concept considerably.

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Frank S (May 20, 2018),

HobieDave (Mar 9, 2020),

Hopefuldave (May 19, 2019)

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## ncollar

Rick's favorite saying is "none of us are smarter than all of us collectively" not his exact words but you get the message
Nelson

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Frank S (May 20, 2018)

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## Frank S

> Rick's favorite saying is "none of us are smarter than all of us collectively" not his exact words but you get the message
> Nelson



I couldn't agree more

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## Clockguy

> An amazing look into what people will do when they have no other option. I would be interested to see more of the things they have made, or especially a look into the books that were published.



I have followed Ernesto Oroza's rise from the time he graduated from school and found no work anywhere so he began collecting trash and scrap and old machines and salvaging motors and switches ans such and repurposing them into useful fans and mixers and other needed tools and equipment. I will post below some links for those who took the initiative, when Castro bankrupted the country, and the economy fell by almost 40%. Stores were empty, markets had nothing to sell for food, shelves were bare. This was THEIR SHTF Stage one when you could be shot in the streets for breaking curfew or walking against a red light, or most anything that the broken government thought was "illegal". And it was up to the citizens to fend for themselves if they wanted to survive. And, survive they did! Read and watch as "clandestine public disobedience" slowly became a way of life for many Cubans as they foraged and collected things that would help them or one of their friends to survive for one more day or week .....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-c...73R70U20110428

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science...inventors-cuba

This next link will lead the reader to one of the most interesting and thought provoking series of events which hardly anyone (at least anyone I know) would have a wisp of a notion about, that I have read to date.

https://cubaholidays.co.uk/blogs/pos...then-the-world

Good links if you simply want to look at "Objects of Necessity" and "Architecture of Necessity".

JPG from Havana (II) by GrÃ©gory Marion â 2015  Technological Disobedience Archive  by Ernesto Oroza

Ernesto Oroza  Architecture of Necessity  by Ernesto Oroza

It is amazing how the Cubans have cobbled things that simply do not fit in the row of sensible addition but they have done well with the little that they had to work with. If you want a helpful hint, I installed a Translator app on my PC and whenever you go to a page that the Translator is equipped to convert, it will quickly translate and over-print the Spanish or Portuguese with an English translation. It makes it much easier to read and understand.

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Jon (Sep 25, 2018),

PJs (Sep 27, 2018)

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## Clockguy

> An amazing look into what people will do when they have no other option. I would be interested to see more of the things they have made, or especially a look into the books that were published.



I have followed Ernesto Oroza's rise from the time he graduated from school and found no work anywhere so he began collecting trash and scrap and old machines and salvaging motors and switches ans such and repurposing them into useful fans and mixers and other needed tools and equipment. I will post below some links for those who took the initiative, when Castro bankrupted the country, and the economy fell by almost 40%. Stores were empty, markets had nothing to sell for food, shelves were bare. This was THEIR SHTF Stage one when you could be shot in the streets for breaking curfew or walking against a red light, or most anything that the broken government thought was "illegal". And it was up to the citizens to fend for themselves if they wanted to survive. And, survive they did! Read and watch as "clandestine public disobedience" slowly became a way of life for many Cubans as they foraged and collected things that would help them or one of their friends to survive for one more day or week .....

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-c...73R70U20110428

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science...inventors-cuba

This next link will lead the reader to one of the most interesting and thought provoking series of events which hardly anyone (at least anyone I know) would have a wisp of a notion about, that I have read to date.

https://cubaholidays.co.uk/blogs/pos...then-the-world

Good links if you simply want to look at "Objects of Necessity" and "Architecture of Necessity".

JPG from Havana (II) by GrÃ©gory Marion â€“ 2015 – Technological Disobedience Archive – by Ernesto Oroza

Ernesto Oroza – Architecture of Necessity – by Ernesto Oroza

It is amazing how the Cubans have cobbled things that simply do not fit in the row of sensible addition but they have done well with the little that they had to work with. If you want a helpful hint, I installed a Translator app on my PC and whenever you go to a page that the Translator is equipped to convert, it will quickly translate and over-print the Spanish or Portuguese with an English translation. It makes it much easier to read and understand.

Edit: I somehow got this to post twice and, when I clicked on "Edit/Delete", it would only allow me to edit. Sorry for the double post, if any of the Administrators can pull one of the posts, I would be appreciative.

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