Two years ago, after a 20 year break, I broke out my childhood K'NEX set to build a phone holder. I don't work from a desk, so my time with my laptop is spent standing at a dresser or working from the bed/couch. I wanted something to prop my phone up for FaceTime calls (because for some reason someone can't ever hear me when I answer FaceTime calls on my MacBook). It works perfectly for this use case, and it cost nothing!
 

But the phone holder is useless when I work from the couch or bed, so I've made another invention, but this time it holds my phone off to the right of my laptop screen and it's great. It works at the dresser, on the couch, on the bed. There's some complex (or messy, unprofessional, whatever) engineering involved because an iPhone is not lightweight. But this is solid, the angles are adjustable so I can be in frame if I'm on a call, and there's even a kick-stand to hold the laptop screen if I want that bent back as far as it'll go. I'm really proud of this.
 

I love solving problems. When I find something that bugs me, and come up with a solution that just fits - that's a great feeling. They say "be careful what you wish for", but when it feels this good to fix things, I just want more problems! Or at least, problems I can solve with K'NEX, or with my AI 😁

Building something where you're constrained forces creativity. There are only so many pieces, connections, and lengths to use building with K'NEX, and when you're trying to build something to fit the (relatively arbitrary in comparison) measurements of a MacBook and an iPhone, you have to be creative. I tried a few different ways to make the angles adjustable and ended up doing something I'd never done with K'NEX before to make it work well. The firm constraints of a K'NEX set is definitely in contrast to the relative un-constrained nature of getting an AI to build whatever you can think of in 2026!

That being said, I also bent the rules. Some of the pieces/connections are not perfectly aligned, but since it's just plastic I made them fit. I am all for bending rules to get things done. In this case, a bit of tension in some of the pieces also makes the thing stronger. I think that's the same for people and teams as well.

Once I'd perfected it, I walked into the living room with my creation and said "Hey Mum, Dad - look what I made!". If the K'NEX wasn't already bringing on hardcore early 2000s nostalgia for me, that moment did it.