One day my youngest daughter Megan and I were goofing around in the kitchen. We were talking about those two-sided magnetic things for dishwashers that say clean on one side and dirty on the other. I was saying that I didn’t think they were useful because often the dishwasher is open and you can’t see the magnet. We also talked about how there are really more than two states of a dishwasher.
We decided that it would be better to have a solid shape with four sides to indicate one of four possible states of the dishwasher: clean, dirty, empty, and washing. This doodad could sit on the counter above the dishwasher so it could be seen even if the dishwasher were open.
I made a tetrahedron out of paper and Megan decorated each face. Everyone loved it but of course, being made out of paper, it didn’t last long. So I figured out how to cut that shape out of wood and the dishwasher doodad was born.