My family is in the middle of moving from one house to another. Part of that move involves arranging furniture. I'll be honest, I can move a couch across a room only so many times before I start to think perhaps there's a better way. Thankfully, there is.

In many scientific disciplines, the research you may be doing is completely new. It may be so new that there isn't even any instrumentation available to make your experimental measurements. In those cases, you have no choice but to design and build your own measuring devices.