This year I’m at the WWDC conference in San Jose, California and I get to watch Apple Keynote live and witness the new software Apple is presenting. To commemorate this I’ve designed and The Podcast co-host Radek 3D-printed a symbol of this conference - a MindBlower (TM). Here’s how this idea came to be.
Conference swag should be about the event
Radek came up with this idea first when he was 3D printing “React” logo at the React conferences (our new Nozbe Teams is designed in React technology) and he saw how people liked the gadget and how they wanted to have it. As we both were preparing to travel for the WWDC conference he suggested I designed something similar for this conference. I loved the idea but initially I didn’t know what to do. Should that be just an Apple logo or something else?
Designing the MindBlower for WWDC
When I looked at the WWDC web site and saw the “Write code. Blow minds.” I got an idea. I took the robot symbol and went ahead and designed something to 3D print from there. I opened up the Vectornator app on my iPad and started sketching a design based on the robot… with a “Nozbe” word in its mouth so that people who do get it, will remember who they got the MindBlower from.
3D printing MindBlower
Radek took my design, tweaked it and printed it out. As we didn’t have much time, he just printed a few of these models. I also took his project to another friend and 3D printed a few more. In different colors, too.
The cool thing is how the MindBlower looks in the direct sunlight - with some parts of it being transparent. I’m really happy how it came out:
First day at the WWDC conference was today…
After more than 28 hours of uptime due to travel from Poland to San Francisco and later to San Jose, I crushed in bed around 10 pm yesterday on Sunday night… but jet-lag kicked in and I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t sleep anymore. So I left the hotel at 5 am and stood in line with other developers to get the best spots at the Apple Keynote which happened at 10 am. While standing in line I got to know quite a few folks and gave away a few of the MindBlowers already.
In the end I got the front-row seat for the keynote and could see Tim Cook and the other Apple folks from very close…
The WWDC week is on. I’m hoping to get to know more people here and give away all of the stash of MindBlowers to the cool folks I’m going to meet. If you’re at the WWDC conference this year with me, don’t be shy and come say hi 👋