This weekend, I will be busy with Start-up Weekend.

Screengrab. (Cropped a little off. I am beat.) There’s something about Start-up weekend. Wine and a kegger at the presentation and a following happy hour sponsored by AngelHack (that meant another two free drinks). After all of that stress and caffeine intake, I was ready for a little unwinding (so note: I’m very happy with my experience of Start-up Weekend.) It was great to get to know my team mates and feel really connected with them in this unique challenge.

Today’s activities: website development, presentation overseeing and supplying components for development of the demo for the presentation (dividing the interface into layers for After Effects import). I stitched together the .movs of the 3D animation into one for the website. (That’s my hand on the website demo picture (thanks Mr.Hoppe for showing me how to do selections.) We did the demo using after effects, a 3d modeling program and  photoshop then I uploaded it to youtube then took their embed code into dreamweaver then published a responsive website that functioned on smart phones. I felt on top of my game. (Even though some of the links on the website do not have a page to go to. They might never have a place to go to unless we get a developer to work on this 3D game, which is the next step.)

The winner of the Start-up “Battle” was Corki, a wine-rating app. Post-presentation, we had some discussions with the judges and learned that a great deal of our “failure” was that we didn’t articulate our intention, our target audience, our users, how and who would use our product, but they were inspired by the idea of a simpler (gameified and integrated with real world principles) interface for 3d modeling and printing.

After all of that, I feel like I am a contributing member of a team, good ideas, understanding, flexibility (a must in a Start-up environment) and I feel prepared for a career ahead of me in this kind of role. I want to be that person who designs these things, helps lead brainstorms and bounce name ideas. I am interested in this kind of pace where we are committed to making something that we are inspired by that we can believe in and feel passionate and motivated by. I’m excited for my next Start-up Weekend. Maybe I’ll pitch an idea of my own.