It’s a story I tell often – almost exactly four years ago on May 17th during the second year of my degree, I arrived early one morning, in time to sit in on a first year lecture in the ‘Introduction to Creative Technologies’ paper. In this lecture, I learned about iOS development and the opportunities that were available through that. I got to hold an iPad – this was not long after the first one was announced and they weren’t even available in New Zealand yet. I gasped when they showed it and was embarrassed that I was the only one geeky enough to be in awe.
We also learned about WWDC and the scholarships available for students to attend. It was one of those ‘aha’ moments that I believe set into motion many of the amazing opportunities and experiences I’ve had over the past few years.
So that became my goal, and the next year, I ran around my house screaming because I’d been awarded that scholarship. Then the same again in 2012. And 2013.
I began writing this on the eve of the 2014 scholarship announcements. It’s my last year as a student and so I decided to have one last go at entering. Over four years, a lot more students around the world made the same discovery I did, and with increasing interest in the mobile development industry and a greater push to introduce coding in schools, no doubt the scholarships became more hotly contended, resulting in Apple raising the bar for applications. The application used to be simply essay style questions, starting in 2013, applicants had to make an app.
The brief is broad and relatively simple: make an app about yourself – “Use your creativity and coding skills to build an app that tells us about you. Your app should highlight development projects you’ve worked on, your educational and professional background, technical skills, and interests.”
The catch is you have less than two weeks to make it. Simple?
I wrote this post before knowing the result because I wanted to guarantee that I would post it. This follows on from my post from yesterday about impostor syndrome and lacking confidence in my programming capabilities. When I finished my app, I found myself feeling really excited to show people what I made and I felt really confident that I’d made a good product.
But I’m also aware that I’ve been awarded a scholarship three times already and with such a demand for tickets and no doubt the sheer number of students who would have entered, I’m sure that would be taken into consideration. I think it is pretty unlikely that they would award it to me again, and I’ve been preparing myself for this scenario because I didn’t want to feel that not being awarded a scholarship would be a reflection on my skills as a programmer.
So here is my creation, shared with the world regardless of whether or not I win because it’s something I’m damn proud of.
In 2013, I cobbled something together quickly and mostly the night before (very nearly giving up all together). This year, I thought a lot about what represents me best. That answer was easy – travel. I am a notorious jet setter and frankly, well on my way to being one of those travel snobs with status.
The premise was simple – my skills and experiences represented through projects I’ve worked on in different parts of the world: New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, USA and Europe.
I tried to reflected my personal interests and skills in a few ways –
– Each country is represented as an airport code and barcode, which turns into a passport stamp when you visit it. Visit all the countries, collect all the stamps and unlock an achievement (who doesn’t enjoy a bit of gamification?)
– Location awareness has been a major focus of my iOS projects and so I used the core location framework to turn the plane in the center into a compass.
– Each country has a different Passbook pass. Though this isn’t very frequently used in New Zealand, I have a few passes tucked away on my phone from international flights.
– Connecting to a secondary display will unlock extra content as the ‘in flight entertainment system’, using it as a secondary display rather than just mirroring. This capability was the starting point for my masters research.
– and my personal favourite: the in flight safety briefing, redone with terrible programming jokes. this was inspired by Air New Zealand who are known for their frequently changing, quirky (sometimes cringe worthy) safety videos. Whenever I’m on an Air New Zealand flight, the videos remind me where my home is, or that I’m nearly home. If you understand the jokes – I’m terribly sorry.
The app itself is relatively simple – table views, view controllers, basic data model using plists but with the short amount of time given, you don’t want to over complicate it. I spent a day designing graphics, two solid days of coding, and a day for polish and testing. I was aiming for something clean and simple. That’s what iOS is all about, no?
So here we go –
For the non-programmers, here’s a video.
I finish writing this post a day later after the results were announced. My application was successful and I will be once again attending WWDC. I have no words for the elation I feel right now. You’d think after three times it wouldn’t be as exciting but it feels exactly the same as the first time I got it.
Creativity, Technology, Innovation 