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The Event
Well, all good things must come to an end. We wrapped up the
SIGGRAPH 2003 [1] LEGO display on Thursday
afternoon, after an exhausting but fun week of building and hanging out with
conference attendees and fellow AFOLs. What an amazing time!
SIGGRAPH contacted a few AFOLs early on in the year, asking if we would be
willing to put on a display there. I, along with Derek Schin, Adrian Egli, and
Steve Barile answered that call and put on the LEGO display.
| | Left to Right: Derek Schin, Steve Barile, Tim Courtney, Jill Smolin, Mary Nichols, and Adrian Egli (the random dude in the background doesn’t count)
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The Goal
The goal was to involve the audience (conference attendees) in a LEGO building
experience - for the fun of it. We were set up in the Sails Pavilion of the San
Diego Convention Center - the ‘free play’ area of the conference. The room also
included bean-bag chair lounges (one with ethernet cables) :-), video game
stations, volleyball, concessions, and a weird musical hammock contraption with
an annoying subwoofer that hurt our ears.
| | The weird, annoying contraption.
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Collaborative Build
Our area played host to a huge collaborative build of the SIGGRAPH 2003
logotype, the Imperial Star Destroyer, Rebel Blockade Runner, Yoda, and Darth
Maul. The SIGGRAPH 2003 logo included more than 15,000 bricks and was 16+ feet
long. It used white, blue, and lime green in a dithered pattern to capture the
sheen of the logo as seen on this page
LDraw
LDraw was the other major component of the display - as we wanted a tie-in to
computer graphics. This gave AFOLs the incredible opportunity to promote our
grassroots CAD tools to the computer graphics pros and students who came to
SIGGRAPH. Through the kind help of the SIGGRAPH people, we secured some
computers to set up at the display for people to play with. LDraw was VERY well
received, many people commenting how they never heard of it, and also how they
had slaved away creating their own bricks in (insert program here).
Steve Barile, John Gramley, and I held a Birds of a Feather session last Tuesday
to talk about the LDraw system in-depth. Many eager guests attended, including
someone who used to work with LEGO on 3D stuff :-) A small glitch occurred -
when we opened the projector bag, we discovered two laptops instead! :-o So,
hence the photos with the laptop screen in the corner. Despite the unexpected
“technical” difficulty, the session went well.
| | Public Service Announcement: Don’t drink and LDraw. This was taken at the reception in the evening - note the crowds behind. Our booth was packed during this time! :-)
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| | Steve also brought some trains, but it was much more fun to send Yoda’s head around the loop.
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Locals
Robert Powell, Paul Thomas, and John Gramley (Southern
Pacific LEGO Train Club) stopped by and hung out during the convention and
after hours. Other familiar LUGNET names were Keoka Proudfoot and Stephen
Wroble. We also pointed many un-connected AFOLs in the direction of clubs in
their local area. They were genuinely surprised to learn there were other adult
LEGO fans just like them. I hope they get involved with the clubs we steered
them towards!
The Playtable
Starting the second day, we set up a playtable area with a K8 supplied by Jake
and LEGOLAND. As you can see, people really enjoyed it! During the reception
Wed. evening, the play table didn’t have an empty seat! People took time away
from food (and drink) to have fun building with LEGO bricks!
More Photos
You can check out Steve Barile’s BrickShelf gallery for more photos of the
event.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=51618
Special thanks to:
- Jill Smolin and Mary Nichols of SIGGRAPH, for providing the resources to put this show on
- Lucasfilm for donating the four large Star Wars models
- Robert Powell for use of AV equipment
- All of our wonderful student volunteers who eagerly assembled the logo and Star Wars sets!
- Henry Lim for the use of his Audrey Hepburn mosaic
- Jake McKee and LEGOLAND California for the playtable K8 at last minute’s notice - it was a big hit!
- All of the wonderful people who came to the conference and talked with us at the booth.
Next Year??
There’s already been a couple mentions of next year’s SIGGRAPH (which will be in
Los Angeles), but of course nothing concrete this far out. If you have any
suggestions, or are interested in helping, please let
me know and I’ll pass the word along to the others via our mailing list.
-Tim Courtney
[1] SIGGRAPH is “The world’s largest marketplace of computer graphics and
interactive techniques.” Lots of really neat, cutting edge stuff there!
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