How to build a Shot-Ski
At this year's Java Posse Roundup, James Ward, Trish McGinity, Brad Kizzort and I embarked upon a mission to build a Shot-Ski. Actually, we decided to build two. We wanted to show all the things we learned at the Roundup into a 5-minute Lightning Talk and building Shot-Skis seemed like an excellent mechanism. As Skiing Magazine says:
Everyone should have a shot-ski at their disposal. They're versatile, classy, and always appropriate. And, best of all, easy to make.
We spent about 3 hours researching, building, testing and deploying our shot-skis on a quiet afternoon in the town of Crested Butte. Below is a picture of our finished products, complete with stickers to demonstrate modern webapp design, a.k.a. sex sells.
We developed two different types of shot-skis, one that had the shot glasses top-mounted and the 2nd with the glasses mounted in the skis. We A/B tested them and decided we liked the top-mounted ones better. However, the in-ski version has the benefit of built-in brakes, in case you're using it on the mountain.
The whole crew was proud of what we were able to create in an afternoon. You can almost feel our pride as we strolled to that evening's lightning talks.
And now, thanks to The Java Posse, we actually have video footage of our lightning talk!
If you're ever in the town of Crested Butte, we donated these skis to The Secret Stash and Montanya Distillers. We encourage you to stop by and try them out. You can also checkout Trish's photos of our development process.