Partner Pavilion, User Group Leaders and Tweetup

After a heavy day of tweeting and checking my schedule the trusty iPhone battery was ready to give out by about 5 O'Clock. Thankfully, with a convention hall full of booths displaying cutting edge 3D tech it was easy to find someone with an extra cable and a kind heart. Thanks to Julie with ZCorp for giving me a little charge, and even more so for the cool print outs she gave me. Check out the picture below, that is an actual working pen. The cap and casing were printed using a ZCorp machine though, of course, the ink cartridge was supplied.

Working pens were only the tip of the iceberg as the booth had on display all sorts of fun prints. From architechtural models and non functional voltmeters, to disturbing skulls and Star Wars memoribila the 3d prints of Zcorp are just fun. Below is Jeff Mirisola and his friend "Jane", I'll let you guess which one is made of plastic.
Another neat part of the conference are the free certification exams. With two sessions on Sunday allowing everyone registered to try their hand at passing an exam I'm excited to see the numbers on new CSWPs. Those who did pass are of course invited to the CSWP event held tomorrow (Monday) night.
The exam sessions are mainly to get people up to the CSWA and CSWP level but there was also an option to try one of the advanced exams. Again, I'm still unsure on the numbers for who took and passed each section but an unscientific survey of glancing at badges looking for the CSWP tag it seems that there are more certified users here than in the past.
I know I'm all over the place in this post, but that is what Sunday is. Without breakout sessions and the general session to draw the crowd, Sunday is more low key. Round tables, one on one meetings, the start to the partner pavilion and kickoff parties for the User group and Tweetup occupied the rest of my day. One of the more interesting booths right off was Solido. I was turned onto Solido thanks to a post by Josh Mings (Solidsmack) and then by the John Dixon who runs the Solido twitter account (@SolidoUSA). John was excited to show me the new pricing for their system which is just starting to get to the point where it is a viable option for hobbyists looking for 3d Prints of their own.
As a sign off for Sunday I want to try pushing Twitter on those of you who haven't crossed over yet. The overwhelming consensus from Tweeps at this conference has been that Twitter as a service is great for this industry. Information, instant help, links to knowledge, and good old networking are the most obvious reasons to get on Twitter, but if you're truly into it a customized shirt will really showoff your geek status, below is @RickyJordan sporting his. If you're new to it, try searching for the #Sww10 hashtag or following me at @CbMcandrew.Things will really get going in the morning with Jeff Ray's keynote (Hey Jeff, give me a shoutout!). Thanks again to everyone I got to meet today and I'm sorry if I forget your name/face in the coming days, and if I haven't yet met you don't be afraid to say hello.

Enjoy the World.