Swift Student Challenge with Dezmond Blair

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Leo Dion (host) (00:00):
Hey folks.

(00:00):
Before we begin today's episode,I wanted to let you know I'm
open to new opportunitiesthis summer and fall of 2024.
If you're looking for someone who hasan expertise in swift, whether it's
iOS, watchOS, tv, vision, Mac Os, orServer side, swift, reach out to me.
You can find me@brightdigit.com and youcan reach out to me there, or you can

(00:24):
just email me at leo@brightdigit.com.
Thank you so much, and I hope youenjoy the rest of today's episode.
Welcome to anotherepisode of Empower Apps.
I'm your host, Leo Deanne.
Today I'm joined by Desmond Blair.
Desmond, thank you somuch for coming on.

Dezmond Blair (guest) (00:44):
Leo, thank you for having me.
I'm super excited to be here today.

Congratulations on your Swift Student Challenge.
Win.
You have been working through theApple Developer Academy and you had
an exciting time at Dub Dub, and sotoday I just wanted to talk a little
bit about your experience there.
But before we begin, I'll let yougo ahead and introduce yourself.

Okay.
Sounds good.
So as you guys know, my name is Desmond.
I have been in computerscience for about a year now.
Mostly working in app development.
When I was about 21, Iwent into computer science.
I received my associate's degree.
From there, I transitionedto development or sorry,
I transitioned to it.

(01:28):
Did that for a time, realizedit wasn't for me, and thankfully
found out about the AppleDeveloper Academy where I am now.
And have spent the last 10months doing app development.

Awesome.
So let's start off by talking aboutit was interesting you said you did
it and then that was it for you.
And then you went to do you wantedto join the Apple Developer Academy.
What was the decision?
I.
How'd you come to that decisionand what was the big difference,
between what your, IT work you weredoing and the swift work you were
doing at Apple Developer Academy?

Yeah, of course.
There was a big difference actually.
I was doing it contracting for sometime and I realized as much as I
love helping people, and as muchas I love doing what I'm doing, I,
I felt creatively what's the word?
Just like I couldn't express myself,everything was always done by the
book, by the rules, and you have togo step by step with a lot of people

(02:20):
to make sure you know why this isn'tworking and helping people fix stuff.
I realized that, like I said, I wasn'treally expressing myself creatively.
And because I had a degree inprogramming already, I figured,
let me look for different options.
Let me look for different optionswhere I can express myself and
where I might be able to actuallystart developing things and making

(02:41):
projects that could, help people.
Thankfully I got acceptedinto the academy.
There is a one month program it'scalled the Foundations Program, and
that's actually what I'm teaching now.
However, for the Foundations program,it's just a one month version of
it to see if it's right for you.
Through that one month program, I gotto work with some really amazing people.
Built an app called Reminiscent.

(03:01):
And from there, like I said, my, myjourney's just been all, all iOS.

Um, so in case people were wondering, you're in Detroit
we're specifically talking about theApple Developer Academy in Detroit.
We were just talking before the show,how I had Sarah on Sarah Greter on a
couple of years ago talking about it.
What was your biggest surprise?
I guess getting into the AppleDeveloper Academy and that experience.

Yeah.
And just so I can clarify forthe audience too about what the
program is and kinda what we dothere it is a 10 month course.
Meant to train you to becomea world class developer as the
Gilbert Family Foundation puts it.
So we spent the last 10months doing six challenges.
Each challenge, we are creating an app.
They don't have to go on the app store.
However, these apps are whatyou use for your portfolios.

(03:47):
All these projects, you're workingwith different people constantly,
and you always have a great team ofmentors who are there to help you
during every step of the process.
And when I first did the foundationsprogram and I was introduced into
this environment, I, I was enamored.
Honestly, I, I had not seensuch passionate people in
such a great big space before.
And having that and seeing that passionfrom everyone else really is what

(04:09):
inspired me to continue in this journey.

So what, I'm almost curious, what were like the first things
that you learned or what were, whatwere the first big challenges that you
faced getting into iOS development?
I.

I'm lucky enough that we offer
this program here in Detroit.
However, my, my biggestchallenge was self-learning at
the Apple Developer Academy, I.
And all the academies around theworld, what's, what's really pushed
is CBL challenge-based learning.
And so the mentors aren't thereto hold your hands or teach
you these complicated topics.
They're there merely to guide youin the correct direction to find

(04:48):
out more about certain topics.

Okay.
Interesting.

and so a lot of it came to my own self-discipline,
my own learning, and really.
Taking outta the program,what I put into it.
And that's, that's something allthe mentors would say as well.
You get out of this program,what you put into it.
And so even past my learning thereat the academy with the 10 month
course, I also decided to joina bootcamp on top of this course

(05:13):
just so that I could further myeducation in an iOS development.
Yes.
And two, two bootcamps.

what was the other bootcamp, if you mind me asking?

Yeah, so the first one I did was the
iOS accelerator course from anorganization called Code Echo.
And the next month afterthat, they actually started
the first Vision Os Bootcamp.
And so literally right after doing theiOS accelerator I jumped into Vision Os.

What was your aha moment or like the moment
that amazed you re in regardsto doing iOS development?

One of my big moments was actually the
first challenge that we did.
So after doing the foundationscourse and then getting into that
10 month course and doing our firstchallenge, I got to work with some
really passionate people a reallygreat team who let me take charge
on the direction of the development.
What we ended up doing was like areally nice app for academy learners

(06:06):
where they could then see all of theirfellow students see their class roster.
All in a beautiful deck of cards.
Organized as a contact list would be.

Nice.

Yeah.

Let's get a little bit more into what your
interests are as far as in IOS.
What are some things that you think,as somebody new to this what are some,
some concepts or APIs that you'relike, man, I wish I saw more of that.
Or, I think there should be moreof that, either from the app what's

(06:37):
on the app store or from as faras educational material out there.
Does that make sense?

Yes.
I, I, I think I see what you're saying.
Because I had a, I had a significantproblem also finding different
learning resources prior todoing those bootcamp learnings.
And so what I would've liked to seemore of is actually something that I
did a lot of the Swift Playgrounds.
They were a really great resourcefor me to get in and start learning
as they have a lot of greatbeginner content for someone who's

(07:04):
never coded before in their life.
Or for someone who is like metransitioning from a coding degree.
However, I've neverlearned Swift before.
And so what I did was the get startedwith apps course on playgrounds,
and that's really what enlightenedme on the different capabilities of
what we can do in the iOS ecosystem.
I'd like to see more people playingwith kind of the different animations

(07:27):
and stuff that are availablein courses like that because I
feel like it's underutilized ina lot of the apps that we use.
And the ones that do it rightare the ones that succeed,
for example, Duolingo.
Their animations are smooth, clean,beautiful, and people rely on this app
merely for those animations alone, so

Where do you see playgrounds in the learning experience?
Because as you probably noticed,there's certain limitations as far
as what you can do in playgrounds.
Do you think they're like goodfor, do you think they're just good
for like raw educational material?
Because there is some stuff you can doon playgrounds as far as like creating.
I don't know, like a playgroundsfile that you can deliver and

(08:07):
show people how to do stuff, if

yeah, no, I know exactly what you mean.
And that's a really great partof the Apple Developer Academy
as well, is just past those.
So to answer your question first,playgrounds is a great first step.
I think that's like where youget your feet wet before you,
dive into the world of iOS.
And with, being a part of the AppleDeveloper Academy, we had mentors
who would create those customplaygrounds to excel our learning.

(08:31):
Those are what really helpedme in my journey at least, to
thinking of myself as a developer.
They would include little challengesin there, kind of like, like lead
code challenges and stuff like that.
I.
That when I did it, and without thehelp of, internet or anyone else I, I
truly did feel like a, a good programmerat the time, because I was able to
solve those challenges and solve thoseproblems without, any assistance.

I, I do wanna keep talking about playgrounds 'cause it
interests me as an educational tool.
How far do you think one canget in playgrounds before
one just needs to start?
I.
Getting into X code when it comesto learning app development.

Leo, I'll be honest with you, I for the foundations,
that one month course, I coded myentire app in Swift Playgrounds.

That's awesome.

honestly, yeah, I, I think that was production ready.
And so I, I think there's a lotof capabilities just as long
as you have somewhere to start,somewhere nice and easy to start

Oh yeah.
'cause like X code is overwhelming.
And I also feel like when Iwant to teach somebody like.

I had something I wanted to add on to the fact that you
said about the about Xcode specifically.

Yeah, go ahead.
What were you gonna say?

It's part of my course actually to
teach Xcode to the students aspart of the foundations program.
And honestly, I, I alwaystell my students like, yo,
just do playgrounds first.
You could, you could code your wholeapp in playgrounds and then just
transition to X code when you're ready,because it is a big learning curve.
Having students who even are alreadycomputer science majors when they see

(09:59):
an environment like Xcode, they're like,this is way different than any other IDE
we've ever worked with, or anything like

Yeah, it is.

it, it, there's actually a learning
curve to just xcode alone.
Which is why I tell my students, juststart with playgrounds, you'll be okay.

Yeah.
So as far as code mentoring, likebesides handholding a little bit
on X code, what did you learn?
What have you learnedfrom that experience?
Now that you're on the otherside of the table, so to speak?
I.

I've definitely learned a lot about about people and
about how much you put into something.
When I see my students, when Isee that passion in them the same
passion, that I had when I first cameinto the program, when I see that
passion in them, it, it elates me.
It, it makes me wantonly the best for them.
And I, I feel really proud for mystudents a lot of the time because

(10:45):
I see them doing such amazing work,in my class, and I'm just, I'm
impressed, I, I end up learningfrom my students sometimes more
than I have on my own journey.

What are you surprised that was a big challenge
teaching your students or mentoringyour students, I should say?

Two things.
One is building relationships.
Part of the foundations courseand part of the developer academy
in general is that you're alwaysgonna be working in groups.
It's a big collaborative effort andgetting people together actually is a
lot harder than I thought it would be.
As far as coding wise we have a prettychallenging curriculum for them.
And so I believe the hardestpart is definitely when we get

(11:23):
to we structure it in week.
So week one is when we're going over theCBL process, helping them find an idea.
Week two, we're going over design,helping them, figure out what
they want the app to look like.
Week three is coding.
When we get to actual development,setting up a backend, setting up
a database solely using swift.
Ends up becoming a big challengefor a lot of the students because

(11:45):
they can't really conceptualizeview models or and swift data
alone isn't really quite there yettowards making stuff like that.
And I've started to introduce thatas a supplement to, view models
and observed environment objects.
However, it's still quite a challengeto, to get front end coders to
learn the backend essentially.

are you writing your backend in?

So like I said, we use only Swift and so we'll use
just a lot of stuff like state objects,environment objects, and if applicable,
then we'll use a Swift data model.

Okay.
When you say backend, you meanlike the data end on the front end?
Not like

Dezmond Blair (guest): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (12:23):
undefined
No, no, no.
We, we definitely, withthe foundations course only
being a month long, we don't.

I was gonna say.

Encourage students to set up something
on the, on the web or use thirdparty frameworks at all, really.

Yeah.
Yeah.

because it becomes very complicated and
it becomes a lot more learningon your, on your own self, to be
able to do something like that.
However, one student we did have set upa Firebase backend for, for their app,
and that was really impressive to see.

Yeah.
Or you could do like one of these mocknode servers that just spits out stuff
from a REST API fake or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What what have, what has, whathave students when they get into
the class, they're like, I wantto make blah, blah, blah app.
What are they mostly saying?
What kind of apps do they want to make?

Mm.
So I'll be honest, I'veseen a lot of budget apps.
I've seen a lot of travel apps.
That's another very common one.
And this all goes throughthat collaborative process.
People get together and all ofthem have all these different
ideas that they wanna work on.
And when they're trying to findone thing that they all wanna
work on, it always ends up beingsomething, what's the word?

(13:34):
I don't, I don't wanna say.
Something, something thatsomeone's already done before.
There's already a billion travelapps, there's already a billion apps
that teach you different languages.
What we do at the academy is we tryto help them use that CBL process to
find a unique problem and then finda solution to that unique problem
so that we're not, so that we're notmaking, the same app over and over.

Like one of the first things you learn when you get into
freelancing is how often people wantto come up with these really great
ideas and it's dude, just take twoseconds to look on the app store.
It's already there.

Yeah.

yeah, it's a little bit hard to communicate that with people who
are really set on their idea, but, yeah.
Was there anything else you wannamention about mentoring that
you really enjoy or are reallysurprised by that experience?

I just wanna say how proud I am of like, the students
that I have worked with already.
It's been a really greatjourney to be in this position
and to be able to mentor.
I've, I've never had an experiencelike this, so being in education
has been a, a big jump for me.
However it was a lot offun, to say the least.
It was a lot of fun.

That's awesome.
That's awesome.
So besides that you were you, youwon the Swift Student Challenge
and congratulations on that.
That's awesome.
And this is specifically for your app.
Is it MBT Extreme?

M-T-B-M-T-B

extreme.
Okay.
Which we'll get into it in alittle bit, but how'd you find,
how'd you find out about thatand what was that process like?
I guess c because I'm not totallyfamiliar with how that works.

Okay.
Yeah, so let me go into contextabout what the Swift Student
Challenge is as well then.
So the SW Student Challenge is ayearly challenge hosted by Apple
themselves, and the idea is to getstudents from around the world.
To join this challenge andsend Apple some of the projects
they've been working on.
And so everyone can apply.
You just have to be a studentat any college and be passionate

(15:36):
about mobile development.
And so being a part of theApple Developer Academy, that's
what gave me the criteria to beable to to apply as a student.
And about halfway throughthe academy, we are about.
Three, four months in at this point,our mentors introduced to us what
the Swiss student challenge was.
I was just like, you, I had no ideawhat it was, what the different

(15:58):
rewards were for doing this.
And so for some time I wrote it offand put it in the back of my brain.
We were working on challenge four orchallenge three or four at the time.
And so me and my team were actuallysuper busy with making our application
and doing whatever we had to do.
N

Right.

now, maybe a week before we had someone one of the design
mentors from Apple actually come in.
And he gave us a great talk aboutthe Swift student Challenge, why
we should do it, and what it meansto Apple themselves when they see
students submitting for this challenge.
And really what they told usis that this is your step one,

(16:35):
to getting a job at Apple like.
If you're submitting to the SwiftStudent Challenge and you have
other engineers reviewing andjudging your, your your projects,
this is what's going to get you astep in the door for most people.
And so when I heard that, I decided tohunker down, take this super serious.

(16:56):
However, I only had about.
Two, three days leftto submit something.
And so I had an idea in my headalready of what I wanted to do.
It was just about making ithappen In that short time span,

And yeah.
What was your idea?
Let's talk about it.

my idea was to bring anyone on a mountain bike with me
or I'm on a mountain bike ride with me.
I love biking.
It's.
One of my passions, I go every weekend.
And so what I wanted was for everyoneto be able to experience that as
well, whether you're from here,from around the world, or can't
even hop on a bike in general.

How long had the Vision Pro, this is a Vision Pro app, right?

This is actually just an AR experience for
the iPhone and the iPad currently.

wow.
Okay.
That's awesome.
So did you have to like deepdive into AR kit and stuff?

Yes, yes.
And quick too, so that Icould create something.
Within those two days,

How was that experience?

it was it was really great actually.
I did the augmented reality playgroundsthat was offered from Apple, and
I got to actually meet the person.
When I went to Dub dub, I got to meetthe man who, I actually made that, that
playgrounds, that Swift Playgrounds,and so him and I got to talk about it.
Yeah, it was really, really cool.
But that, that helped me as well aslooking online just for maybe other

(18:17):
people who have done similar projects.
I don't know if you've seen the Clashof Clans ad, but there's this one
where it was on Facebook for a longtime where you're riding hog rider.
You, you are a hog rider and when youlook down, you can see the little pig
and you can actually use your phoneto look around in the environment.
And that's, that's really where Idrew my main inspiration from, was

That's awesome.

a classic glance.
A

As somebody who's interested in getting into AR
kit, what would you say was thebiggest thing you had to get over?

the biggest hurdle, and I still have it now,
that I am working with Vision Osdevelopment is finding and creating.
3D assets.

Oh, okay.

that has been kind of been, been my main challenge.
In

Do you use like Reality Composer for that or.

Yes.

or what.

Currently mostly just reality Composer Pro.
I had access to an iPad from theacademy with the LIDAR support, and
so all the models that I have createdand have been creating have solely
just been using reality compose orusing object capture specifically.

That's awesome.
So you won, you got to goto ww DC, talk about it.
What was that experience like?

Dezmond Blair (guest): Yeah, of course, of course. (19:33):
undefined
So actually after the challenge we hadabout a couple months downtime, or I,
I'll say one month, I'll say we hadone month downtime for them to, judge
all of the different applications.
Go through and talk about, whothey want as a winner or not.
And I really expected nothing out of it.
Like I said, I only, I only had acouple days to work on this, and

(19:56):
so for my finals submission, Ithrew it in the back of my mind.
I might win, I might get somethingout of it, but I, I didn't expect
anything, like I said, I only had acouple days and didn't think it was the
greatest thing that I'd ever made, so I.
Had no, no idea that it wouldcome to what it came to.
When we got the announcements,we were actually in class.

(20:17):
And so a couple other learners andI were just sitting there refreshing
the site, constantly, constantlytrying to see if, we ended up
as a winner for this challenge.

Yeah.

thankfully my friend Min was around and he told me
that they were uploading the results.
We first seen his, that he was awinner, and we were all super excited.
We were all super pumped.
And I kept refreshing mind.
I didn't see anything at first, andwhen I looked down, I seen a different
screen than what my friend had.
I was like, Hey, this is, I'm, I guessI'm a winner, but it says distinguished.

(20:49):
I, I don't, I'm notsure what this means.
I, we looked down a little bitfurther and it turns out that
Apple themselves wants to flyout 50 other learners as part of
the distinguished winter program.
50 other learners to go to ApplePark see the event, WWDC, and
they had a bunch of special stuffprogrammed, just for us, just for us
50 distinguished learners to go andsee Apple Park on a set schedule.

(21:15):
Oh my gosh, it was incredible.
When we actually got there toCalifornia 49 other learners and
I were all in the same hotel and.
Luckily, my girlfriend and Ihad a couple days extra where we
spent just exploring California.
However, when it came timeto the conference, they had a
set 7:00 AM We had to be on ashuttle going to Apple Park.

(21:36):
The first day we got to explore infiniteLoop, so the original, the original
offices where Steve Jobs himself was.
And that was a really coolexperience because not only did
it set the tone for what theconference was gonna be like for us.
But it really gave us a good ideaof how how appreciated I guess
we were by these people at Apple.

(21:56):
They had everything laid out for us.
Food, water, any you askand they'll deliver it.
They had such a great, amazing teamover there supporting us the whole time.
And so it really, truly feltlike an award ceremony for
us for three days straight.

That's amazing.
Anything in particular that you haven'tmentioned about that experience?

Yes.

blew you away.
Yeah.
Go ahead.

Yeah, we we actually got a couple like
panels from engineers at Apple,so people have been working there
for 10, 20 plus years at Apple.
We got to hear people tell stories aboutSteve Jobs and what it was like working
with him when, he was still with us.
We got to hear the actualpeople who created the Vision

(22:41):
Os product, the Visions Pro.
We got to hear a panel from them goingover how they conceptualized this.
When they were prototyping it, they saidthey had just a room wall to wall with
TVs to try and, simulate what this wouldlook like in an actual environment.
I just thought stuff likethat was just so cool.
Not only that, but daythree we actually got to.

(23:02):
Meet with engineers in our field.
They took a look at our projects,determined kind of what team they'd
wanna send us with, and we got tohave a personal conversation walking
around Apple Park with these engineers.
And I was lucky enough to talkto a couple people from Reality
Kit and Reality Composer andtalk about kind of like what I'm
learning and, put myself out there.

(23:22):
It was such a great experience.
I really can't vouch for it enough.

That's awesome.
Yeah, that sounds like an awesome time.
So what's next for Desmond?
What, what do you wanna work on next?
Or what are you planning on doingthe next come, few months left?
Was there anything from dub, did you,have you had time to even digest what's
come out from Dub dub that you're like,oh, I wanna work on this, or have you,
has you been, has it been too hectic,

i, I'll be honest, it's a bit of both.
I haven't had a lot of time toactually work on this stuff.
However, in my mind I havea lot of ideas of different
projects that I wanna work on.
Specifically regarding vision os.
What I want to do ultimately isuse a lot of tabletop kit there.
That was one thing they announcedthat I was super excited for.
I'm actually a big board game nerdmyself, and so I'm constantly, every

(24:11):
time I go to a party with friends, Ialways got a board game on the ready.
That's quick and easy to play.
And so I have a lot of great ideas ontabletop kit that I know would work
because I've played these games withfriends in an environment where you need
a game that's fast and easy to learn.

Yeah.
What games are you playing right now?

I'm actually getting into a super complicated
one, if you've heard of Warhammer.

Yes.

it's a pretty old game, however, very,
very difficult to pick up.
There's a lot of moving parts and a

How long does it take to set that game up?

oh, dude, like at minimum like an hour to set up, and
that's just getting all your models

of those games.

and.
Reading a book on whateach and every one does.
Like you gotta create squadsand oh my goodness, it's,
it's a bit of a challenge.
However, I'm trying to makesomething like that easier so
that anyone can jump in and learnwhat it's like to play the game.

You've hit it.
If you can make it easier toset up a table with the game.
With Tabletop Kit.
That's where the VR stuff Yeah.
I love touching the things and thecards and the chips and all that
characters, but what if somebodyaccidentally knocks it over, or, yeah.
That's, yeah.

Dezmond Blair (guest): Specifically with War Hammer too. (25:18):
undefined
Like a lot of those modelsget really expensive too.
And, and most people myfriend, actually, this is
a perfect example of this.
They work very hard onpainting the models.
And so you have these plastic models.
You have to sit there and moveeach and every little part.
Painting the inside of the legs orlike the outside of the armor, putting

(25:40):
gold varnish on each and every corner.
And he does it and they look beautiful.
Those are actually some of the modelsthat I used using object capture.
Those were some of the modelsthat I used in the, test app of
this that I've created so far.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I just know War Hammer, I, I believethe story is War Hammer was the
reason why Blistered had to comeup with Warcraft was because they
couldn't get the rights to war Hammer.
And that's where Warcraftand all that stuff came from

Oh,

yeah, that's, that's how.
Yeah.
So there you go.
Back to the day.
Yeah.
Anything else you wanna talkabout before we close out?

I definitely want to add that if you are a student,
and this is something just for anylearner out there, actually any age
as well, if you're interested iniOS development or just programming
in general, I would recommenddoing a Swift student challenge.
Also it's a great opportunityfor you to get yourself out there
and get your projects recognized.

Yeah.

Dezmond Blair (guest): anything else to add? (26:38):
undefined
Other than that, not yet.
I'm working on some otherstuff in my own time.
However, I'd like to start a podcastof my own someday, and so I I'm
actually have something in the workswhere I'm creating a blog first.
It'll start like an email letter.
But until then, not yet.

(26:59):
Not yet.

One thing at a time.
One thing at a time takes years.
Yes.
Desmond, thank you somuch for coming on.
This was fantastic.
Where can people find you online?

Dezmond Blair (guest): You can find me@x.com. (27:09):
undefined
At des does iOS, D-E-Z-D-O-E-S-I-O-S.
You can find me onLinkedIn at Desmond Blair.
That's kinda all thesocials that I really use,

awesome.
It was really great to have you onand talk to you about your experience.
I think a lot of us are just happy foryou and glad to learn a little bit more
about what goes on behind the sceneswith the Swift Student Challenge.
So thank you for that.

Yeah, of course.
Thanks for having me, Leo.
I hope this comes as a goodinspiration to any other students
who are looking forward to workingwith Apple in the future, maybe,
or just into Iowa's development.

People can find me on Twitter at Leo Dion.
My MAs on is Leo G Dion at cIm My company's break digit.
Just go to break digit.com where youcan subscribe to our newsletters.
If you're watching this on YouTube,subscribe and please, and if you're
listening to this on a podcastplayer, please give us a review.
Thank you so much for joining mefor today's episode, and I look

(28:11):
forward to talking to you again.
Bye everybody.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Swift Student Challenge with Dezmond Blair