‘Tis the season! The holidays are here, and even though SSP Innovations Software Consultants are a unique bunch, we love getting gifts just like everyone else! So I invite you to use my holiday wishlist for developers to find the perfect idea for the developer in your life. These may be items I picked myself, but each of them resonates highly among the SSP team in our Denver office. Here’s a peek at what we’re wishing for this season.
1) Spikeball
Spikeball is a unique game that is most comparable to volleyball. You play with two players to a team, and two teams play at once. Similar to having three hits per team in volleyball, you and your partner have three hits to get the ball to the other team. The difference is that you aren’t hitting the ball over a net. You’re hitting the ball directly into the net. To play, you spike your ball into the net, then wait for the the opposing team to return it off the bounce. The craziest part is that after the initial serve, the game is played in 360-degrees, meaning anyone from any team can go anywhere at any point. Yeah, that’s right. It makes our heads swirl too, and we love using our office Spikeball game to clear our heads. The only downside is this is an outdoor game, so we can’t play Spikeball much after the first Denver snow. Except for those crazy days when we find four people willing to go outside, as evidenced by the image to the right. 🙂
2) Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is one of the coolest devices that a developer can play with. The cool thing about Raspberry Pi is that you can do almost anything with it. Raspberry Pi is a device that can be turned into almost anything, if you know what you’re doing. I’ve seen developers use it to build robots, phones, toys, drones, and tons of other crazy projects. One of our software consultants at SSP, Colton, created “Paddlebot” to automatically track our office ping pong scores in Slack!
3) NES Classic
A lot of the members of the SSP developers family are big gamers. Personally, gaming is one of my biggest hobbies. I grew up playing Nintendo, and I still think Nintendo games are some of the best ones ever made. When Nintendo announced this product, NES Classic, I was instantly sold. However, the NES Classic is in very high demand right now, so finding one may be difficult. Nintendo has said that they will be restocking by the holidays, but you may have to keep your eyes peeled both online and in stores to get your hands on one of these. They seem to sell out almost as quickly as they get restocked.
Here’s a picture from one of our gaming nights at SSP, playing not the NES Classic, but some old-school Nintendo 64 games we got ahold of!
4) Personal Ping Pong Paddle
Ping pong is a huge staple of the software development community. This is especially the case at SSP. In our office, we have a room dedicated solely to ping pong. In Slack, we track all our scores in a special channel. At our holiday party, right around the corner now as we near the end of 2016, our annual year-end ping-pong tournament is going to happen. That means it’s as important as ever to have a reliable paddle to play with — which often means investing in your own. Using office paddles is fine, but you’ll usually have to switch paddles each game, preventing you from maintaining muscle memory for your shots and opening the risk of over- or undercompensating both your spin and power. The most devoted developers invest in their own personal paddles and avoid the “house paddles” at all stops. Buying your developer a high-quality ping pong paddle, if their office plays, can serve as a sign of true thoughtfulness toward your SOD (significant other developer).
5) Coffee Mug
Let’s face it: More than half of our office — and probably yours — drinks coffee daily. At SSP, we often run out of the community kithcen mugs by mid-week. Having your own coffee mug is an easy way to ensure that you are always fueled to take on the day. This SSP Innovations mug at the right always makes me smile, as it remains one of my personal favorites — when I can get ahold of it.
6) Code Deck
This wishlist item might work as more of a stocking stuffer, but it’s still awesome regardless of its size. The Code Deck card games comes with a full stack of cards, with a special twist for the nerdiest developers. Each card features a code snippet — in a different language — that describes the card. That’s right: there are dozens of developing languages represented on these cards. The Code Deck makes for an inexpensive gift idea with a ton of novelty and heart. If your developer’s company and friends are anything like ours, this deck would make the perfect gift. At SSP, we take all opportunities to open a friendly game of poker, like this game from our SSP Cruise earlier this year.
7) Headphones (3 Links Below)
As a developer, sometimes you need to just buckle down and finish your code. Peronally, I struggle with getting distracted by conversations in the office. Being able to block out noise with music and focus on your task is a great way to increase productivity at work. Of course, everyone’s headphone preferences are different! I asked two very different developers to give me their top headphone brands for the office. Here is what they and I recommend.
 |
|
|
SSP Software Consultant John Coleman: LG Electronics Tone Pro HBS-750 Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Headset |
 |
 |
8) Rubik’s Cube
This Rubik’s cube is probably the smoothest cube I’ve ever had, which makes it very easy to play with. I use this almost daily, providing a great, short five-minute break from coding when I get stuck. Solving the cube is easy once you know the algorithms, and after you have the muscle memory down it really doesn’t take much brain power. This cube is the smoothest one I have ever used, and I highly recommend it.
So there you have it: A glimpse into the life at SSP, and some pretty good gift ideas based on this holiday wishlist for developers.
Interested in joining the SSP family and playing some Spikeball in between codefests? See what positions are currently open.
What do you think?