Last week, when I was working out at the gym, one of my buddies who had just read my new novel, Mindset, came up to me and asked, “Hey Steve, how the heck did you come up with the idea?”
My first thought was, “did you like it,” but then I remembered that I had already been asked “How” several other times over the last two weeks.
So, I decided to document “How” Mindset came about.
In 2013, I started writing another sci-fi novel, that is still not finished. One night I tried to use my phone for voice-to-text translation to record a couple key points. This process failed miserably and it prompted the thought, “wouldn’t it be awesome if someone could just think and the text would appear on the screen.”
Mindset Prototype Designed in 3D CAD.
This thought wouldn’t go away. I started to have dreams about it and slowly it evolved in my mind into a story. So I started typing, (wish I had a Mindset at the time 🙂 ) and the story seemed to write itself. The problem was that I did not have a name for the Bluetooth headset device I had created in the book. Then around the middle of 2014, I was at my cousin’s house in San Diego and I mentioned the story to him and my failure to come up with a name for the headset. In only about 2 seconds flat, he replied, “It’s a Mindset,” and immediately I knew that’s what it was.
As I got deeper into writing the story, it required me to really put in some solid research into how Electroencephalogram (EEG) technology works. I also began to consider how the device should be designed and worn on the head.
Fortunately, having been a Design Engineer and robotics programmer for many years, I fired up some 3D CAD software and slowly designed the Mindset, incorporating the letter M into its radical shape. The material I chose was supposed to be a virtually unbreakable titanium composite that contains light-emitting diodes that emanate a blue light, almost like a halo effect, when in use. The solid CAD model I created was then later used inside the initial marketing video trailer.
I love it when something you didn’t even plan comes together.
Author Stephen Sadler 