A ThereminGoat x SwitchOddities TWCKM Retrospective
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a pretty lucky one when it comes to getting access to switches. While I am sure that this is due in no small part to the switch reviews, force curves, and outstanding mountain of content that I’ve thrown together over the years, the combination of direct messaging with manufacturers, video calls with vendors, and mysterious prototype packages showing up to my door unasked for all still do feel like they’re driven by ‘luck’ more than anything else. A decent reason for this belief is my acceptance that all of these things are entirely accessible to the average keyboard enthusiast. Believe it or not, you or any other person in the hobby are more than capable of finding yourself in these positions too with the right amount of work and connections. Though despite any amount of elbow grease you put in or late nights that you’ll pull in order to get there, there is one place I’ve been privileged to access that you almost certainly won’t be able to get to - SwitchOddities’ couch. For three consecutive years now I’ve had the chance to crash at SwitchOddities headquarters (aka MechanicalBionicle’s house) before, during, and after Chicago’s That Windy City Keeb Meetup and there’s an untold number of stories that can be shared from those trips over the years. Though, that’s not to say that this is the only thing that we get up to either. In fact there’s a decent amount of work that goes into both myself and SwitchOddities showing up in force every year and rarely does it ever get shared when people at the meetup ask us what we’ve been up to. Thinking about this a bit more deeply during this very last meetup a handful of weekends ago, and also the fact that seemingly nobody in the hobby writes ‘meetup reports’ anymore, I figured it would be worth the short little write up to share what all goes into a meetup weekend with SwitchOddities an ThereminGoat and some of the very neat switches we shared and talked about over this most recent trip.
Figure 1: Whether or not you believe it, this was only about half the meetup too!
The first, last, and arguably most essential component to any good meetup weekend is a great selection of food. With me living over near Cleveland, Ohio, which is somewhere between a 6 and 8 hour road trip (by road time and not accounting for the time change either) from SwitchOddities’ location in Chicago, I don’t normally end up rolling into town until pretty late in the day on the Friday night before the meetup. In order to celebrate my arrival and continued success in surviving driving through The Loop, we always end up going out almost immediately for a good meal… and a lot of drinks. While this year we took everything a bit lighter and only split a handful of beers at a grilled cheese bar, previous years have seen us crash local watering holes of different shapes and sizes way too late into the night - getting at least enough drinks that I’m no longer able to remember what exists on the menu. Throughout the entirety of this time as well we are often talking about switches, things going on in the hobby, or the weird intersections and overlaps between content creation and running a switch selling store. After getting all of the food and drink we can handle into us, and thoroughly boring Mrs. Bionicle who always tags along with us, we eventually stumble back to headquarters to continue more conversations about switches and eventually showing off some of the fun stuff we’ve brought together. Last year this first night consisted of sharing the AEBoards Naevy EC/Raed HE prototypes, miscellaneous TKC prototypes, and proof of the Invokeys Reserve switches all in preparation for our panel talk ‘The Untold Tales of Unsold Switches’. This year it was just me sharing a grip of BSUN prototypes, some more Invokeys prototypes, a Cherry MX Lock for MechanicalBionicle’s personal collection, and some other fun switches for this year’s Oddvent calendars. (I also do seem to recall one year me drunkenly sorting something like 20 lbs of fruit slices, but I can’t remember which one that was.) All of this, of course, is often being done in parallel of packing up, stacking crates, and preparing both of us to load up two or three car’s worth of inventory and switches first thing in the morning. Needless to say we don’t get a full 8 hours of sleep before the meetup like we should.
Figure 2: $12, full of steak and cheese, and literally hot off the grill to make all the traffic well worth it.
Figure 3: Tubbs, the only SwitchOddities staff member that doesn't attend meetups, inspecting a large chunk of what travels to the meetups every year.
The Saturday mornings of That Windy City Keeb Meetup days are always a rough one, though not solely for the hangovers that you can clearly imagine we have. Even though I was at least lucky enough to dodge one this year, there’s still all of the preparation and car loading that has to be done. As well, the SwitchOddities household is not one for breakfast either - they’re a ‘coffee and stare directly into the sun until you’re wide awake’ sort of household. Even Tubbs, the third full time employee of SwitchOddities HQ, is much the same way despite being a cat. Starting no later than 8 AM we begin the long process of hauling hundreds of pounds of switches down multiple flight of stairs to their vehicles - stacking up all of the store’s inventory of switches, bulk boards, fidget toys, more than enough fruit slices for the entire meetup, and then MechanicalBionicle’s entire personal switch collection as well. Anything I bring also gets the same treatment as well, which has ranged from just a box or two to the entire switch collection over the years. The short drive over to Saint Xavier University where the meetup is held is really the only reprieve left in the rest of the day as we start setting up not only the meetup but the entirety of the SwitchOddities store at 9:30 AM, get prepared for doors to open at 11:00 AM, and then begin a very fun, packed day of a meetup. This is usually where SwitchOddities and I part ways a bit, though only because we’re both separately crazy busy on our own. This year both Mr. and Mrs. Bionicle were running the store throughout the entirety of the meetup while I volunteered, had a panel talk of my own, met and talked to more than a handful of you reading this right now, and then exchanged conversations, stories, and gifts what felt like each and every person at the meetup. In previous years I’ve brought snacks and drinks from Ohio to give out to people and in return I’ve been gifted switches, socks (yes seriously), drinks of my own, keycaps, and seemingly everything in between. While the meetups are always a sincerely fun and enjoyable time, it feels like I blink a couple of times and skip through dozens upon dozens of conversations, talks, panels, volunteering, giveaways, and it’s 4 PM again. The entire process unfolding gets carried out in reverse and the switches get re-packaged up, diven back across town, and then carried back up into his place stair by stair.
Figure 4: Just the trunk of the first car with boards, bulk switches, and a small portion of the store inventory.
Figure 5: Just the first layer of the second car with each of these containing switches for the store. (I was too tired after finishing this row and stacking stuff on top of it all to remember to get a second photo.
Figure 6: The collection, the store, and even more inventory all laid out in an approximately 12 foot long space at the meetup. There's even more signs and loose stuff that went out after this photo!
Once we’ve sufficiently collapsed into a pile of exhaustion, with Tubbs judging us from atop the switch boxes strewn everywhere from the return, this is when this most recent meetup got really exciting. Shortly after chips, salsa, a few beers, and a burrito we dodged any sort of afterparties and late night ice cream runs to begin working through one of SwitchOddities’ personal/store orders of switches. And what does that look like, you might ask? Well, it’s about a 50-60 lb box of switches that contain everything from full keyboards to be harvested, odds and ends for this year’s Oddvent calendar, dozens upon dozens of brand new switches for the store, and even a custom order of singles from a Chinese single switch seller for both MechanicalBionicle and I to sort through for our own personal collections. To say that this box had it all would be putting it lightly. To you all who weren’t there to witness it firsthand, it contained switches really nobody else outside of China has ever seen before, switches that won’t be listed on SwitchOddities for a couple of months yet, and even some switches that have genuinely stumped both him and I as to how they actually work. While the meetups themselves are fun and both SwitchOddities and I do love the chance to interact with fans and customers, I imagine it’s nights like this one that have us excited to reconnect and save up switches each and every year. Given just how massive the switch haul was this year, I figured it would be worth not only sharing a few of them with you all, but also perhaps humanizing us a bit and understanding why we just seem so chaotic and busy every single year. I honestly couldn’t tell you how late we were up through the night sorting all of these switches out, though I can promise you I definitely felt it on the journey back across the Midwest the next morning though. All of the work was definitely worth it and if next year is even a fraction as fun as this one I can’t wait for TWCKM 2026!
Note from SwitchOddities: What follows are samples for our personal collections and not planned to come to the store, although most of them are from YSYSwitches if you want to go looking for them yourselves.
Figure 7: Literally just piles of singles, measurement sets, and even some fun OddVent Calendar teasers I purchased ahead of time that went home with me!
Figure 8: Just some of the Invokeys prototypes I brought along to share in return...
Figure 9: A very colorful set of the older Huano Sea Glass switches.
Figure 10: Fondant Pink Powder, EpicGear Violet, and HaiMu Crane Top switches showing off some of the new and fun aesthetic details being crammed into the MX footprint.
Figure 11: Pi switches from Outemu featuring gorgeous silver and gold metallic embossing on the top housings.
Figure 12: Oh yeah, I forgot about these... Turns out Rantopad Blues are actually real after all. But that's not even the craziest thing because...
Figure 13: ... it turns out that Rantopad Pale Blues exist too.