After having such a great time at the linux.conf.au Open Hardware Miniconfs over the year, and missing them after the last one where I built those badges, I somehow missed a local-enough Hackaday Supercon that had been going on for years. Oh noes!
It was very cool that I got to wear my LCA SAO badges for the first time:
Thanks to Anthony for letting me know about it, and I was able to attend. Went there early on friday for the pre-conf to work on the badges:
the conference badge was this 6 port micropython rPi micro with a couple of SAOs.
they nicely provided food all 3 days
essential geek survival food :)
They gave us a quick primer on how the badge worked, although it would have been better on a webpage with links and info for total beginners who had never used micropython and thorny or knew what thorny was (that included me):
I'm glad I took pictures of these slides, they only made sense many hours later. They should have been online
finding fellow LED geeks :)
learning blinkies for beginners, scan this
While I was there, I 9ound out they had a wonderful 4 bit computer some years back. I actually really regret not having been there that year, programming that in hand crafted assembly would have been epic:
someone hacked a basic I2C on it
people now hard at work
I used the opportunity to bring previous LCA toys and show them off (and fix a few)
Also, finally got to meet Henner Zeller, the rpi-rgb-panels author I've been working online with for years:
epic watch!
Also got to meet Daryll Strauss from precision insight, later acquired by VA Linux some 25+ years ago:
People still hacking at night:
I was lit up enough not to get lost :)
Day 2-3, Saturday & Sunday
Saturday and Sunday were the main conference days:
went to attend a few talks
hacking radio sound and B&W video from a chip, super cool!
learned about an online microcontroller emulator, wokwi, very nice
I got to see a pick and place machine, nice to see them work:
this is what the machine was 'printing'
I tried the SMD challenge, that was hard as hell:
we got old and fat irons, making things harder :)
I couldn't get the last 2 LEDs working, they were so stupidly small
I had someone help me fix mine :)
and they all worked, thank you to the master solderer!
added the result on my badge :)
Random fun shots :)
people hard at work
During the weekend, the SAO wall got populated:
Fun to see this SAO based on this burning man sign
Original from Burning Man
more and more
and more :)
Saturday evening party had a nice real time AI image generator:
some were far out :)
The conf ended with a presentation of best SAOs:
This guy won the contest of biggest SAO, he had a printer working off USB, run by his SAO
Sunday ended with a party at a bar, thankfully I had my battery soldering iron :)
This was loads of fun, and I definitely learned some good stuff. Sad I didn't go earlier but glad I went this year. Thanks bunch to all the organizers and attendeers who contributed!
More pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2hYRaaB5dF5mvv4N8
