lightning talks

6 Articles

The Long And The Short Of It

April 20, 2024 by 10 Comments

Last weekend was Hackaday Europe 2024, and it was great. Besides having some time to catch up with everyone, see some fun new badge hacks, and of course all the projects that folks brought along, I also had time to attend most all of the talks. And the talks were split into two distinct sections: long-format talks on Saturday and a two-hour session of seven-minute lightning talks on Sunday.

I don’t know if it’s our short attention spans, or the wide range of topics in a short period of time, but a number of people came up after the fact and said that they really appreciated the short-but-sweet format. One heretic even went so far as to suggest that we only have lightning talks in the future.

Well, we’ve done that before – the Hackaday Unconferences. One year, we even ran three of them simultaneously! I was at Hackaday’s London Unconference the year later, and it was a blast.

But I absolutely appreciate the longer talks too. Sometimes, you just have to give a speaker free rein to dig really deeply into a topic. When the scope of the project warrants it, there’s just no substitute for letting someone tell the whole story. So I see a place for both!

If you were at Hackaday Europe, or any other conference with a lightning talks track, what do you think? Long or short? Or a good mix?

This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!

Hackaday Berlin: Final Schedule, Last Call For Tickets, And More

March 16, 2023 by 1 Comment

Hackaday Berlin is just about a week away, and we’ve just put the finishing touches on our preparations. And that includes a snazzy landing page, the full schedule, details on the Friday night meetup, and more.

We’ll be meeting up Friday the 24th at 19:00 at DogTap / Brew Dog, Im Marienpark 23 for an ice breaker. This is a great time to unwind from your travels, catch up with old friends, and start getting into gear for the days ahead.

Saturday the 25th starts off at 9:30, you’ll get your badge and schwag bag, and have some breakfast. Then it’s talks, workshops, lightning talks, badge hacking, food and music until the wee hours.

Sunday morning starts up again at 11:00, but it’ll feel like 10:00 due to Daylight Savings time. We’ll have brunch, show off whatever cool hacks you’ve brought along, and just generally chill out into the afternoon. Some people are planning to go sightseeing around Berlin afterwards, so if that’s your thing, you’re in good company.

For any chat related to Hackaday Berlin, we have a not-so-cryptically named #Berlin channel over on the Hackaday Discord server.

There are still a few tickets left, so you procrastinators, now’s your time to snap them up. All the rest of you, put those finishing touches on whatever you’re bringing with you, and we’ll see you next week!

(Oh, and press the play button on the landing page.)

Thor does battle with a man shooting lasers from his hands

Hackaday Berlin: In Praise Of Lightning Talks

February 11, 2023 by 9 Comments

We’re in full-on prep mode for our first event in Europe in four years: Hackaday Berlin. And while we’ve got a great slate of speakers lined up, and to be announced soon, I’m personally most excited for the lightning talks.

Why? Because the lightning talks give you all, the attendees, the chance to get up and let everyone know what you’re up to. They’re longer than an elevator pitch, so you have time to at least start to explain the most interesting detail or two, but they’re not long enough that you can cover every aspect of a project. And that’s the trick!

By being short enough that you couldn’t possibly cover everything, you don’t need to worry about covering everything. Just go for the highlights. And because you left a lot of the interesting details back, everyone in the audience is going to want to bend your ear about it for the rest of the conference. It’s like the ultimate icebreaker.

For the audience? Lightning talks, when they’re good, are like a fountain of non-stop great ideas and inspiration. And if you happen on that just doesn’t tickle your hacker-bone, it’s probably over in another five minutes, so no worries.

We didn’t have time to run a full-on call for proposals for Berlin, but we’re hoping that you’ll ride the lightning. We’d all love to hear what you’ve got to say!

This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!

Come Join Us For Hackaday Berlin!

February 7, 2023 by 54 Comments

It’s been far too long since we’ve had an event in Europe, and we’re going to fix that right now. Hackaday Berlin 2023 will be a day-long conference full of great talks, badge hacking, music, art, madness, and gathering with your favorite hackers on Saturday, March 25.

But it doesn’t stop there. We’ll have a pre-event party Friday night, and then a bring-a-hack brunch on Sunday with further opportunities to show off whatever projects you’re bringing along, hack some more on the badge, wind down, and/or play together. So if your travel plans allow it, come in Friday mid-day and don’t schedule your return ticket until Sunday evening.

Cutting to the chase: early bird tickets are on sale right now, so go get one! But even if you miss out on those, and they’ll go like hotcakes, the regular tickets are well worth it. Everything is fully catered, the badge and the swag are phenomenal, and the talks will be first-rate.

Last time we were in Europe, the party went on until 2 AM!

Saturday’s main events will include a handful of fantastic invited guest talks, but also a few hours of Lightning Talks given by you – yes, you! If you’ve never attended a lightning talk, you get seven minutes to run through one of your favorite projects. We want to know what’s on your workbench right now, what new skills you’ve been teaching yourself, or the groundwork you’ve been laying for the next big project. It’s your chance to inspire everyone in the room – grab it.

Everyone asked us to do a second run of the 2022 Hackaday Supercon badge, and now we’ve got the perfect excuse! Designed by Voja Antonic, the badge is a standalone retrocomputer in the style of an Altair or similar, but it’s much more. Between blinking LEDs that display everything going on, down to the gates in the ALU, and a trimmed-down machine language, it’s an invitation to get deeply in touch with the machine. If you felt left out because you couldn’t travel to Pasadena last November, here’s your second chance.

And then there’s the crowd. Hackaday really is a global community of hackers, and Hackaday events tend to bring out the best. Even if you’re not planning to give a lightning talk (and you should!) be prepared to talk about what you’re doing, because everyone else there is just as interested in cool projects as you are. Hackaday Berlin will be a great opportunity to connect and reconnect with new and old friends alike. Come join us!

We’ll be following up with a speaker announcement next week, but if you have any questions, let us know in the comments below. Otherwise, we’ll see you in Berlin.

Hackaday Los Angeles Event: Develop Your Hacking Superpowers

April 20, 2015 by 4 Comments

When we get together we like to build stuff, and that’s what has been motivating us as we work toward Hackaday Prize Worldwide: Pasadena. This two-day event held May 9th and 10th in the Los Angeles area is not to be missed. We are presenting a workshop, speakers, hacking, and socializing. Drop what you’re doing and get a ticket for the low-low price of being an awesome person.

On Saturday the ninth, Hackaday opens our doors for the workshop: “Zero to Product”. [Matt Berggren] leads the workshop. He is well known for running the Hardware Developer’s Didactic Galactic up in San Francisco (a meetup that we love to attend). [Matt] comes from a hardware design background and has done it all. He’s been involved in building schematic and PCB tools, been run through the startup gauntlet, and has a ton of hardware experience including everything from FPGA layout to getting that product out the door.

The workshop covers the things you need to consider when producing production-quality, professional-level circuit boards. Don’t be afraid of this, the discussion is approachable for the newcomer as well as the experienced hacker. Of course a PCB does not a product make so the conversation will also move through component selection, enclosures, best practices, and much more.

You Can’t Miss these Talks

 

judge-thumb-White[Elecia White]

[Elecia] is an embedded systems expert and a Hackaday Prize judge in both 2014 and 2015. Elecia will be demonstrating a gadget designed to familiarize engineers with the capabilities of inertial various sensors like accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers.

[Samy Kamkar]

[Samy] is a privacy and security researcher, has had a number of projects featured on Hackaday. The most notable in our minds is the wireless keyboard sniffer he built into a cellphone charger. He’ll be discussing that build as well as some other projects like his drone army.

We do have a few other speakers and lighting talks lined up but we don’t want to announce until we have final confirmation from those presenters. Please check on the event page for updates.

Show Off Your Hacks and Build More On-Site

 

build
The robot build at Hackady’s 10th Anniversary last October

We have the space, we have the people, add some food and beverage and now you’re talking. On Saturday evening we’ll warp up the talks and workshops, throw on some tunes, and pull out the projects we’ve been working in our spare time.

This casual hang-out is a great time to find answers and advice for that one problem that’s been tripping you up. We’ll make sure there’s something to fill your belly and keep you happy while you think about what you want to hack on the following day.

Sunday is Open Hack Day. Want to work on the concepts you picked up from Saturday’s workshop? Great, we can help with that! We’ll also have hardware development boards on-hand from our Hackaday Prize Sponsors, other random hackable stuff, and of course you may bring your own equipment and get down to business. Anything is fair game but we’re especially excited to see what people are building as their 2015 Hackaday Prize entries!

In case you missed the ticket link, please RSVP now. We’ll see you in May!

The 2015 Hackaday Prize is sponsored by:

San Francisco Hackaday Hang This Thursday

February 4, 2015 by 54 Comments

This Thursday a bunch of us are going to be in San Francisco. Come join in for some after-work drinks!

Part of the crew that builds the Hackaday.io platform is located in San Francisco and we’re in town working with them. This happens to be just about the time that the 2014 Hackaday Omnibus will start shipping. Come celebrate with us! We’ve been inviting people on social media and are ecstatic about the guest list. We don’t want to call everyone out since this is a casual thing. But for instance, [Brian] somehow got connected with [Dave Grossman] who co-wrote The Secret of Monkey Island and he’s giving one of the lightning talks. You don’t want to miss this!

Leave a comment below using a valid email and we’ll send you an invite with the details.