Everything You’ll Find At The SuperConference

The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is the ultimate hardware con. It will take place on November 5+6, 2016 in Pasadena, California. SuperCon is about hardware creation — everything at this conference is geared toward sharing the knowledge, excitement, experience, and motivations that go into building cutting edge electronics.

We offer you 48 hours packed with 21 talks, 5 workshops, lightning talks, 4 meals, the Hackaday Prize party, a hardware badge hacking competition, a crypto challenge, and a most excellent village of hackers to enjoy it with. For one weekend Pasadena will be the hardware center of the universe. Get your ticket to the Hackaday SuperConference now.

Want to know more? The full list of talks, works, and details about everything else is found below. We do anticipate adding to this massive list of talks and workshops as we receive final confirmation from the presenters not yet listed.

21 Speakers

  • Kwabena W. Agyeman // The Story of OpenMV

    Kwabena W. Agyeman is co-founder and CEO of OpenMV. He studied at Carnegie Mellon University and has a Masters and Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Kwabena started working on OpenMV because he loves computer vision and microcomputers and the OpenMV project is right at that intersection.

  • Akiba // Small Scale Manufacturing

    Akiba is based in Japan and active in the international hardware hacker community. He specializes in product design and manufacturing and teaches what is involved with navigating the factory ecosystem of Shenzhen. When not in Shenzhen, he’s spending time at Hackerfarm, a hackerspace he and some friends founded in rural Japan specializing in agricultural and environmental technology. He runs his own company, FreakLabs, is a research affiliate with MIT Media Lab, and has also been a design consultant to the UN, International Atomic Energy Agency, Google, and various other organizations.

  • Amanda Brief // Consumer Tech for Women isn’t just Hello Kitty Phone Cases

    It was at Berkeley in 2015, where Amanda completed her MEng in IEOR, that she was part of a class project team at the Center for Innovation Technology and Research in the Interest of Society that developed an early prototype of a tampon monitor. This turned into my.Flow, which got picked up by HAX in early 2016, where she and her team devoted themselves to development of a fully functional device that will aggregate data for women everywhere in a way that has never before been possible.

  • Steve Collins // When Things Go Wrong In Space

    Steve Collins is a guidance and control engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Steve was Cruise ACS System Engineer for the Mars Curiosity Rover, and has worked on numerous NASA/JPL missions including Dawn, Deep Impact, MER, DS1, and Galileo. In flight, Steve’s job consists of keeping the spacecraft pointed in the right direction, making trajectory corrections and figuring out “what the heck just happened??”

  • Christal Gordon // Bio-inspired Sensing

    Dr. Christal Gordon is an engineer and educator. She received a dual Electrical and Computer Engineering B.S. from Polytechnic University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (minor in Neuroscience) from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her specialties include designing, prototyping, and programming. She has designed bio-inspired and bio-interfacing systems, high-speed electronics, and models of complex systems. Her work revolves around creating systems for use by the general public, engineers, and neuroscientists. Applications of these systems include low-power consumer electronics and neural prosthesis. She’s passionate about bringing science to the general public.

  • Bil Herd // Building a Home Computer: The March Downfield

    Bil Herd is a self taught hardware engineer. He was the lead engineer and designer of at least seven models of home computers while working for Commodore Business Machines in the 1980’s. He is a designer of instrumentation, versed in EMI/RFI, Analog, FPGA, High-Speed Digital, DSP, and is a Video Producer at Hackaday.

  • Samy Kamkar // Developing (Low Cost) Exploitation Tools

    Samy Kamkar is a security researcher, best known for creating The MySpace Worm, one of the fastest spreading viruses of all time. He (attempts to) illustrate terrifying vulnerabilities with playfulness. He’s demonstrated usurping typical hardware for surreptitious means such as with KeySweeper, turning a standard USB wall charger into a covert, wireless keyboard sniffer, and SkyJack, a custom drone which takes over any other nearby drones allowing them to be controlled as a massive zombie swarm. He’s exposed issues around privacy, such as by developing the Evercookie which appeared in a top-secret NSA document revealed by Edward Snowden, exemplifying techniques used by governments and corporations for clandestine web tracking, and has discovered and released research around the illicit GPS and location tracking performed by Apple, Google and Microsoft mobile devices. He continues to produce new research and tools for the public as open source and open hardware.

  • Toshiro Kodera // Creation of electromagnetic gyrotropic property by combination of circuit component

    Toshiro Kodera received a Dr. Eng. from Kyoto Institute of Technology in 2001. He went on to join Osaka Institute of Technology, and in 2005 he joined ATR International Kyoto, where he engaged in R&D of 60GHz GaAs MMIC. In 2008, he joined École Polytechnique of Montréal, where he developed unique microwave devices. Since 2014, he has been an Associate Professor of Meisei University, Tokyo. Dr. Kodera has received several academic awards and is a senior member of IEEE.

  • Ben Krasnow // Building advanced scientific apparatus quickly and at low cost

    Ben works at Verily (Google Life Sciences), creating advanced prototypes, and previously developed virtual reality hardware at Valve. After work, he spends time on various projects that usually involve circuit design, machining, and chemistry. You can follow Ben’s projects on his YouTube channel, Applied Science.

  • David M. Krum // Reigniting Virtual Reality

    Dr. David Krum is a researcher in the fields of human-computer interaction, virtual reality, 3D interaction, and wearable computing. His work combines an engineering approach of building technical artifacts with a scientific approach of experimentation and user evaluation. He is currently Associate Director of the Mixed Reality Lab at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Dr. Krum has earned degrees from Caltech, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Georgia Tech.

  • Tod E. Kurt // Solving the IoT “last mile” problem with Electron/Node desktop apps

    Tod E. Kurt runs ThingM, an IoT device studio based in Pasadena. He is creator of the popular blink(1) USB notification light and BlinkM, the Smart LED prototyping device. He’s author of “Hacking Roomba” and MAKE magazine contributor.

  • Lia Martirosyan // Medical diagnosis through crowdsourcing and advanced gene sequencing

    Lia Martirosyan is a classical singer, actress and creative writer. A lyric soprano, she sings in the US, and has performed in China, Italy, Jordan and Armenia. Her writing covers individual’s worldwide working towards integrating those with disabilities into hesitant societies, such the Middle East, Asia and South America; her work can be seen in ABILITY Magazine. She is also Co-Founder of ABILITY Corps, whose aim is to create a world of inclusion and awareness for people with disabilities — through music, videography, art and volunteer opportunities. Lia’s ventures include promoting education of undiagnosed conditions and genome sequencing.

  • Sarah Petkus // TastingFeet: Behavioral Quirks to Mechanical Systems

    Sarah Petkus is a kinetic artist and roboticist from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her area of focus is in developing mechanical systems that exhibit the behavioral nuances of living things. Sarah has a background in traditional art mediums such as painting and printmaking, and exercises her interest in these areas by writing and illustrating sequential art, graphic design, and propaganda. She is currently working in collaboration with electronic engineer, Mark Koch, as the artist group Robot Army.

  • Kate Reed // Don’t Forget the People, Designing For Humans

    Kate Reed is an artist and inventor from Dover, MA. She is a community thinker who ponders the human experience at every turn, solving real world problems with simplicity and economic availability to all. Kate’s designs and inventions have been featured at the White House, Boston and New York Fashion Week, Museum of Design Atlanta, Hackaday Superconference, the MIT Museum, and the Boston Children’s Museum. Kate is a student in the Brown RISD Dual Degree Program.

  • Avidan Ross // The 45 second Pizza and other food hacks

    Avidan Ross is founder of Root Ventures, a venture capital and private equity firm specializing in engineering companies. He is on the board of directors of Particle.io and is an investor in many companies familiar to the Hackaday community like Shaper, Prynt, and Plethora. He has a background in Computer Science and Network / Hardware engineering.

  • Derek Schulte // Efficient Processing for Motion Control

    From follicle implanters to space-flight fiber optics, Derek thrives on innovating technical solutions to multidisciplinary challenges. At New Matter, he is responsible for all hardware and firmware. Over the last 20 years, he has worked on telecom, medical, industrial, and defense products at startups and global behemoths, incorporating force-feedback robotics, industrial-scale solar trackers, and laser-initiated pyrotechnics.

  • Ken Shirriff // Inside ICs: Reverse engineering analog and digital chips

    Ken Shirriff writes a popular blog (righto.com) on reverse engineering everything from chargers to microprocessors. He created the IRremote library for Arduino. Ken was formerly a programmer at Google and has a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley.

  • Star Simpson // Making Exquisite Art PCBs

    Star Simpson is an electronics designer. Her greatest joy is designing objects and tools that are useful to others, and which inspire and delight. Her previous work includes research on robotics, work in drones, and a card-sized electrical reference circuit board (for electronics company Octopart) now carried in the wallets of electrical engineers everywhere. Her most recent work is Circuit Classics, a revival vintage electronics hardware brand.

  • Sprite_TM // Miniaturizing the GameBoy Color

    Sprite_TM, aka Jeroen Domburg, has always been interested in anything that goes on in the place where hardware meets software. He is an incredibly skilled hardware hacker, able to reverse engineer circuits and code quickly and despite almost any level of obfuscation. He shares this incredible work on his well-known website: spritesmods.com. In 2015 Sprite joined Espressif — creators of the ESP8266 — to develop high performing wireless chips at low cost; he works on the foundations of the SDK used to program the ESP32.

  • Jessie Tank // Ternary Computing

    Jessie Tank is an electrical engineering student with 20 years in IT experience. She has worked on a large number of topics ranging from Lasers, Robotics, CPU architectures, and retro video games and computers systems. She recently founded a new robotics club at the University of Alaska. Jessie loves to explore new technology and has been featured in Popular Mechanics, several smaller periodicals, and on Hackaday.

  • Alan Yates // Lighthouse; the Steam VR Tracking System

    Alan is an engineer of many disciplines. He got his start in software and telecommunications running his own ISP in the late 90s, then spent many years in web and enterprise application development, only to return to his electrical engineering roots with wireless networking hardware and most recently precision indoor positioning. Alan, originally from Sydney, currently resides in Seattle and works for Valve Corporation on virtual reality technology.

5 Workshops

  • Matt Berggren // PCB Design Using Eagle

    Matt Berggren is a hardware engineer, systems architect, and product manager who spent 15 years in product management and hardware development at Altium. He recently joined Autodesk as Director of Autodesk Circuits. Matt also runs several popular workshops in San Francisco, where he teaches entrepreneurs, hackers, makers and the like to develop circuits and circuit boards, and hosts meetups for engineers to discuss hardware development and electronics design. He has worked in the US, Australia, and China building electronics for the global market, and runs engineering teams in both the US and hands-on in China

  • Sam Bobrowicz // FPGAs: Beyond Digital Logic with Microblaze and Arty

    Sam Bobrowicz moved to Pullman, WA from the Seattle Tacoma area. He studied computational neuroscience at Washington State University, before getting transfixed with the power of FPGAs and coming to work for Digilent. Today he is the Applications Manager at Digilent and specializes in Xilinx Zynq development. In his free time, he enjoys skateboarding and backpacking. Convinced that anyone can learn and use FPGA technology, Sam continues to produce and create content that helps users get on-boarded.

  • Erin Kennedy // Field Test – HACKADAY Edition

    Erin ‘RobotGrrl’ Kennedy is a robot maker. She was recognised as a top leader in Ontario through a Studio Y fellowship at the MaRS Discovery District. She is the founder of Robot Missions, engaging makers and environmentalists to collaborate on large challenges. Erin is the host of the Robot Party. Her first product RoboBrrd was created by over 100 people. She was recognised as an Intel Emerging Young Entrepreneur. Erin studied digital fabrication through the Fab Academy.

  • John Park // Pizza Box DJ — Build Your Own Conductive Ink MIDI Controller

    John Park is a maker and video host/content creator, building projects and videos for Adafruit Industries. He also writes for Make: magazine and Boing Boing, and builds things like escape room props and magic tricks as a freelance maker.

  • Christine Sunu & Richard Whitney // Rapid Prototyping for the Internet of Things

    Christine Sunu is GE’s IoT Fellow at BuzzFeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology, and the Arts, where she releases open source experiments linking emotion, design, media, and IoT. Christine Sunu is GE’s IoT Fellow at BuzzFeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology, and the Arts, where she releases open source experiments linking emotion, design, media, and IoT.

  • Richard Whitney is the VP of Product at Particle. He previously led products at Lockitron, picked up a master’s degree from the MIT Media Lab, collaborated with OK Go, had installations at MOCA, LACMA and the V&A, worked at NASA, and made an app-controlled liquor cabinet—though not in that order.

Amazing Venue

Supplyframe Design Lab
The brand new Supplyframe Design Lab

2016 marked the opening of the Supplyframe Design Lab in Pasadena. This creative space is filled with the newest and best rapid prototyping tools. It is the perfect location to gather for talks, mingle with acquaintances new and old, hack on the conference badge (and any other hardware you want to work on), and unwind during the Hackaday Prize Party.

Right next door the Los Angeles College of Music has been booked for talks and workshops. The learning and performing space are perfect for SuperCon and give us plenty of different spaces for all that is planned.

Hardware Badge; Hacking and Crypto Challenge

2016-supercon-badge-front
The prototype of the Conference Badge

An electronic hardware badge was design by Voja Antonic for the 2016 SuperConference. The badge is the target of the badge hacking conpetition — show us the best hardware and firmware hacks you can pull off in 48 hours, or make this the first time you’ve blinked an LED. It is also the key to completing the Crypto Challenge which [Voja] has cooked up for the event. Learn more about the badge from our hands-on with the hardware.

Hackaday Prize Party

The Hackaday Prize is our engineering initiative that challenges people from around the world to use their skills to build something that matters. The competition for $300,000 in prizes started in March in five different challenge rounds. The field of more than 1000 entries has been narrowed down to 100. The top five entries will be revealed at the Hackaday Prize Party on Saturday night. Your SuperCon ticket includes admission to the Prize Party. The Hackaday Prize is sponsored by Atmel, Microchip, Digikey, and Supplyframe.

Food and Afterbar

Your conference ticket includes lunch and a light breakfast both Saturday and Sunday. The SuperConference is located in Old Town Pasadena, an amazing hub of restaurants, coffee shops, and bars of all kinds. Popping out for dinner is an easy walk to satisfy any craving. After the formal evening festivities, there are ale halls, wine bars, whisky joints, hookah bars, and everything in between to keep the fun going late into the night

Travel and Lodging

The Supplyframe Design Lab is locate just one block from a Gold Line station. There are also three parking structures very close by. Please check this FAQ for more information.

We recommend AirBnB for lodging in the area.

Sponsors

The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is sponsored by Adafruit, Autodesk, and Supplyframe.

15 thoughts on “Everything You’ll Find At The SuperConference

    1. I agree, amazing speakers! I saw all of the talk proposals and it was really hard to pick who would be invited to present. Thank you to everyone who submitted a proposal — sorry we couldn’t include everyone. On the other hand, with more and more of our live events we’ve been able to include a small number of speakers because we meet so many people through these proposals. I see that trend continuing!

  1. Is there a detailed conference schedule with exact times for all talks and workshops? If there is, I obviously could not find it, and apologies if it is in an obvious location. If not, pretty hard to figure out what workshops overlap with other workshops or talks I want to go to.

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