An overview of laboratory techniques that can measure ultra-low concentrations. This talk will also cover important applications such as lead in drinking water (or wine!) and how to build your own detector.

What happens when you make thousands of badges and then you find a problem? There’s no time or budget to remake them so what do you do? Come hear tales from the #badgelife trenches and learn from my mistakes.

In this talk, I’ll explain how I designed and fabricated electronically-articulated wings for my Golden Eagle Wonder Woman cosplay. I’ll cover the restraints I faced: budget, weight, and battery consumption. I’ll also talk about the challenge of creating real-life versions of fictional costumes and props.

We’ve all dealt with the pandemic differently. Nick got really… really into vacuum tubes. So far, in fact, that he’s now assembling the tools to make his own. Ever wonder what it takes to revive a century-old technology in your home lab? Hopefully, this talk will give you some idea.

Operational outdoor IOT devices are limited by battery life. We present a self-power-sustained irrigation monitor system that charges the LiPo battery through wind, water, or solar power. Result shows the potential of using natural resources as source of power.

In this talk, I’ll share some of the inherent challenges I’ve faced starting an Open Source hardware company, and why they are absolutely worth solving. Keeping your source open is not only overwhelmingly beneficial, but it also enables users to better accomplish their goal. And that’s really the whole point, isn’t it?

DCC was a short-lived digital audio tape format with many features that never made it into the world. The presentation reveals the secrets of DCC, and will show that DCC was and is more than just a better-sounding but less user-friendly competitor of MiniDisc.

Building an autonomous hardware system is hard, and it’s even harder if it’s designed for muddy waters. We built an autonomous boat from the ground up in 5 months to help water departments collect multi-depth water quality data and won the Cornell Cup Grand Prize. Here’s what we learned.

At KTQA we’ve built a functioning radio station from free software, actual garbage, donated equipment, spit, sweat, and good will. I will discuss the process of building and operating the radio station as an invitation into community radio — a place more lively than you might expect.

FreeDV is an up and coming digital voice mode designed for amateur radio use which has traditionally needed a computer. This talk will describe how I designed a board using the ESP32 microcontroller that modulates and demodulates that mode and learned some hardware design in the process.

What would you do with a microwatt?
We are in a time of high power density photovoltaics, efficient energy harvesting and extremely low power electronics. This talk will cover typical residential illumination, indoor PV, energy harvesting, energy storage and serve as a guide to making your application battery free.

Beyond the USB and electrical plugs we all use daily is an expansive world of connectors with every shape and size imaginable. Here, we’ll see how these humble devices have been the downfall of some of the world’s most complex systems, discuss available options, and talk considerations when selecting connectors for your project.