Due to uncertainties about the progress of the spread of the novel corona virus, it’s with a sad heart that we announce that we’re postponing the 2020 Hackaday Belgrade conference.
We will be rescheduling for later in the year, but for now we’ll be refunding conference tickets. We received a record number of incredible presenter proposals, and once we’ve rescheduled, we’ll get in touch with everyone who entered a proposal to check up on your availability.
We know how much you were all looking forward to Belgrade in May, and it pains us to have to take this step. When we get more details ironed out, we’ll be sure to let you know! See you all a little bit later in the summer?
We want you to present a talk at Hackaday Belgrade and this is the last call to send us your proposal.
Europe’s biennial conference on hardware creation returns to Serbia on May 9th for an all-day-and-into-the-night extravaganza. Core to this conference is people from the Hackaday community sharing their stories of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on their electronics workbenches, firmware repos, and manufacturing projects.
Here at Hackaday we live a life of never ending deadlines, but we also understand that this isn’t true for everyone. In that spirit, we’re extending the deadline so that those who count procrastination as a core skill don’t miss their chance to secure a speaking slot at the last minute. You now have until 18:00 GMT (19:00 in Belgrade) next Friday to file your talk proposal.
The conference badge is being built by Voja Antonic, the inventor of Yugoslavia’s first widely-adopted personal computer. We know he has prototype PCBs on hand and plan to share more information on what he has in store for you very soon.
Hackaday’s premiere European hardware conference returns for the third time on May 9th, 2020, bringing together talks, workshops, hardware hacking, food and drink, entertainment, and of course the best gathering of hardware geeks you’ll find anywhere. It’s awesome, because you’re awesome — and I do mean you. Whether you’re submitting a talk proposal or just grabbing a ticket to make this the first conference you’ve ever been to, we can’t do it without you.
Hackaday’s Home in Serbia
We’ll be at Dom Omladine again this year. The venue has feels like a home for Hackaday with a large space for talks, a workshop area, and a huge open area for lobby-con where you’ll find Belgrade’s finest baristas, a great spread of food, and a beer tap to keep the day rolling. Bring along your hardware projects to hack alongside the conference’s custom hardware badge designed by Voja Antonic as we open up the bar and get the live IDM sets started.
Flooding into Hackaday Belgrade
Breakfast spread as the doors open
What is better than hacking to live music?
It’s still early in our planning (these are Early Bird tickets after all) but it’s very likely we’ll have a meetup the night before the conference. Friends old and new often get together on Sunday to keep the fun going. On Saturday, doors for the conference will open around 9 am and the fun will continue well beyond the 2 am “official” end. We recommend you make travel plans to include the full weekend.
Elliot Williams demos Logic Noise live on stage
Don’t just ask for Friday off of work, bring your friends and co-workers along with you. If you’re most comfortable digging through datasheets while a hot soldering iron idles on your bench and a 3D-printer whirs away in the corner, Hackaday Belgrade is calling you. I encourage those who were at the first two events in 2016 and 2018 to share their stories below.
Don’t miss this one, it only comes around in even-numbered years and tickets will sell out.
Hackaday Belgrade 2020 Posters by Aleksandar Bradic (click for full size download link):
Join Hackaday in Belgrade, Serbia on May 9th, 2020 for the Hackaday Belgrade conference! The biennial hardware conference is just seventeen weeks from now. Early Bird tickets will go on sale shortly, but beginning right now you can hack your way into the conference by submitting a talk proposal. Accepted speakers receive free admission, plus everyone who submits a quality talk proposal will be given priority when tickets go on sale.
Yes, I’m talking to you. Hackaday strives to include first-time speakers in the slate of presenters at our conferences. We’re looking for unique, cutting-edge, whimsical, crazy, formidable, or world-changing topics revolving around hardware creation. From learning new tools or techniques to fabrication adventures, from code-wrangling that firmware project to pulling off an art installation, and from forgotten hardware history to the impossible made possible on your own workbench, we need to hear your stories!
That project for which you went into the deep weeds and worked your way back out again? Everyone at a Hackaday conference wants to hear about it and in the greatest detail possible. After all, we’re your fellow hackers. In fact, you should probably bring the hardware along for the ride.
We Need You
None of this happens in a vacuum. This is the third Hackaday Belgrade conference, which have now settled into a tick-tock cadence of even-numbered years. The first two both sold out, this one will as well, and the result is always an action-packed, nearly 24-hour marathon sprint of talks, workshops, and hardware hacking. But the only reason this works is because amazing people just like you make it a priority in their life to be there.
Badge hacking at 2018 Hackaday Belgrade
So take the plunge, put together your talk proposal and submit it before March 2nd. But don’t stop there, pester your friends and your heros to do the same. Block out May 9th on your schedule (roughly 9 am-2 am) and take the day before off of work. While you’re at it, convince your boss and coworkers to come along with you. See you in Belgrade!
Building things that fly is hard. The constraints on small, battery powered, radio-operated gear already presents a challenge, but adding weight, balance, and aerodynamic constraints takes it to a whole new level. Sophi Kravitz rises to the occasion and discusses each challenge of building a blimp from start to finish in her presentation at the 2018 Hackaday Belgrade conference.
One of the pleasures of writing for Hackaday comes through the incredible array of talent and experience to be found among our colleagues. We all do our own work, but one is humbled by that which flows from the benches of those one works alongside. Just such a project is the Remote Control Mini Blimp from our colleague Sophi Kravitz. It’s a game involving an obstacle course and a set of remote-controlled blimps. The challenges in such an endeavour have been pushing the limits of what is possible with off-the-shelf components. Continue reading “Hackaday Belgrade: Sophi Kravitz’s Blimp Army”→
Ecology is a strange discipline. At its most basic, it’s the study of how living things interact with their environment. It doesn’t so much seek to explain how life works, but rather how lives work together. A guiding principle of ecology is that life finds a way to exploit niches, subregions within the larger world with a particular mix of resources and challenges. It’s actually all quite fascinating.
But what does ecology have to do with Luka Mustafa’s talk at the 2018 Hackaday Belgrade Conference? Everything, as it turns out, and not just because Luka and his colleagues put IoT tools on animals and in their environments to measure and monitor them. It’s also that Luka has found a fascinating niche of his own to exploit, one on the edge of technology and ecology. As CEO of Institute IRNAS, a non-profit technology development group in Slovenia, Luka has leveraged his MEng degree, background in ham radio, and interest in LoRaWAN and other wide-area radio networks to explore ecological niches in ways that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago, let alone in the days when animal tracking was limited by bulky radio collars.
We’re still coming off the Hackaday Belgrade conference right now. If you were there, you know it was the greatest hardware conference ever. If you weren’t there, you missed out. Sorry. (Make sure you get in on the Hackaday Superconference in November.)
One of the many highlights of the Belgrade conference was, of course, the badge. The 2018 Hackaday Belgrade Badge is a masterpiece of hardware with a 55-key keyboard, RGB TFT LED, speaker, and a BASIC interpreter.
This badge is a masterpiece of electronic design by Voja Antonic. Just to take one small example from the design, check out the placement of the buttons. Think the slightly rotated buttons that make up the keyboard is only a stylistic choice? It’s not; by carefully rotating each button, the legs of each switch can fit in between each other. It’s brilliant.
Starting hardware this good, adding amazing software by Jaromir Sukuba to bring it to life, and distributing a badge to each hacker through the door is the perfect recipe for some amazing hacks. What were the best badge hacking tricks we saw at the 2018 Hackaday Belgrade conference? Check out the video of the badge hacking ceremonies and then join us below for a few of our favorites.
