I tried my best to see every badge and speak with every badge maker at DEF CON 26. One thing’s for sure, seeing them all was absolutely impossible this year, but I came close. Check out the great badges shown off in volume 1 and in volume 2 of this series. The game is afoot, and if you are headed to a hacker conference there’s never been a better time to build your own hardware badge — whether you build 5 or 500!
All right, let’s look at the badges!
It’s often said that necessity of the mother of invention, but as a large portion of the projects we cover here at Hackaday can attest, curiosity has to at least be its step-mother. Not every project starts with a need, sometimes it’s just about understanding how something works. That desire we’ve all felt from time to time, when we’ve looked at some obscure piece of hardware or technology and decided that the world would be a slightly better place if we cracked it open and looked at what spilled out.
That’s precisely the feeling Eric O’Callaghan had when he looked out the window of his Philadelphia apartment a few years back and saw something unusual. Seemingly overnight, they had built an automated Indego bike sharing station right across the street. Seeing the row of light blue bicycles sitting in their electronic docks, he wondered how the system worked, and what kind of data they might be collecting. He didn’t need to rent a bike, he hadn’t even ridden one in years, but he suddenly had a strong urge to go across the street and learn as much as he could about this system.
He recently presented those findings during FOSSCON 2018 at the International House in Philadelphia, in the hopes that others might be interested in getting involved. Currently Eric is one of the only people who’s investigating the public data Indego offers, and as his personal MySQL database has now surpassed 15 million rows of data, he’s hoping to get some developers with big data experience into the fray. His approach to making this data useful is an interesting one which I’ll dive into after the break.
Continue reading “FOSSCON 2018: Hacking The Indego Bike Sharing API”
As is always the case with a significant hacker camp, we’ve been awaiting the official badge announcement for the upcoming Electromagnetic Field 2018 hacker camp with huge interest. These badges, for readers who may have been on Mars for the past few years, are part of a lively scene of wearable electronics at hacker conferences and camps, and can usually be expected to sport a fully-fledged computer in their own right along with other special functionality.
The announcement of the 2018 badge, dubbed the TiLDA Mk4, does not disappoint. We’d been told that there would be an on-site GSM network for which the welcome packs would contain a SIM, and the well-prepared among us had accordingly dusted off our old Nokia handsets alongside our DECT phones. What we hadn’t expected was that the SIM would be for the badge, because the Mk4 is a fully-fledged hackable mobile phone in its own right. The network will be fully functional for calls and texts within the camp, though since it does not explicitly say so we expect that external calls may be an impossibility. Afterwards though it will remain a usable device on any GSM network, giving it a lease of post-camp life that may see more of them staying in use rather than joining the hacker’s dusty collection in a drawer.
Beyond the party-piece phone it appears to follow the lead of its 2016 predecessor, with the same Python environment atop a TI chipset including an MSP432E4 ARM Cortex M4F microcontroller running at 120MHz with 256kB of internal and 8MB of external RAM, a CC3210 WiFi processor, and the usual battery of sensors, LEDs and GPIOs. Importantly, it also has a Shitty Add-on connector. The 2016 badge was remarkably easy to develop for, and we expect that there will soon be an impressive array of apps for this badge too. If any reader would like to put together a Hackaday feed reader app, we can’t offer you fortune but fame such as we can bestow awaits.
We’ll bring you more information as we have it about the TiLDA Mk4, as well as a hands-on report when one lands in front of us. Meanwhile you’d like to see a retrospective of past EMF badges as a demonstration of where this one has come from, have a read of our coverage of the 2016 and 2014 badges.
It’s time to submit your proposal for a talk or workshop at the 2018 Hackaday Superconference!
Yep, it’s easy to procrastinate with the late days of summer upon us, but don’t miss out on your chance to present at the Ultimate Hardware Conference. We’re hungry for great stories about hardware creation. Before you have the chance to ask “should I submit a proposal?” — YES! We’re talking to you!
Some of the general topics that have been really popular in the past include:
This is your time. Send in your proposal now and get ready to have an incredible weekend at the Hackaday Superconference!
There were so many amazing unofficial badges at DEF CON this year that I can’t possibly cover them all in one shot. I tried to see every badge and speak with every badge maker — like a hardware safari. Join me after the jump for about fourteen more badges that I saw at DEF CON 26!
If you missed the first batch, check those badges out too — there’s even a Badgelife Documentary that you need to add to your watch list. Okay, let’s dig in.
Last week, tens of thousands of people headed home from Vegas, fresh out of this year’s DEF CON. This was a great year for DEF CON, especially when it comes to hardware. This was the year independent badges took over, thanks to a small community of people dedicated to creating small-run hardware, puzzles, and PCB art for thousands of conference-goers. This is badgelife, a demoscene of hardware, and this is just the beginning. It’s only going to get bigger from here on out.
We were lucky enough to sit down with a few of the creators behind the badges of this year’s DEF CON and the interviews were fantastic. Right here is a lesson on electronic design, manufacturing, and logistics. If you’ve ever wanted to be an engineer that ships a product instead of a lowly maker that ships a product, this is the greatest classroom in the world.
Continue reading “Badgelife, The Hardware Demoscene Documentary”
I was always a sucker for art classes in my early days. There was something special about getting personal instruction while having those raw materials in your hands at the same time. Maybe it was the patient voice of the teacher or the taste of the crayons that finally got to my head. Either way, I started thinking: “I want to do this; I want to teach this stuff.”
Last year at Hackaday Superconference I got my chance. Hardware workshops with real hardware were so rare; I just had to bring one to the table! What follows is my tale of joys and woes bringing together a crew to take their first few steps into the world of cable-driven animatronics. If you’re thinking about getting your feet wet with teaching your own hardware workshop, read on. I’ve packed this story with as much of my own learnings as I could to set you on a path to success.
The good news is that Supercon returns every year. I you want to take part in some epic workshops like this one, grab a ticket for this year’s conference now. If you want to host a hardware workshop, the Call for Proposals is still open! Okay, let’s dive in.
Continue reading “Getting Kitted To Teach Your First Hardware Workshop”
