The Hackaday Superconference is the highest density of the coolest hackers anywhere. Other events may be bigger, but we’ll be so bold to say that none are better. If you love Hackaday, and we know you do, you should really come join us in November in Pasadena, CA.
Far and away the best way to participate in a conference is to participate in the conference. This is your chance to give a presentation or a workshop and share your hard-earned knowledge, your crazy hacks, or entertaining tales of hardware heroism with a crowd that gets it. And you get free admission if we pick your talk for the big show.
One of my favorite tales from Supercon was meeting Jennifer Wang at her (and my!) first Supercon. She was a longtime Hackaday reader, and was honestly a little bit awed to meeting all of the great people there in person. By the next Supercon, she was giving a presentation about her IMU-based machine learning Harry Potter wand and inspiring the rest of us with her love of the cool things you can do with sensors and code. It’s one of the most honest and informative talks on machine learning I’ve seen!
You’ve got your story to share too, right? You’ve also got one week to put a proposal for a talk together. You can do this!
There was a time when microprocessors were slow and expensive devices that needed piles of support chips to run, so engineers came up with ingenious tricks using extra hardware preprocessing inputs to avoid having to create more code. It would be common to find a few logic gates, a comparator, or even the ubiquitous 555 timer doing a little bit of work to take some load away from the computer, and engineers learned to use these components as a matter of course.
The nice thing is that many of these great hardware hacks have been built into modern microcontrollers through the years. The problem is you know to know about them. Brett Smith’s newly published Hackaday Superconference talk, “Why Do It The Hard Way?”, aims to demystify the helpful hardware lurking in microcontrollers.
Join us below for a deeper dive and the embedded video of this talk. Supercon is the Ultimate Hardware con — don’t miss your chance to attend this year, November 15-17 in Pasadena, CA.
Stop what you’re doing and get your ticket to the Hackaday Superconference. This is the ultimate hardware conference, November 15th, 16th, and 17th in Pasadena, California. It will sell out, especially the early bird tickets which are certain to be snapped up before the end of this day. (Edit: Early Bird tickets are already sold out, but you can still get the Early Bird price by submitting a talk).
Supercon is all about hardware creation. From prototypes and manufacturable designs, to one-off hardware art and products that have sold thousands, this is where you meet the people and hear the stories behind new and interesting feats of engineering. It’s a weekend filled with fascinating talks and mind-expanding workshops, but Supercon is so much more.
This is a Hacker Village where the greenest beginner and the grayest veteran sit shoulder to shoulder to solder, to code, to dream of the future, and to share stories of the past. We want you here, and you need to make it happen. Whether it’s professional development (yes! ask your boss to make this a business outing) or your hard-earned vacation, Supercon will recharge your batteries and top off your inspiration for the year to come.
Yes, I’m talking to you. Core to the mission of the Hackaday Superconference is to encourage more people to speak publicly about everything that goes into designing and manufacturing hardware. This means we want first time speakers just as much as we want seasoned presenters. You will be celebrated at Supercon; the ethos of this community is warm, welcoming, and thankful that you took the time to help everyone learn something interesting.
Don’t stop to ask yourself if you should… yes, we want to read your talk proposal. No topic is too big or too small for consideration. This is your chance to give back as a thank-you to so many people who have helped you gather your own skills over the years. We stand on the shoulders of giants, it’s your turn to be giant.
True Believer Tickets
We like to think of our Early Bird tickets as a nod to the true believers out there. We haven’t published the speakers, the workshops, or really anything else. That info will be public as everything comes together, but by then it may be too late to get a ticket. Right now all we can tell you for certain is that there will be a big celebration to name the grand prize winner of the 2019 Hackaday Prize, there will be a ton of badge hacking on a mind-blowing hardware badge being designed by Sprite_TM (Jeroen Domburg), you will have way too much fun and get far too little sleep, and tickets will sell out. In other words, this will be awesome.
Competitive soldering
Hackaday Prize winners
Opening ceremonies were packed tight!
Workshops in full swing
Badge hacking throughout the weekend
Standing room only as Ben Krasnow gives the last talk of the conference on Sunday
Need more convincing? You can watch the recap video from 2018, or dive into the weekend overview, badge-hacking, and competitive soldering roundups. I’ve never met anyone from the first four years of Supercon who regretted buying early bird tickets. I’ve met plenty of people who regretted missing out. Don’t miss out on year five of the movement. This is your community, there is truly something for everyone, and Pasadena is a beautiful place to be in the middle of November. See you at Supercon!
One of my favorite tales from Supercon was meeting Jennifer Wang at her (and my!) first Supercon. She was a longtime Hackaday reader, and was honestly a little bit awed to meeting all of the great people there in person. By the next Supercon, she was giving a presentation about her IMU-based machine learning Harry Potter wand and inspiring the rest of us with her love of the cool things you can do with sensors and code. It’s one of the most honest and informative talks on machine learning I’ve seen!
