Be A Part Of The Best Hardware Conference Ever

August 15, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 3 Comments

The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is on. If you haven’t had time to submit your proposal for a talk or workshop at the world’s greatest conference for hardware, now is the time to do it. We’re looking for everything – war stories from deep in the trenches or next to the pick and place, the problem of having your board house 5,000 miles from your lab, and that time you accidentally discovered P=NP in the firmware of a reflow toaster oven.

The Hackaday Supercon will be in Pasadena, California on November 5th and 6th, and will be the host of hundreds of hackers, designers, engineers, and the only makers that you want to meet. We’re going to have several venues with talks, workshops, and other various activities.

Talks will be scheduled for 20-40 minutes, and workshops will be scheduled for 1-4 hours. In both cases, topics can range from rapid prototyping, new and interesting techniques, creativity in technical design, and stories of product development and manufacturing.

Last year’s SuperConference was the greatest hardware conference we’ve ever seen. That success was due entirely to the talented engineers, speakers, and presenters of the Hackaday community who put together their stories to share for the benefit of all. If you couldn’t make it, you can still check out all the talks from last year.

If you’re reading this and think you should propose a talk, do it!. Submit your proposal. This conference is only a success because of the awesome Hackaday community and the efforts of readers just like you.

If you’re wondering what the usual talk at the Hackaday Supercon is like, I present (below) the greatest talk I have ever seen. It’s [Jeroen Domburg] a.k.a. [sprite_tm]’s efforts to create a Matrix of Tamagotchis. It’s thirteen Tamagotchis, fully virtualized, emulated, and running on a server, going about their lives without any awareness they’re inside a computer.

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Hackaday SuperConference: Call For Proposals

July 19, 2016 by Mike Szczys 1 Comment

The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is coming. Now is the time to submit your proposal for a talk or a workshop at the world’s greatest conference about hardware creation. The SuperCon is an unparalleled opportunity to present on a deeply technical level where you can be certain everyone in the audience is following. All of those details, the war stories of production, the out-of-stock problems and board respins, the moments when you’ve bent physics to your will, these stories will be met with awe and cheers as the audience of your peers takes the ride along with you.

SuperCon will take place in Pasadena, California on November 5th and 6th, 2016. It is a gathering of hackers, designers, and engineers passionate about learning, teaching, and celebrating what goes into making new and exciting creations. The atmosphere will be that of a hacker village, with several venues in close proximity playing host to talks, workshops, and other activities. This breaks out of the beige prison that usually accompanies hotel-based conferences and opens the weekend up for you to meet and interact with a cadre of interesting people. SuperCon is the place to share your hard-won knowledge and experience, and to add to your own arsenal of skills.

Accepted talks will be scheduled for 20-40 minutes, and workshops will be booked for 1-4 hours. In both cases, topics may include themes like techniques for rapid prototyping, new and interesting uses of technology, creativity in technical design, and stories of product development and manufacturing.

Last year’s SuperConference was incredibly successful. If you weren’t able to attend you can still work your way through all of the talks which were recorded and posted shortly after the event. That success is a credit to all of the talented presenters in the Hackaday community who put together their stories to share for the benefit of all. Thank you!

To all of you reading this now and wondering if you should propose a talk, you should! We thank you in advance for taking time out of your life to make this year’s SuperConference even more amazing by submitting your own proposal. It won’t happen without you because this is a conference of active involvement and not one of passive consumption. Be the hardware movement; this is your chance.

Hacklet 116 – Audio Projects

July 16, 2016 by Adam Fabio 5 Comments

If the first circuit a hacker builds is an LED blinker, the second one has to be a noisemaker of some sort. From simple buzzers to the fabled Atari punk console, and guitar effects to digitizing circuits, hackers, makers and engineers have been building incredible audio projects for decades. This week the Hacklet covers some of the best audio projects on Hackaday.io!

We start with [K.C. Lee] and Automatic audio source switching. Two audio sources, one amplifier and speaker system; this is the problem [K.C. Lee] is facing. He listens to audio from his computer and TV, but doesn’t need to have both connected at the same time. Currently he’s using a DPDT switch to change inputs. Rather than manually flip the switch, [K.C. Lee] created this project to automatically swap sources for him. He’s using an STM32F030F4 ARM processor as the brains of the operation. The ADCs on the microcontroller monitor both sources and pick the currently active one. With all that processing power, and a Nokia LCD as an output, it would be a crime to not add some cool features. The source switcher also displays a spectrum analyzer, a VU meter, date, and time. It even will attenuate loud sources like webpages that start blasting audio.

Next up is [Adam Vadala-Roth] with Audio Blox: Experiments in Analog Audio Design. [Adam] has 32 projects and counting up on Hackaday.io. His interests cover everything from LEDs to 3D printing to solar to hydroponics. Audio Blox is a project he uses as his engineer’s notebook for analog audio projects. It is a great way to view a hacker figuring out what works and what doesn’t. His current project is a 4 board modular version of the Big Muff Pi guitar pedal. He’s broken this classic guitar effect down to an input board, a clipping board, a tone control, and an output stage. His PCB layouts, schematics, and explanations are always a treat to view and read!

Next we have [Paul Stoffregen] with Teensy Audio Library. For those not in the know, [Paul] is the creator of the Teensy family of boards, which started as an Arduino on steroids, and has morphed into something even more powerful. This project documents the audio library [Paul] created for the Freescale/NXP ARM processor which powers the Teensy 3.1. Multiple audio files playing at once, delays, and effects, are just a few things this library can do. If you’re new to the audio library, definitely check out [Paul’s] companion project
Microcontroller Audio Workshop & HaD Supercon 2015. This project is an online version of the workshop [Paul] ran at the 2015 Hackaday Supercon in San Francisco.

Finally we have [drewrisinger] with DrDAC USB Audio DAC. DrDac is a high quality DAC board which provides a USB powered audio output for any PC. Computers these days are built down to a price. This means that lower quality audio components are often used. Couple this with the fact that computers are an electrically noisy place, and you get less than stellar audio. Good enough for the masses, but not quite up to par if you want to listen to studio quality audio. DrDAC houses a PCM2706 audio DAC and quality support components in a 3D printed case. DrDAC was inspired by [cobaltmute’s] pupDAC.

If you want to see more audio projects and hacks, check out our new audio projects list. See a project I might have missed? Don’t be shy, just drop me a message on Hackaday.io. That’s it for this week’s Hacklet, As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!