I learned about the Hackaday Supercon a few days before Supercon 2018 was starting so I, unfortunately, missed out on tickets. So after seeing all the amazing talks posted online, and hearing about the amazing badge and the multi-day hacking that took place, I made sure I did not miss it in 2019. And wow am I thankful that I was able to go seeing how 2020 went and how 2021 is looking!
And while the Remoticon 2020 was amazing and enabled way more people to attend I could not help but look back at the 2019 conference and the amazing experience it was to be a part of.
SWAG
First off the SWAG! probably half the reason for going since the amount of cool thing you get basically pays for your admission ticket if you get in early. I think 2019 was truly the start of the mainstream hobbyist FPGA revolution. The conference’s main badge sporting a nice sized FPGA from Lattice, which integrated not only open-source code but both open RISC-V architecture and more importantly open-source FPGA toolchains.
There is obviously an infinite amount of configurability due to the FPGA. The FPGA workshops show both how to program the soft RISC-V cores and how to re-program the FPGA to run different HDL. I made a small video of the pre-programmed features that the badge comes with out of the packaging.
Next on the electronics hardware list was an Adafruit Edge Badge. This was the latest badge created by Adafruit that was able to run Circuit Python but was also designed to run machine learning algorithms on microcontrollers utilizing the onboard microphone.
We also received a new Arduino Nano 33 Sense board with BLE which has multiple sensors and a nice Bluetooth library to easily prototype with. I ended up using this board for my DIY Peleton/Zwift project, to help me get some exercise during covid lockdowns.
Now there was a bunch more SWAG including some small electronics as well as a mug with the conferences logo, which I still use weekly, and much much more!
What I did at the Conference
Most of what I did at the meeting people and talking about their projects, the mix of so many amazing people all together was truly an eye-opening experience into the community. So many people working and hacking together is like jet fuel for your own creativity, as well as, motivation to give back and help others.
Once I finally found a seat I spent the rest of my time hacking on the Adafruit Edge Badge trying to get a working audio spectrogram to take data from the microphone FFT it and display it all in Circuit Python.
I also took the advanced FPGA workshop to learn more about the open-source toolchain, and lastly, I took the microcontroller workshop, wow it has been a while since I worked with C… You had to sign up for these in advance and pay a small fee to hold your spot.
Microcontroller Workshop Content
People I Met
I met so many people I lost track, these are just a few who I was able to run into and follow on Twitter as they do amazing stuff!
- @craig_jbishop
- @pdp7
- @Chris_Gammell
- @mithro
- @tomacorp
- @assortedhackery
- @esden
- @johndmcmaster
- @alvaroprieto
- @GregDavill
- @beriberikx
- @ShawnHymel
- @alexwhittmore
Talks
I was able to squeeze in a few presentations but mostly just as a cool place to sit and relax away from the solder fumes. The ones I really enjoyed are linked below.
The FPGA badge is really a feat of engineering, I think it is one of the most complex and well-thought-out conference badges of all time, and I am lucky to have one! Here the designer goes into all the details about how the badge came to life.
With one of the big themes of the conference being open-source FPGAs and toolchains, this talk by Tim Ansell gives people a perspective of just how fast the open source community can produce working solutions for inherently closed devices. Given that this is almost 2 years old it is probably way out of date now, but it’s a good watch anyway for those just starting to get into open source FPGA workflows.
This last talk really hit home as I have also been trying to gain more RF knowledge through trial and error designing antennas. Here Chris Gammell walks through his adventure in designing an antenna through trial and error using a desktop milling machine to quickly iterate design parameters.
There were many, many more, but since they all get uploaded later, for everyone to enjoy, I found it more fun to hack on stuff and make new friends. You can watch the full conference at the Hackaday youtube channel.
Hackaday Supercon 2019 Playlist
Photos (I wish I took more…)
Basically, every night there was an awesome party! With music and drinks provided by Hackaday and the sponsors.
Badge Hacking Results
I really didn’t work on the FPGA board during the conference since I do FPGA stuff every day for work, but I did finish the audio spectrum badge all in Circuit Python! One of the hardest things I needed to do was to create an FFT library since circuit python did not have one yet and then integrate the microphone which turned out to be a bit harder than specifying a pin… You can find all of the code on my two Github repos below.
You can see the Spectrogram in action in this short video I took during the conference.
Conclusion
There is so much to do, you will always miss out on something, probably the most fun conference for electronics makers and hackers anywhere. The best part above all is the people, they are what makes this conference and the community a positive and uplifting experience. They not only build hardware but they build up their fellow peers as well!
Fingers crossed for a more in-person Supercon in 2021, with Remoticon like options for those that cannot attend in-person!
