Hackaday UK Unconference #HackadayUncon
By @edent
· hackday talks unconference · 1,100 words
A quick round up of the fascinating talks at the Hackaday London Unconference.
This was a slight twist on the usual unconference format. There was only one room - so it was a single track event. There were three invited speakers who had presentations of 15 minutes - everyone else pitched for 7 minute slots. The organisers chose the running order. A twist on the usual unconference, but it worked well. The organisers had curated a good set of talks, and were able to give the day a bit of structure.
Every talk I heard was great - some went a little over my head with the talk of MOSFETs (from Star Wars, I think) and NAND gates (popular chicken restaurant?) - but they were all delivered with enthusiasm.
Here are the talks which made an impression on me.
Dangerous Children
"Why is my son whittling with a knife? Because he had already felled a tree with an axe!"
This was Tanya Fish's plea to let kids get involved with some of the more dangerous/exciting aspects of making. Fire, electricity, sharp things. Please ensure your makerspace has child sized safety equipment!
Recreating Apollo
It turns out that the source code to the Apollo moon missions is available for free!
A plan by @notameadow to faithfully rebuild Apollo guidance computer in FPGA #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/1jfqx2izhx
Meadow wants to build a computer capable of running it. What a cracking idea!
Beacons!
Catherine Jones gave us a quick run down of what Bluetooth Beacons are used for and, more importantly, where they are misused. You don't need beacons to tell people where the dinosaurs are in a museum; people will naturally gravitate towards them.
Replying to @WeirdWorkshop@WeirdWorkshop - To beacon or not to beacon. At the #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/qr29o6ybaj
Telepresence
This was such a cool demo. Libby has built a little telepresence robot which allows her to interact with office-based staff.
Build out of a lamp and some scavenged computer parts, this is a cute little droid with a practical purpose.
Brilliant! @libbymiller running WebRTC on headless Chrome! Building a telepresence robot.
#HackadayUncon pic.x.com/peevoff4tv
Flashing Lights
There is a prize for making lights blink on and off in an interesting way. Who knew!?
What inspired #FlashingLightPrize explained by James Larsson who runs the contest. Announcement: 2018 challenge based around neon! pic.x.com/m0hdtlyw1c
An amusing talk about the perils of wiring stuff up to the mains, and getting people to think creatively about electronics.
Open Benches
Me! Presenting about OpenBenches.org - here's the 360 video:
Here's @edent, giving us the low-down on @openbenches. #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/xakn0iskg5
How To Be A Full Time YouTuber
A candid and enlightening talk from James Bruton of Xrobots
Can a hacker do YouTube full time? @XRobotsUK says yes (with an asterisk) and talks gory details #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/7h1ozav0wt
Brits are notoriously terrible when it comes to discussing money. James walked us through how many subscribers he has, ad revenues, partnership deals, and how much hard work goes into turning YouTube into a full time job.
Please Like and Subscribe to my own channel!
Liquid Interfaces
The inimitable Phoenix Perry gave an illuminating talk into usability and ergonomics.
Replying to @phoenixperry@phoenixperry presenting games with amazing haptic interfaces at #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/dpnlvpvz2h
She's building a mix between a game and an art installation.
Upgrading a bike with LEDs
Alex from @RasPiTv has built indicators for his pedal bike using LEDs, Raspberry Pis, and clobbered together something beautiful and practical.
Hacking RSA Tokens
If you're as clever / evil as Joe Fitz you'll find that a typical RSA SecureID token can be disassembled and subverted.
Ummm, yeah... @securelyfitz put Bluetooth inside an RSA token #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/wldzji2czl
There's space inside for Bluetooth and all sorts of other trickery.
Designing the Pi Zero
I could have listened to Roger Thornton speak for hours! A great talk about the practicalities of the designing the hardware for the Pi Zero.
A little starstruck! The designer of Raspberry Pi Zero W talking about process of miniaturising circuits. @Roger_Thornton #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/ypkidai9e4
There's a constant tension between cost, size, speed, and upgradeability. They didn't get it right first time so were forced to iterate & rethink.
Cider!
An unconference isn't complete without a non-technical talk! Jenny gave us the lowdown on Cider Making
Replying to @Jenny_Alto@Jenny_Alto is the cider pro. One of the best talks so far! Did not expect a "cheap vs good cider" talk at #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/gj6qdmkenw
Now I want cider!
I Speak Your Weight
Alistair once again showing that the most effective hack is a funny hack. Take a pair of Wii Fit scales, mix in some bluetooth and a quick whip of code - and you've got a sarcastic speak-your-weight machine.
Talking scale uses dry British humor "You weigh as much as a brown bear... Are there two of you?" #HackadayUncon pic.x.com/akwdpnied0
In space, no one can hear your electronics scream
Nick Molo works on satellites. IN SPACE!
How to fix a satellite? "...have you tried turning it off and on again?" says @TheNickMolo. #hackadayuncon pic.x.com/mbwkt8kbqt
Turns out, there are a lot of commodity Arduino orbiting the planet.
Thanks
Massive thanks to all the organisers for a fantastic job - and to everyone who shared their stories. I'm looking forward to next year!
