The Hackaday Superconference for 2018 was another massive success. As my first supercon, it was amazing to finally meet my fellow Tindarians in person. Not only did we have an awesome Tindie meetup, but several sellers also hosted talks, demos, and even workshops!
Let’s take a look back at Supercon 2018 and see what our fellow Tindarians were up to during this epic weekend!
The Tindie Meetup
During lunch on Saturday, we had a Tindie meetup outside in the alley area behind the Supplyframe DesignLab. There were several products on display, live demos, and more than a few familiar faces!
This was a fantastic chance for the Tindie team to meet some of our Sellers and see their projects in person. In the photo above left to right: Bart Dring, Adrian Studer, Tommy Pedrick (Tindie Customer Success), Toshiro Kodera, Dave Ploeger, Jasmine Brackett (Tindie Product Manager), Bradley Ramsey (Tindie Writer), Erin Kosewic (Tindie Lead Developer). The only team member absent was James Nixon (Tindie Customer Success) but was covering Tindie support over the whole weekend so we could have fun.
You may have spotted a few other familiar faces in the photo above as well. Toshiro Kodera and Dave Ploeger, both of whom traveled a far distance to celebrate Supercon with their fellow Tindarians.
Toshiro was a finalist in the Hackaday Prize and came from Tokyo, Japan. He’s known for his exceptional experiments with OLED and ESP32 items, plus the delight that buyers get unboxing perfectly packaged products.
Dave traveled from Berlin, Germany, and brought a demo of his ESP8266 Handheld, #LAMEBOY. Dave also brought items from Radomir Dopieralski and a Larsen Scanner from Burgduino, other European sellers who couldn’t make it this year.
Adrian Studer, who brought along several versions of his DaisyAIS Reciever, which he has been selling on Tindie since 2015 from his home base in Seattle, WA.
Joining us from Chicago, Illinois was Bart Dring. Bart hosted the Small Scale CNC/Robotics Workshop where attendees were able to create a functioning CNC badge.
Jason Huggins assisted in the workshop, a fellow Tindarian who has been selling products since 2012. His latest project is Tapster: a robot that automates mobile apps on smartphones.
While Bart is famous for his TWANG LED Game on Tindie, he also brought a new project to the meetup table as well that uses lasers to engrave detailed art onto round pieces of wooden nickels or chips.
It’s not available on Tindie, but perhaps one day. However, Zapp & Hyr0n (AND!XOR of #Badgelife fame) expressed interest in purchasing such a project (hint, hint).
Soaking up new ideas at the Hackaday Super conference. Cool to see the Vinduino board at the Tindie Meetup display. https://t.co/03vdc3Sm0B
— Vinduino (@VinduinoReinier) November 4, 2018
It was great to see Tindarians like Sarah Petkus and Reinier van der Lee, who are responsible for SHE BON and Vinduino respectively.
Sarah came from Las Vegas and delivered an awesome talk on her project, while Reinier traveled from Temecula, California to attend the event and host his own workshop on LoRa Sensor networking.
✨?Check out this awesome #led cube by @im889 controlled by Pixel Blaze board available on @tindie !! ?? pic.twitter.com/brR1HWZVXj
— Hackaday.io (@hackadayio) November 3, 2018
Ben Hencke, from Santa Cruz, California, also stopped by to demo PixelBlaze, which powered an LED cube and synchronized the lights with music coming from a nearby Bluetooth speaker.
Everyone who came by received a special edition Tindie SMD Challenge kit as well.
Tindarians Assemble!
The Tindie meetup was the highest concentration of Tindarians in one place at Supercon 2018. However, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t find them all over the event:
- One of the first talks at Supercon was hosted by Zapp & Hyr0n (AND!XOR) on, and I quote, “USIN EMBEDDD SISTEM CHALLENGEZ AN PROGRAMMIN LULZ AS METHOD 2 TEACH HACKIN.” The actual talk was even more amazing than the title. They joined us from Oxnard, California.
- Arsenijs Picugins came from Riga, Latvia to host a talk entitled “Build Your Own Cellphone: hardware magic, and Linux on Portable Devices.”
- Piotr Esden-Tempski from Eugene, Oregon, hosted a workshop on FPGA that offered an introduction to the concept for the attendees.
- Ashwin Whitchurch, 2017 Hackaday semi-finalist came from Bangalore, KA, India to attend the Supercon!
- Adelle Lin, famous for her UVicorn Necklace, joined us from Brooklyn, New York
Tindie at Supercon 2018
While the meetup was excellent, Tindie popped up in plenty of other places as well. Both Sarah Petkus and Ken Shirriff hosted talks at the main stage. You can check out the full playlist on YouTube if you weren’t able to make it.
Another great moment was Brian Benchoff’s Tindie pad printing demo at the Supplyframe DesignLab:
As part of the demo, the audience was also able to come up to the stage and print their very own KISS Tindies!
We pad-printed our own KISS @tindie’s in @bbenchoff’s workshop :3 // w/ @virgilvox @hackaday #supercon https://t.co/6r297I9b0M pic.twitter.com/yqSI1UYUXM
— alex ☆ glow (@glowascii) November 3, 2018
There were also three workshops hosted by Tindarians over the course of the weekend. Reinier van der Lee’s workshop introduced attendees to LoRa sensor networking, while Piotr Esden-Tempski introduced people to FPGA. Finally, Bart Dring hosted a small scale CNC/robotics workshop where the attendees built a CNC badge of their own.
SMD Soldering Challenge
Those willing to test their soldering skills could sign up for the SMD Challenge! The kits were developed by MakersBox featured as An Unfortunate SMD Project on Hackaday.io and are available on Tindie.
The SMD soldering challenge table had its fill of contestants all weekend. Ultimately, these were the victors.
When you finish first you have time to tweet! @Kwalseth won the @digikey team soldering challenge at @hackaday #supercon. pic.twitter.com/g03SqaPmrG
— maker.io (@MakerIO) November 4, 2018
The 2018 Superconfence is over, but there’s always next year. Stay tuned for other announcements and opportunities to meet up with your fellow Tindarians around the world!
