KiCad is the electronic design automation software that lives at the intersection of electronic design and open source software. It’s seen a huge push in development over the last few years which has grown the suite into a mountain of powerful tools. To help better navigate that mountain, the first ever KiCad conference, KiCon, is happening next week in Chicago and Hackaday is hosting one of the afterparties.

The two days of talks take place on April 26th and 27th covering a multitude of topics. KiCad’s project leader, Wayne Stambaugh, will discuss the state of the development effort. You’ll find talks on best practices for using the software as an individual and as a team, how to avoid common mistakes, and when you should actually try to use the auto-router. You can learn about automating your design process with programs that generate footprints, by connecting it through git, and through alternate user interfaces. KiCad has 3D modeling to make sure your boards will fit their intended enclosures and talks will cover generating models in FreeCAD and rendering designs in both Fusion360 and Blender. Dust off your dark arts with RF and microwave design tips as well as simulating KiCad circuits in SPICE. If you can do it in KiCad, you’ll learn about it at KiCon.

Of course there’s a ton of fun to be had as interesting hackers from all over the world come together in the Windy City. Hackaday’s own Anool Mahidharia and Kerry Scharfglass will be presenting talks, and Mike Szczys will be in the audience. We anticipate an excellent “lobby con” where the conversations away from the stages are as interesting as the formal talks. And of course there are afterparties!

• Friday 4/26 Pumping Station: One, the popular Chicago hackerspace now celebrating its 10 year anniversary, is hosting an afterparty (details TBA)
• Saturday 4/27: Hackaday is hosting an after party at Jefferson Tap from 6-8:30. We’re providing beverages and light food for all who attended the conference.

via Next Week Is KiCon: Come For The Talks, Stay For The Parties — Hackaday

From Roger Cheng’s New Screwdriver blog:

SparkleCon Day 2

A great part of SparkCon is its atmosphere. It is basically a block party held by 23b Shop and friends in the same business park. Located in Fullerton, CA, the venue’s neighborhood is a mix of residential, retail, and commercial properties. As a practical matter, this meant good eats like Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant and Monkey Business Cafe were in easy walking distance.

Originally my Day 2 was going to start bright and (too) early for me at 9AM with the KISS Tindies presentation, but the relaxed easygoing nature of the event meant a schedule change was possible and we did it at noon instead. I loved talking to all my fellow people who thought my circuit sculptures were more interesting than a certain football game taking place around the same time.

Emily wants to host a version of Adafruit Hallowing’s default eyeball program on her tiny round CRT. To see how it would look, Emily and Jaren took a video of the Hallowing eyeball and played it back on a Raspberry Pi.

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