In our last update we promised to continue to monitor the coronavirus situation and to update the community as things evolved. Today we are announcing that things have evolved, and explaining what that means for the community and the Summit.
We are switching to an all-virtual summit for 2020. We are coordinating with speakers to move all presentations to streaming online video. You can expect a schedule similar to the one we have already announced, as well as a robust set of online chat options for the community to discuss the day’s events.
We also still plan on holding the pre-party happy hour the evening of March 12 for community members who are in NYC. The happy hour is free to anyone who is able to attend. If you are in the area we look forward to seeing you there. However, we do not recommend traveling to NYC just for the happy hour.
We continue to offer full refunds on tickets to anyone who has purchased tickets to the Summit. Contact [email protected] for more details.
We will be sending full swag bags to all ticket holders.
Next year’s summit will be in NYC again on April 9, 2021. Mark your calendars!
While we are sorry to have to make this change, we are still excited about this year’s Summit. We have a fantastic lineup of speakers and even more OSHWA announcements planned. While we know that many members of our community will be disappointed not to be able to see each other in person this year, we look forward to seeing all of you virtually on Friday and in person in 2021.
Thank you all again for being part of the open source hardware community!
In light of ongoing news related to the coronavirus we want to provide the community with an update about the Summit scheduled for March 13 in NYC.
The most important update is that the Summit is on and we intend to hold it as planned.
The second most important update is that OSHWA is monitoring the situation.
The Summit is always an important event to open source hardware community. This year’s Summit is doubly special because it is the 10th anniversary of the Summit and we were forced to skip the Summit last year. In light of those factors OSHWA is committed to holding the Summit next week as long as it is viable to do so. Even a somewhat smaller Summit is an opportunity for the community to come together, discuss open source hardware, and connect in person.
We are aware of concerns related to the coronavirus and do not take them lightly. We also recognize that this is an evolving situation. We will continue to monitor the situation, as well as guidance provided by authorities, and may revisit our decision if it is warranted. That will be especially true if our host venue of NYU Law decides to suspend events – a decision they have given us no indication of making as of now. However, at this point we do not believe that the situation warrants the cancelation of the event.
We do recognize that many members of our community have purchased tickets to the Summit and now find themselves unable or unwilling to attend. We ask that you notify us if this is the case so we can accommodate and adjust accordingly. As always, we will stream the Summit live and invite all members of the community who are unable to attend for any reason to join us virtually the day of the Summit. We are also happy to provide refunds to those ticket holders who now feel unable to attend. If you would like a refund for your ticket, or have other questions about the Summit, please contact us at [email protected].
Finally, we look forward to seeing many of you next week. If you have been considering coming but haven’t purchased your ticket yet, now would be a great time to decide to join us!
Open down to the transistor! A new revolution in open IC creation
With the slowing of Moore’s Law and the success of the RISC-V ISA there has been a renewed interest in developing truly open integrated circuits (IC). Tim ‘mithro’ Ansell has spent the last 2 years working at Google trying to remove roadblocks and enable the future to be open all the way down to the transistor.
Come find out about how a modern integrated circuit is developed including what software tooling and manufacturing data is needed to build them. The talk will include a background on existing resources, information on both the new DARPA programs enabling new tooling and the new resources Google has released (including a new open source PDK), and finally initial details about a program to help enable everyone (academics, hobbyists and companies) to create integrated circuits that are open down to the transistor!
Join us for the Open Hardware Summit on March 13th in New York City! It will be the 10th anniversary and Sophi Kravitz will be giving a keynote. More speakers will be announced soon!
The 2020 Open Hardware Summit will be held Friday, March 13th 2020 at Tishman Auditorium at NYU School of Law, New York located at 63 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003.
The Open Hardware Summit is the annual conference of the 501c3 Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA). We aim to foster technological knowledge and encourage research that is accessible, collaborative and respects user freedom. OSHWA is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity and donations and sponsorships to OSHWA and the Summit are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Types of ticket:
Early Bird Backer – Help others get to the Summit. This ticket price funds the Ada Lovelace travel grants.The early bird ticket will be available only for first few weeks of the tickets launch.
Early Bird Standard – This will give you access to the Open Hardware Summit event. The early bird ticket will be available only for first few weeks of the tickets launch.
Backer- Help others get to the Summit. This ticket price funds the Ada Lovelace travel grants.
Standard – The standard ticket gives you access to the Open Hardware Summit event.
Hardship – Are you a student, starving artists or just low on funds? We still want you to be able to attend the Summit. This ticket is for those who cannot afford standard admission.
Standard + OSHWA membership! – This will give you access to the Open Hardware Summit event on 13th March along with a year long subscription of OSHWA (Open Source Hardware Association) membership.
OSH Park and Screaming Circuits produced an electronic conference badges for the 2018 Open Hardware Summit. Hardware design by Alex Camilo based on concept from ESP trINKet by Mike Rankin. Features for the OHS18 badge: ESP32 microcontroller with built-in WiFi; E-Paper to display the badge wearer’s name; badge wearer can update the displayed text from phone, tablet or laptops. Powered by 2x AA batteries.
This project was developed by a team of wonderful people that came together on Hackaday.io, in particular, this badge could not have happened without Alex Camilo and Michael Welling!
To use the interactive Python prompt (REPL), press the menu button on the badge and select Serial REPL from the Available Apps menu. The terminal emulator connected to the serial port should then display the interactive Python prompt (REPL). You can type in MicroPython code to experiment.
REPL stands for Read Evaluate Print Loop, and is the name given to the interactive MicroPython prompt that you can access on the ESP8266. Using the REPL is by far the easiest way to test out your code and run commands.
There is an USB-to-serial adapter board which be used to access the REPL on the badge via the serial port. However, a simpler option is to use the WebREPL:
Alex Camilo created this wonderful programming jig! Drew was able to use it to program all 300 badges and provision the names of the 150 people that pre-registered in time. Thanks so much to Artisan’s Asylum makerspace near Boston for giving us a space to work on the badges before the Summit!
The boards were made through OSH Park, and Screaming Circuits took care of the assembly. Anyone who has ever built a badge will tell you it isn’t the assembly that gets you — it’s the programming and provisioning. This is especially true since the Open Hardware Summit badge is distributed with the attendee’s names already preloaded. That’s a few hundred badges, all with unique firmware. This is a nightmare by any definition.
However, there’s always a good solution to a problem, and [Drew] from OSH Park showed me the best programming jig I’ve ever seen during the Summit pre-game at Artisan’s Asylum.
What you’re looking at is a 3D printed box loaded up with a touch-screen display, a Raspberry Pi Zero W, and a few pogo pins. This Raspberry Pi does all the heavy lifting by connecting to the Internet, pulling down the current version of the firmware, and loading that firmware onto the badge. There are a few more options thanks to the touch-screen interface, including provisioning all the badges with the names of the attendees — this can be done by reading a list of attendees and uploading the next one to the badge in the jig. All of this is wrapped up with a nice laser-cut cover that securely holds each badge exactly where it needs to be for the pogo pins to make contact.
This is, without question, the best programming jig I’ve seen. Any badge makers out there should take note: this is how you program a few hundred badges. The badge, itself, is great and just as this post is published there will be hundreds of eager hackers futzing about with this remarkable piece of hardware. If you want to check out the current progress of the badge hacking, check out the updates on Twitter
Lesson Learned:
Badges should have built-in USB port:
USB connector makes it easy to multiple volunteers with laptops to flash firmware onto the badges in parallel, versus having just one programming jig
USB connector makes it easier for people attending the Summit to experiment with modifying the firmware and developing their own functionality
Pretend that the deadline is 1 month before the event
We originally had the goal of being ready on September 1st for the September 27th conference, but we allowed ourselves to push the deadline for final firmware release to the day before the Summit. That meant staying up all night to flash the updated firmware on to the badges
We should have identified the minimum feature set and simplified the functionality sooner in the design revision process
We should have planned that we would have 3 hardware revisions and allowed for it in the schedule
OSH Park 