KiCad has its own conference!
In April 26 and 27, the 1st KiCad Conference (KiCon), will take place in Chicago.
Tech Explorations is a proud sponsor of the conference, and we have a ticket, valued at $99, to give out.
Why would you want to go to KiCon? To begin with, checkout the speakers and their talks. Here’s just a few:
- Ben Hibben will talk about designing and teaching soldering kits for beginners. This is particularly interesting to teachers and maker space mentors.
- Blake Ramsdell will talk about programmatic generation of symbols and footprints. Essentially, you can learn how to write programs that convert datasheet data into symbols and footprints. No more error-prone manual drawing.
- Craig Bishop will talk about why auto-routers suck, and how to use them anyway. Great title! This is a great talk for anyone working with large boards where manual routing is impractical.
- Wayne Stambaugh (project leader) will talk about the state of KiCad – v5.1 and beyond. This is the keynote talk, which will include a discussion on the current status of the KiCad project, why KiCad is important, any project announcements and Q&A with the KiCad project leader.
These are just some examples, be sure to check the full talk list.
The conference will be held at mHUB in Chicago IL.
KiCon 2019 is a user conference for the popular open source CAD program KiCad.
Happening April 26th and 27th 2019 in Chicago IL, this will be the first and largest gathering of hardware developers using KiCad. Talks at the conference will span hardware design, revision control, scripting, manufacturing considerations, proper library management and getting started developing the underlying tools. All talks have been listed on the conference site. Additionally, there will be contests, roundtable discussions with the developers and hands-on demos to deepen knowledge of hardware design and using KiCad.
Is this a conference only for current users of KiCad? No! Attendees will learn general concepts around PCB design, hardware creation and developing products for the market. Attendees include hardware and software developers from around the world, including members of the core KiCad development team out of CERN in Switzerland.
Attend this unconventional conference to learn more about how to build your next hardware project using open source, extensible tools. Join industry figures (and sponsors) like Digikey, Adafruit, Supplyframe and Bantam Tools. Interact with manufacturing experts from OSHpark, Royal Circuits, Aisler and SnapEDA. Meet and get to know others in the hardware community, who regularly are creating new hardware for fun and profit.
As I said, Tech Explorations is a sponsor of KiCon, and we have a ticket to give out.
If you’d like it, here’s what you need to do:
- You will need a PCB project you created. It doesn’t matter if it is a single layer board with 2 components on it, or 16 layers with hundreds of components. Simply pick something that you are proud of.
- Fill in the form below BEFORE Sunday March 31 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time).
If you want to maximise your chances of winning the ticket, you may submit more than one boards (as long as you are the designer).
That’s it.
You don’t need to be a Tech Explorations student, or to even use KiCad.
Once we have all submissions, we will:
- Allocate a unique ID number to all entries.
- We’ll use an Arduino (or an ESP32, I haven’t made up my mind yet) to draw a random number.
- The entry that corresponds to this random number wins the ticket.
I will record the ruffle draw and post it in my blog. If I manage to get the technology to behave, I will try to do the draw live.
The ticket includes entry to the conference only. All other expenses (like travel, accomodation, food etc.) must be paid by the ticket holder.
Good luck!
Here’s the form:
(Raffle ended)