2024 Hackaday Superconference

Note: This article is written from publicly available event information, official announcements, schedule details, community recaps, project repositories, video archive descriptions, and maker coverage available through April 2026.

The 2024 Hackaday Superconference, often called Hackaday Supercon 2024, was not the kind of tech event where people merely sat in chairs, politely nodded at slides, and went home with a branded pen that stopped working before lunch. Held November 1–3, 2024, in Pasadena, California, the event brought together hardware hackers, embedded developers, PCB artists, open-source enthusiasts, engineers, students, tinkerers, and the sort of people who look at a perfectly ordinary electronic device and whisper, “I can make this weirder.”

At its heart, Hackaday Supercon is a hardware hacking conference built around community. Yes, there were talks. Yes, there were workshops. Yes, there was a schedule. But the real magic came from what happened between those official blocks: hallway debugging, badge experiments, sticker swaps, spontaneous demos, and conversations that began with “What is that thing blinking on your shirt?” and somehow ended in a deep discussion about I2C bus conflicts.

The 2024 edition leaned heavily into SAOs, or Simple Add-Ons, the tiny badge accessories that have become a beloved part of hacker conference culture. In true Hackaday fashion, the community did not merely accept the assignment. It overclocked the assignment, soldered LEDs to it, added firmware, and probably gave it a pun-based name.

What Was the 2024 Hackaday Superconference?

The 2024 Hackaday Superconference was a three-day gathering focused on hardware hacking, embedded systems, open-source hardware, digital fabrication, electronic art, robotics, sustainability, radio, PCB design, and practical engineering. The event took place in Pasadena at Supplyframe’s spaces, including the DesignLab environment that has long been associated with Hackaday’s maker-centered events.

Supercon has always been more intimate than giant trade shows. Instead of cavernous halls filled with sales booths and plastic swag, it favors a more concentrated atmosphere: talks, hands-on workshops, live hacking, badge projects, and community-led show-and-tell. That smaller scale is part of the appeal. It creates a high signal-to-noise ratio, which is engineer-speak for “you can actually talk to interesting people without yelling over a fog machine.”

Tickets for the 2024 event followed Hackaday’s familiar model, with early “True-Believer” pricing and regular admission afterward. The ticket announcement positioned the weekend as a mix of talks, demos, workshops, badge hacking, food, music, and hardware shenanigansthe technical term for “something is smoking, but everyone is smiling.”

Why Hackaday Supercon 2024 Mattered

The maker world has changed dramatically in recent years. Microcontrollers are cheaper, PCB manufacturing is easier, 3D printing is common, open-source tools are stronger, and AI-assisted development has entered the workshop whether anyone invited it or not. In that environment, Hackaday Supercon 2024 served as a useful snapshot of where hands-on technology culture is heading.

The event showed that hardware hacking is no longer just about blinking an LED, though blinking LEDs remain a constitutional right. It is about functional badges, sustainable electronics, custom chip design, radio direction finding, full-color PCBs, rehabilitation devices, smart-glasses optics, open ocean research hardware, and interactive wearable art. The range was broad, but the common thread was practical curiosity.

Supercon 2024 also reinforced a major truth about the Hackaday community: people care deeply about sharing process, not just polished results. A finished product is nice. A failed prototype with a great story, three bodge wires, and a lesson learned the hard way? That gets applause too.

The 2024 Badge: A Playground for Supercon Add-Ons

The badge was one of the stars of the 2024 Hackaday Superconference. This year’s design centered on Supercon Add-Ons, the event’s playful expansion of the SAO idea. Instead of treating add-ons as decorative extras, the badge encouraged participants to explore functionality through I2C, GPIO, MicroPython, and modular hardware experimentation.

The main badge included six SAO ports and used a Raspberry Pi Pico W on the back side, giving attendees access to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities. That made the badge less like a passive souvenir and more like a tiny hardware lab hanging around everyone’s neck. Which, admittedly, is exactly the kind of necklace one expects at Supercon.

Four Starter Add-Ons

To help attendees jump in, the badge came with a starter set of add-ons. These included a capacitive touch wheel, a spiral LED matrix petal, a blank protoboard petal, and an I2C-enabled microcontroller proto-petal using a CH32V003 RISC-V chip. Together, they created a low-pressure entry point for people who wanted to write MicroPython, test I2C devices, solder their own circuits, or simply make something glow in a way that alarmed nearby photographers.

The badge’s architecture encouraged learning by doing. Touch input could drive LED animations. Multiple SAOs could interact. GPIO lines could be explored. The I2C bus could become a playground, a puzzle, or a very small traffic jam, depending on the user’s ambition and sleep level.

The Supercon Add-On Contest

The Supercon 8 Add-On Contest challenged makers to build SAOs that did more than sparkle politely. While SAOs have often been associated with PCB art and blinking lights, the 2024 contest pushed participants toward more functional, communicative, and technically ambitious designs.

The results were wonderfully excessive. Winners included a miniature digital multimeter SAO, an Etch-A-Sketch-inspired OLED drawing add-on, a tiny waving inflatable-style art SAO, and a playable Vectrex-inspired add-on. These were not casual trinkets. They were tiny demonstrations of design thinking, electronics skill, mechanical creativity, and the kind of patience required to solder things no human finger should be expected to hold.

Why the SAO Theme Worked

The SAO focus gave the 2024 Superconference a unifying theme. Attendees could arrive with their own add-ons, trade designs, test ideas on the badge, and compare approaches. It turned the badge from a single object into a shared platform. That mattered because Supercon is not just about watching experts explain things. It is about letting the audience become part of the exhibit.

In SEO terms, “hardware hacking conference” sounds like a tidy phrase. In person, it looks more like hundreds of people collectively trying to make small circuit boards talk to each other before the battery gives up.

Talks That Showed the Range of Modern Hardware Hacking

The speaker lineup for the 2024 Hackaday Superconference reflected how wide the hardware world has become. Topics moved from sustainability to medical technology, from PCB aesthetics to radio tracking, from embedded firmware to smart-glasses optics.

Christina Cyr’s talk on 3D-printing packaging for small-scale product deliveries addressed a very real maker-business problem: what happens after a prototype becomes something people actually order? Custom packaging can be expensive, especially when products are still evolving, so 3D printing inserts can help small creators protect shipments without committing to huge manufacturing runs.

Ayesha Iftiqhar-Wilson tackled environmentally friendly electronics, focusing on sustainable design principles and the growing problem of electronic waste. It was a reminder that hardware creators are not only responsible for making things work; they also need to consider how products are sourced, repaired, reused, and eventually retired.

Other talks explored flexible circuits embedded in fibers, motion rehabilitation devices, optical systems for smart glasses, full-color PCBs, open-source ocean buoys, and the practical journey from consulting to prototyping. The variety made one thing clear: modern hacking is not a single discipline. It is a collision of electronics, software, mechanics, design, science, art, and caffeine.

Workshops: Where Theory Got Flux on Its Fingers

Workshops are a major reason people attend Hackaday Supercon. Talks inspire; workshops make attendees pick up tools. The 2024 workshops included hands-on technical sessions such as Shawn Hymel’s DigiKey-presented workshop on Zephyr device drivers and Matt Venn’s Tiny Tapeout session on digital chip design and manufacturing.

Those examples show the event’s range. Zephyr represents the practical world of embedded software and device-driver development, while Tiny Tapeout opens the door to custom silicon design. One workshop gets you closer to writing firmware for real hardware; the other makes the phrase “I designed a chip” feel less like something only wizard-level engineers are allowed to say.

Workshop tickets were limited, and the organizers adjusted signup rules to give more attendees a fair chance at participating. That decision fit the spirit of Supercon: access matters, space is limited, and everyone wants a turn at the soldering table.

Streaming and the Online Audience

Not everyone could make it to Pasadena, and Hackaday recognized that. Main-stage talks were streamed live, while second-track sessions were recorded for later release. That gave the wider community a way to follow along, even if they were watching from a workbench, couch, hackerspace, or kitchen table covered in suspiciously many jumper wires.

The official Hackaday YouTube archive became an important extension of the conference. For people researching Supercon after the fact, those recordings preserve the technical content and the flavor of the event. They also help speakers reach far beyond the room, which is especially valuable for niche hardware topics that deserve more attention than a single weekend can provide.

Community Energy: The Real Feature

Ask people what makes Hackaday Supercon special and many will mention the same thing: the people. The talks are strong, the badge is fun, and the workshops are valuable, but the community energy is what gives the event its personality.

Attendee recaps from 2024 emphasized kindness, generosity, and the usefulness of bringing conversation starters such as stickers, SAOs, small projects, or unusual hardware. That is not just cute advice. At an event full of technically curious people, a weird little circuit board can be social infrastructure. It says, “Please ask me what this does,” which is much easier than opening with, “Hello, would you like to discuss bus arbitration?”

Badge hacking also created shared moments. One recap highlighted how a first-time MicroPython and I2C learner managed to create a working LED animation by the end of the weekend. That kind of story explains why Supercon is more than a showcase of expertise. It is a place where beginners can earn cheers for figuring things out in public.

Practical Lessons from Hackaday Supercon 2024

Bring Something to Share

It does not have to be fancy. Stickers, SAOs, tiny PCBs, zines, 3D-printed objects, or a pocket-sized prototype can all start conversations. The best items include contact information or a project link so people can follow up later.

Pack Real Tools

If badge hacking is on the agenda, small tools matter. A portable soldering iron, flush cutters, tweezers, wire, USB cables, and spare batteries can turn “I wish I could fix this” into “Look, it works now, mostly.”

Do Not Trust Conference Wi-Fi With Your Entire Plan

Download documentation, firmware, drivers, and project files before arriving. Conferences are wonderful places to meet people and terrible places to discover that your toolchain depends on a 1.8 GB download.

Talk to People

The talks are often recorded. The conversations are not. If you see a project that interests you, ask about it. Most attendees are happy to explain what they built, especially if you admire the bodge wire with appropriate respect.

Experience Section: What the 2024 Hackaday Superconference Felt Like

The experience of the 2024 Hackaday Superconference can be described as organized chaos with excellent solder joints. From the moment attendees arrived, the badge became both an identity card and a weekend-long homework assignment. People did not simply wear it. They explored it, modified it, broke things gently, repaired them proudly, and compared add-ons like collectors comparing rare trading cards.

The first day had the feeling of a community warming up its oscilloscopes. Attendees checked in, collected badges, found friends, located coffee, and began the ancient conference ritual of asking, “Which building is this in?” The split between event spaces added a little navigation adventure, but it also created movement. People flowed between talks, workshops, hacking areas, and informal hangouts, each carrying some combination of laptop, badge, snack, cable bundle, and mysterious PCB.

By Saturday, the event had fully shifted into maker overdrive. Talks filled the schedule, workshops gave attendees structured learning time, and the badge-hacking culture intensified. Tables became temporary labs. Someone would be writing MicroPython. Someone else would be soldering. A third person would be holding a component at arm’s length and asking whether it smelled “normal.” In another context, this might be concerning. At Supercon, it was ambiance.

The SAO theme made socializing easier. Add-ons gave people a reason to approach strangers, trade designs, compare circuits, and explain choices. The best conversations often began with simple questions: “Did you make that?” “What chip is on there?” “Is it supposed to blink like that?” Sometimes the answer was yes. Sometimes the answer was “not yet.” Both were acceptable.

Sunday brought the satisfying fatigue of a productive maker weekend. By then, attendees had absorbed talks, met new collaborators, found bugs, fixed bugs, created new bugs, and learned enough to become dangerous in at least one additional technology stack. The badge demo culture gave people a chance to show what they had built under pressure. Not every project needed to be polished. In fact, the rough edges were part of the charm. Supercon rewards curiosity as much as perfection.

For newcomers, the 2024 Hackaday Superconference offered a clear lesson: participation beats observation. The people who got the most out of the weekend were not necessarily the most experienced engineers. They were the ones who asked questions, brought small projects, joined conversations, and were willing to learn in public. That is the real Supercon formula. Take a room full of clever people, give them a hackable badge, add talks and workshops, sprinkle in snacks and sleep deprivation, and watch a community turn copper, code, and curiosity into something memorable.

Conclusion

The 2024 Hackaday Superconference captured what makes the hardware hacking community so durable and delightful. It combined serious technical content with playful experimentation, advanced engineering with beginner-friendly discovery, and polished talks with wonderfully messy real-world making.

The SAO-focused badge gave the event a memorable identity. The talks demonstrated the diversity of modern hardware innovation. The workshops helped attendees build practical skills. The online streams extended the experience beyond Pasadena. Most importantly, the community proved once again that the best technology events are not just about devices. They are about the people who open them, question them, improve them, and occasionally attach too many LEDs.

Hackaday Supercon 2024 was more than a conference. It was a live demonstration of hacker culture at its best: curious, generous, technical, funny, and only slightly hazardous to unattended USB ports.