The 2018 Supercon  is a full three-day event, taking place on November 2-4, in Pasadena, California. The conference begins on Friday, November 2nd, at noon, with workshops and badge hacking. Every ticket holder will get a custom electronics badge to hack on during the weekend and beyond.

Espressif’s Software and Technical Marketing Manager, Jeroen Domburg, is once again an invited speaker at the conference. His presentation is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 3rd, at the LACM venue. It is entitled: “Magic Paintbrush: Everyone Can Paint with Printer Cartridges”. As the title suggests, Jeroen’s talk is aimed at giving tips to aspiring painters from the perspective of electronics engineering. This is a personal project that Jeroen (a.k.a. Sprite_tm) has been working on for some time. By reverse-engineering an HP printer’s color cartridge and looking at the cartridge on a silicon level, he eventually tapped the communication between the cartridge and the main printer electronics of an operating printer. This way, he figured out how to drive the printer’s head which needed, as it turned out, tightly-timed signals at “weird voltage levels”. However, the combination of the parallel output mode of the I2S peripheral of an ESP32 and some external level shifters could account for that. This practically meant that the cartridge could be controlled from an ESP32, thus squirting colored ink on surfaces that normally do not fit into a printer. 

Other Supercon participants include some of the “greenest beginners”, as well as those who have made history with their designs. So, attendees should expect an unparalleled mix of people who live and breathe hardware. Talks and workshops include in-depth looks at hardware from today and yesterday, presented by members of the community. In case there is anyone who might feel a bit tired of sitting and watching all the time, there is no need for them to worry. All talks are recorded anyway! So, people who are eager to get hands-on with some hardware can participate in a workshop, get lost in a crypto-challenge and try their firmware hacking skills.

In general, Supercon attendees should expect something special each year. To this end, the Supplyframe DesignLab is opening their doors for Supercon 2018. This, combined with the excellent performance hall in the adjoining LA College of Music and the private outdoor venue that connects the two, creates the perfect scene for a hacker village to take shape. In fact, the Supplyframe headquarters will be the venue where Supercon attendees will celebrate with drinks and appetizers the start of the conference in the evening of Friday, November 2nd. Likewise, on Sunday  night, November 4th, the 2018 Hackaday Prize winners will be named in the same venue, and everyone will celebrate there the end of the conference till late into the night.