Open Hardware Summit 2025
On the last few days of May this year, I made it to the Open Hardware Summit in Edinburgh. I'd attended last years in Montreal and had such a good time, so I was very excited when they announced they'd be coming to the UK this year. Once again the summit did not disappoint.
Talks
All of the talks were great - even with the ones about projects I didn't find personally interesting, I could feel the passion from everyone on the stage about what they were discussing. I did have a few favourites however:
The Quetzal-1 CubeSat - The talk was a good combination of the great story behind it (Guatemala's first satellite) as well as some of the technical challenges behind making a satellite on a budget with little experience. Really interesting.
Building effective factory test systems - This one wasn't as flashy as some of the others but as someone who's designed a few internal test tools professionally, I found this one to be by far the most useful. A lot of advice I'll be taking forward.
The Mothbox - I have never heard someone be so passionate about moths. Less technical details than some of the other talks but by far the most fun and entertaining.
Maintaining KiCad's libraries - I was expecting this one to be pretty dry, but the main focus was on the social aspects of how to motivate and organise volunteers, something I hadn't really considered with regards to these larger open source projects. Hopefully a talk that other projects will pay attention to.
Others I enjoyed: AYAB knitting machines, Bioreactor food growing, BrailleRap, Printegrated circuits, Selling open hardware and VanSpoof.
The badge
The badge was a pleasant surprise - rather than a traditional PCB it was a fabric design with conductive thread where you needed to sew the components on. I really enjoyed having something to do with my hands while watching the talks on the first day, and the design looks great.
I did have a few difficulties though. The laptop I bought didn't have MicroPython installed so I had a quick go programming the badge's ESP32 from the Arduino IDE. I managed to get the first LED going but no luck with the second. Additionally since the SAO badges I've made previously are very top heavy, they tended to flop over when the badge was hung around my neck. This isn't helped by my attempt at the fabric battery holder pushing the whole badge forwards.
Panels, workshops and tables
On Saturday morning I made it to the Wearable Techniques panel which was pretty cool, covering wearable electronics from light up dresses to self-opening roses.
One of the things that was kind of a bummer was that the three things I was really interested in all fell in the same time slot on the Saturday afternoon-the rockets panel, the mist maker workshop and the open wave receiver workshop. I ultimately went for the receiver which ended up being a lot of fun. Run by a group called Shortwave Collective, it involved making a radio receiver basically out of junk. We went outside afterwards to try and pick up some transmissions, where I got to listen to a Scottish football station from a radio mostly comprised of a rock and two tent pegs.
The tables were the one thing I wish I'd spent more time at - they were very busy all weekend so I only had a quick look around. I really enjoyed the Open Flap project, the Crystallography boxes and all the cool bits on the Solder Party table.
Final thoughts
I have to give serious props to the organisers here. Last years summit was great, and to maintain that level of quality on a different continent with everything going on with US travel right now is really impressive.
On that note I'm hoping the summit will be back in Europe next year, as I think myself and a lot of the attendees would not stand a good chance of making it through customs for various reasons. Regardless, I had a brilliant weekend and hope to be able to go to many more summits in the future!