1o57

Watchmaking skills are dying. Please try to keep that skill tree alive - teach someone- anyone...

I get asked that often. I always base what I include each year on things that I'm studying or interested in that year, so I'd like to think I'd find the solutions-

That being said, teams OFTEN find means to solutions that I had not thought of- and that's actually one of the most enjoyable parts of the entire process for me.

Each puzzle has multiple stages, and often multiple paths to a solution. There are also quite a few red herrings...

If you read about the badge designs I did for Defcon 21, you'll see the clock-work mechanisms that were part of the Uber badges- that was an homage to my grandfather, who was a jeweler and a watchmaker- an as a jeweler he used to make the rings and other things for local Masons....

Hehe- ok fine-

The story HighWiz is talking about is actually how the Hardware Hacking Village was created:

Many years back I had gotten Parallax to donate a bunch of robot hobby kits- like 50 of them- so that year at Defcon I started at one end of the conference, and like the Pied Piper walked through the crowds of people shouting "Who wants to learn to build a robot"- by the time I had gotten across the entire conference space I had a line of people behind me- since we didn't really have anywhere to go, we made a big circle in the middle of the contest area floor. Everyone sat and I taught an impromptu class on basic servo hacking, subsumption embedded systems programming and basic electronics- people had a really good time- but we were literally sitting on the floor in the midst of 14,000 people at the conference- so the following year Russ Rogers and I formed the Hardware Hacking Village, so that we wouldn't have to sit on the floor anymore...

I know of many people who put winning an Uber/black badge from Defcon on their resume- certain employers, who have an appreciation and understanding of what that really means will take it as a bullet point worthy of note--- (in roughly 16,000 people at the con each year only approximately 15 uber badges are awarded/earned)

Kinda like the last Starfighter eh?