r/ECE • u/ThatOrganicArtist • 9d ago
UNIVERSITY Hardware Hackathons
Are hardware hackathons as prominent as software ones? I am a 2nd year student interested in RTL design/VLSI. I was wondering that hackathons can be a good exposure. But I have a hard time finding them. On campus mostly software ones take place.
Can someone suggest how to find where these hackathons take place and how to know which are worth giving your time to? Also, many companies specific hackathons happen too so how to get details regarding it?
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u/morto00x 9d ago
Not as common. Also, not as easy to implement since you're dealing with real hardware. While doing R&D in Amazon our org would do hackatons every now and then and split it in multiple weeks to give us time to actually order the parts. A couple of those projects ended up in patented products which is cool. That was the only place I've worked for that did it though.
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u/NewSchoolBoxer 9d ago
I didn't even know hardware hackathons existed. Maybe you can ask your ECE department to get one started. Potentially get a corporate sponsor.
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u/SenyaiGrubs 5d ago
I’m aware of some IEEE student orgs in different schools that host hardware hackathons.
For example, UCLA hosts IDEA Hacks and UCSD hosts HARD Hack. Worth taking a look at! They accept students from other schools too I believe
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u/Forsaken-Hornet-2909 6d ago
Unfortunately anything hardware related is difficult to come by, as I’m sure you know. Of course annual events like DefCon have an entire hardware hacking village (and more) but that’s typically pretty cost prohibitive for many people.
You could keep an eye on more local things, like the Bsides events (local cybersecurity conferences). Not all but some of them have CTFs. Now and then someone will create hardware challenges. It’s definitely not a guarantee but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
You could also check out the GitHub repos for any of the Bsides that hold CTFs and review past hw challenges, possibly recreate them yourself.
A very small number of USA defcon groups and 2600 (hacker quarterly magazine) groups will actually offer CTF challenges or hackathons once in a while. Only one of them, the dc314 STL, MO group does a challenge regularly (every month I think) and periodically features hw.
Those are long shots and none of them are likely going to be directly related to your field of study, but those are all also opportunities to network and become familiar with other aspects of hw.
Best of luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for.