Magfest 2025

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Super Magfest 2025 in National Harbor, Maryland. The event is a massive collection of Video Games, Gamers, Musicians, Makers, Cosplayers, and Nerds of all types.

Conventions like this can be a ton of fun but also a bit overwhelming due to the large crowds and loud noises. Apparently my cellphone feels the same way, having struggled before at large cons with trying to maintain signal and keep in communication with my friends when there are just too many devices around.

To try to solve that problem this year I brought some of the LoRa radios from the SHD Brick project flashed with the Meshtastic software. My partner and I were hoping to test out the range and connectivity on the convention floor for the SHD Brick project, so the night before we left we 3d-printed cases for the radios using a very nice design by TonyG on Printables. Of course I forgot to check if the LiPo batteries I had on-hand already would fit in them before printing (spoilers: they don’t).

When we got to the hotel we set up our radios and the Meshtastic software. I found out that the case didn’t fit after already semi-permanently attaching my battery to the radio board, so it just kicked around all weekend in my bag like a dangerous mistake waiting to happen.

We decided to assemble the rest of the cases at the Makerspace anyway, surrounded by others working on crafts and cosplay repairs, it just felt like the right thing to do. My partner opted to take one of the radios with a case and just use one of my (many) spare USB battery banks to power it. This turned out to be just fine actually, the power bank ran all day and lived in her bag as well, but hers looked less like something from the bomb squad episode on a TV show.

We booted up the radios and were appy to see that they still worked, connecting fine to each other, and then suddenly it happened…

“New node connected”

“New node connected”

Our lonely little radios weren’t alone at the event, not even a little bit!

By the end of the weeknd my Meshtastic software had connected to 57 new nodes, some reporting that they were as far away as Washington, DC.

In the open chat I proposed that maybe we should have a Meshtastic meet-up at Magfest, and several others responded excitedly that we should do it that night!

So at 11pm, we had the first Meshtastic meet-up at Magfest. Five of us were there, sharing information on the radios, ideas for next year, and even a dedicated Magfest channel for chatting at the event.

Our range tests were a bit overshadowed, but finding a working mesh already functioning at the event is actually better than I hoped. This gives me hope that the SHD Brick project might actually be a useful item for conventions and events.

In non-mesh news I also picked up a Swadge for the first time this year. The Magfest swadge is built around an ESP32 and crammed full of some ingenious games and music apps (including a nice working tuner). The LED light dances and colorchord utility - which uses the onboard mic to drive the LEDs based on the sounds/music around you - reminded me to get back to work on my LED Snakes project before Wildfire gets here, so it’s time to get back into the workshop!

Thanks for reading, catch ya later!