On October 12th, the first-ever TinyGo Conf happened in Tokyo, Japan. I planned to write about it sooner, but I did so many things during my trip that I didn't have the time nor strength to do it until now.

It was only possible thanks to the amazing TinyGophers community in Japan, something I could never have dreamed of when I first heard about TinyGo, not when it “officially” debuted at FOSDEM ’19, nor during all the achievements we’ve reached over the years. The TinyGo community in Japan, especially the Keeb people, are special. They’re doing all kinds of cool things: meetups, workshops, books... so when I heard they were organizing the first-ever TinyGo Conf, I had to go. Thankfully, they invited me to give a talk and have a booth/table to share some of my work too. I can’t thank them enough. Even with the language barrier, my family and I felt very welcome (like VIPs!!). They’re super nice, kind, and of course… a bit crazy in the best way.

The day before, we went on a tour of some of the best shops in Akihabara, where I found some interesting electronics, but mostly tools, so of course, I bought them. Valentine Chua from GopherCon Singapore also joined us (expect a crossover episode soon!). Then we had a small pre-conference dinner to gather strength for the next day, learned some new concepts like sake-kuzu, and got to know each other a little better. I must admit, I was like a fangirl then, finally meeting all the people I secretly follow on social media (sssshhh!!) . It was really fun.

On the big day, there were about 60-70 attendees and around 15-20 staff, speakers, and exhibitors, if I’m not mistaken. There were workshops, talks, and booths happening at the same time. We started with some words from Takasago-san and a short encouraging video from Ron Evans, who couldn’t attend. Then the soldering stations got going and didn’t stop until closing time. Micchiebear managed the custom keycap workshop, and people were free to roam around and talk to the exhibitors (myself included). Being TinyGo, you could expect a respectable number of robots, bright LEDs, a racing simulator, an automated greenhouse, books, and much more. People played OpenLED Race and seemed to love it.

I gave away a bunch of 3D-printed gophers and stickers and at the end of the event I share the rest with the staff so they could share them at other events. I also brought eight Gopher ARCADE kits, and people immediately started building them! Satoken surprised me by saying he’d already ordered a bunch of PCBs for the Gopher ARCADE even more than I had! I love how that’s possible through open source.

My daughter Gala joined me to give the talk. She’s been excited to help since last FOSDEM, and unlike her dad, she’s not afraid of the stage. I started off on the wrong foot, even though it was the talk I had prepared most thoroughly, checking everything three times, but things happen. I should have paused to regroup, but... if FOSDEM and other conferences felt like being hit by a train, this one was like being hit by multiple trains at once. I talked about different projects I’ve built, using each one to showcase the various features and possibilities of TinyGo, focusing on toys and games: GopherBadge, Nametag, Gopherino, FireFly, GameLink… I hope people liked it, and maybe I inspired someone to start tinkering with TinyGo, though honestly, they already have a very lively community with lots of amazing projects.

After cleanup, I shared some snacks from my hometown, Cartagena: sweet cordiales and savory crespillos.

We finished the day with a post-party dinner, where we talked about new ideas to get together, like a TinyGo Cruise! Once again, I felt so welcome. They’re such wonderful people, I can’t wait to come back next year. A week later, I’m still unpacking all the feelings and experiences from those two very intense days. I kept traveling around Japan with my family for a couple more weeks non-stop, and that’s why I couldn’t write about it until now.

I want to thank the staff and organizers once again, this truly marks a checkpoint in TinyGo history, and it couldn’t have been better.

Fun fact: Tinygophers learned the correct spelling/pronunciation of my name, I never thought about that, since the JO in coneJO is transcribbed as ジョ(yo) but in Spanish it sounds like ホ (ho), so it should be コネホ (koneho).

The slides of my talk (Hardware fun with Tinygo: Games & Toys) and a lot of links to the projects mentioned could be found here.