FreeCAD News

FOSDEM is com­ing soon and the FPA is already plan­ning to make our cor­re­spond­ing FreeCAD event big­ger and bet­ter than last year. FOSDEM hap­pens in Brus­sels on Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 3^rd and Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 4^th, 2024. We pro­pose to, once again, real­ize a pub­lic FreeCAD day, open to all, uncon­fer­ence style, and a hackathon, also open to any­one inter­est­ed but focused on doing actu­al cod­ing, togeth­er with FOSDEM.

The FOSDEM event is a big bea­con for many CAD-relat­ed projects and inter­est­ed peo­ple. Hook­ing to it turns the FreeCAD day much more inter­est­ing and can draw many more peo­ple. It also allows FOSDEM atten­dees to go to the FreeCAD day, and FreeCAD day atten­dees to enjoy FOSDEM afterwards.

Sev­er­al details are still not decid­ed yet, but we already pub­lish the gen­er­al plan to give every­body enough time to plan and book trav­el tick­ets. We will update this post when things such as loca­tions, etc. get confirmed.

Here is what we are planning:

• We’re doing a hackathon like we did in Van­cou­ver. Tech­ni­cal and non-tech­ni­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion is wel­come. This is hands on work but will include a synced dis­cord group for vir­tu­al participation.
• The FreeCAD day will again run as an uncon­fer­ence focused on com­mu­ni­ty feed­back. user-projects, updates on progress, dis­cus­sion of edu­ca­tion­al out­reach, and sug­ges­tions for how we can make FreeCAD better.
• Social and team build­ing (din­ner night)
• Out­reach to oth­er projects (FOSDEM talk and FreeCAD booth).

The program

The fol­low­ing plan­ning is what we will orga­nize. You can choose to attend only the FreeCAD day, or the FreeCAD day + FOSDEM, or any oth­er day. There is no need to book, except for the Thurs­day night and Mon­day events. How­ev­er, to help us plan things bet­ter, and also to encour­age oth­ers to come, it is a good idea to indi­cate in this forum thread that you are plan­ning to attend.

Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 31 and Thurs­day Jan­u­ary 1: Hackathon

FreeCAD hackathon at Brus­sels Hack­er­space (HSBXL). The hackathon will hap­pen more or less between 9:30 and 18:00. The hack­er­space is locat­ed near Brus­sel South train/metro sta­tion. It’s a 15 min walk from the sta­tion, but you can also take a bus that drops you almost at the door. There is more info on the HSBXL web­site. Snacks and drinks can be bought at the HSBXL with a cred­it card, and there is also a restaurant/bar in the same build­ing and sev­er­al oth­ers with­in 10min walk. No reg­is­tra­tion need­ed, just come by!

Thurs­day Feb­ru­ary 1: Restau­rant night

(slots are lim­it­ed, please book before jan­u­ary 20)

We will meet for an evening in a restau­rant (place and time to be announced) in Brus­sels cen­tral dis­trict. We are aim­ing for some­thing with typ­i­cal bel­gian food and beers (with veg­e­tar­i­an and non-alco­holic options of course). The whole night is offered by the FPA to par­tic­i­pants who have booked before jan­u­ary 20. Late com­ers might still be pos­si­ble, depend­ing on the restau­ran­t’s avail­abil­i­ty, but you might need to pay for your own food if we have reached the allo­cat­ed budget.

Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 2: The FreeCAD day

Same as last year, we will hold a whole day of con­fer­ences and com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing at the Ate­lier des Tan­neurs. The event will run from 9:00 to 17:30 and, after an opening/welcome talk, will fol­low then any­one inter­est­ed in pre­sent­ing some­thing or sim­ply talk about some­thing can post a note on a pan­el, and sub­jects will be sched­uled one after the other.

The venue is locat­ed in the cen­tral dis­trict of Brus­sels and easy to reach by foot (10 min walk from Brus­sels Grote Markt) or by tramway/metro (Brus­sels South or Anneessens metro station).

This year, the FreeCAD day will hap­pen togeth­er with the KiCAD project. We will share the same space, and it will be a thrilling oppor­tu­ni­ty for the devel­op­ers and users of both projects to meet and exchange ideas. On the venue, we will have:

• A big room for 50 peo­ple, the­ater mode (no tables, every­body fac­ing the screen), for FreeCAD
• Anoth­er room for 50 peo­ple, with tables and chairs for KiCAD
• A small­er room for 20 peo­ple, with tables and screen for FreeCAD
• A mez­za­nine / meet­ing space with tables, chairs and sofas, shared by both projects. There will be cof­fee, juices and snacks dur­ing the day

You can come any­time, no reg­is­tra­tion required, and hop in and off between the rooms. There is no lunch pro­vid­ed, but many options around the venue, such as a tra­di­tion­al bel­gian fries joint

Sat­ur­day Feb­ru­ary 3 and Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 4: FOSDEM

FOSDEM is a huge event gath­er­ing hun­dreds (thou­sands?) of FOSS devel­op­ers, project man­agers, users and enthu­si­asts from Europe and beyond. It hap­pens on the Brus­sel’s ULB/VUB uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus dur­ing the whole week­end. There are many talks hap­pen­ing the whole week­end. On sun­day, there is a spe­cial Open Hard­ware and CAD/CAM room, packed with CAD-relat­ed talks. We will have a FreeCAD talk at 10:20.

Dur­ing FOSDEM, we will also have a booth, that we will share with KiCAD, Ond­sel and the Open Tool­chain Foun­da­tion. Be sure to drop by!

Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 5: Vis­it to Blender Stu­dio in Amsterdam

(slots are lim­it­ed, please book before jan­u­ary 20)

We will be offered a tour of the Blender insti­tute, and have a chance to chat with Blender peo­ple and chair­man Ton. Please note, the Blender insti­tute is locat­ed in Ams­ter­dam, 2 hours by high-speed train from Brus­sels, and you are respon­si­ble for get­ting there. We will meet at the Blender insti­tute at 14:00 and the vis­it will last about 2 or 3 hours.

Join online!

Nei­ther the hackathon or the FreeCAD day events will be record­ed this year, because that would require a con­se­quent amount of work and equip­ment to do it well, and also anoth­er kind of orga­ni­za­tion. How­ev­er, dur­ing these days, we will try as much as pos­si­ble to share online what is hap­pen­ing, and let peo­ple from around the world inter­act with peo­ple who are phys­i­cal­ly present. The main places to look for more are:

• The FreeCAD forum: https://forum.freecad.org/viewtopic.php?t=82330
• The FreeCAD dis­cord chan­nel: https://discord.com/channels/870877411049357352/1162044910535450665
• The FreeCAD Matrix room: https://matrix.to/#/#FreeCAD_FreeCAD:gitter.im

And also the usu­al social accounts:

• The FreeCAD Twit­ter account: https://twitter.com/FreeCADNew
• The FreeCAD Mastodon account: https://fosstodon.org/@FreeCAD
• This blog: https://blog.freecad.org

Travel grants

Indi­vid­ual trav­el grants are avail­able this time again. Last year we were able to give a grant to every­body who asked for it. Read here for the details such as the max­i­mum amount you can require and how to proceed.

See you there!