+++
title = "KiCad Hackathon At CERN"
date = "2016-07-06"
draft = false
aliases = [
    "/post/kicad-hackathon-july-2016-at-cern/"
]
"blog/categories" = [
    "Events"
]
+++

A cadre of KiCad developers including Wayne Stambaugh, Tom Wlostowski,
Maciej (Orson) Suminski, and Simon Richter along with some potential
new developers Michele Castellana and Alejandro García Montoro gathered
at CERN for a KiCad hackathon the week of July 4th to July 10th organized
by CERN's Javier Serrano.  There was even enough time to take a trip to
visit the KiCad project founder Jean-Pierre Charras.

It would be a gross understatement to say that a good time was had by all.
Many new and existing developement topics were discussed and a lot of KiCad hacking
took place during the week.  Much hacking was done to improve the
push and shove router, improve user experience, improve the
coverage and accuracy of the geometry library, create a schematic
I/O plugin architecture, and finalize the version 5 stable release
road map.

There was also working demo and hacking on a new feature created by the CERN developers
Tom Wlostowski and Maciej (Orson) Suminski which was kept under wraps and an unexpected
urprise for everyone outside of CERN including the project leader.  Expect a big announcement in
the not too distant future as this feature nears a level of maturity to be
committed to the
https://code.launchpad.net/~kicad-product-committers/kicad/product[development
branch].
