Make or Break.

September 8th - 10th, 2017

Create, code, and
learn with us in Porto

Join us in the playground of the future for 3 days

Registration is open until September 2nd

<> hackathon

A different kind of hackathon

Make or Break is 3 days of fun and learning, for everyone.
Step out of your comfort zone and join us and many other developers.

The competition has 2 main phases:

  • Make: 2 days to develop a software project (maybe add some hardware 🤓)
  • Break: showcase your project to all participants in a small fair

We've got everything you need to get your creative juices flowing: amazing mentors, yummy food, and a kickass chill-out zone!


Please check the regulation before applying.

// workshops

Learn from the best while having fun

Make or Break is all about learning different subjects, from hardware to software, from recreational to serious.

Prepare yourself for 3 days of workshops with amazing people working in the industry.

  • FRIDAY 8TH — 14:30 My First Game with Unity3D with: JoĂŁo Jacob >
  • FRIDAY 8TH — 17:30 Introduction to 3D Printing and Parametric Design with: Rui Teixeira >
  • SATURDAY 9TH — 10:30 Introduction to the Arduino ecosystem and the Internet of Things with: Mário Carneiro and JoĂŁo Gradim >
  • SATURDAY 9TH — 14:30 A Server From Scratch — A DevOps Primer with: JoĂŁo Anes >
  • SATURDAY 9TH — 17:30 Should Coders Design? with: Paulo Pereira >
  • SUNDAY 10TH — 10:30 Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hardware Maintenance with: HĂ©lder Silva >

{} schedule

It's a non-stop 3-day marathon!

Day 1 - September 8th

Welcome, work, and workshops

09:00-12:00
Check-In

Welcome kits

14:30
My First Game with Unity3D

Workshop

17:30
Introduction to 3D Printing and Parametric Design

Workshop

Day 2 - September 9th

Work and workshops all day

10:30
Introduction to the Arduino ecosystem and the Internet of Things

Workshop

14:30
A Server From Scratch — A DevOps Primer

Workshop

17:30
Should Coders Design?

Workshop

Day 3 - September 10th

Final work stretch and hack fair

10:30
Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hardware Maintenance

Workshop

15:30
Hack Fair

Showcase of developed projects

Join us while registration is open until September 2nd!

At Palácio dos Correios, on September 8, 9, and 10

[+] prizes

Amazing prizes for the best projects

Make sure your project shines in at least one of our 3 categories: funny, useful, or hardcore!
We will award 3 different teams (one per category) and each member will get a prize.
Don't forget to read our rulebook.

Nintendo Switch (Grey) + Splatoon 2

Funny

Nintendo Switch (Grey) + Splatoon 2
Dell UltraSharp 27 Monitor (U2715H)

Useful

Dell UltraSharp 27 Monitor (U2715H)
Oculus Rift + Touch

Hardcore

Oculus Rift + Touch

! sponsors

We have amazing partners and sponsors once again

  • Liberty Seguros, S.A. has been operating in Portugal since May 23, 2003, when it took over the former Companhia Europeia de Seguros, S.A. from the Swiss group Credit Suisse. Companhia Europeia de Seguros changed its name to Liberty Seguros, S.A..

    Liberty Seguros, with its eight decades of experience, relies on the dedication of each one of its 508 employees to find the best protection solutions for Portuguese households, individuals and for micro, small and medium-sized companies.

    Nationwide, the company has 32 points of sale, known as Espaços Liberty Seguros, and 6 offices that support Insurance Agents. These strategic allies provide a wide range of products and services to customers to ensure, they enjoy safer and better protected lives.
  • Cisco is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since 1984. Cisco has also shaped many of the most relevant IT transitions – such as VoIP, video, unified computing, Cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) and more recently we build the Network Intuitive, a network that can learn, adapt and evolve – creating unprecedented value and opportunity for our customers, employees, investors and partners ecosystem. Cisco is transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Our people, products, and partners help society securely connect and seize tomorrow's digital opportunity today. Discover more at cisco.pt and follow us on Twitter at @CiscoPortugal.
  • Doist’s mission is to inspire the workplace of the future by creating simple yet powerful productivity tools that promote a calmer, more balanced, more fulfilling way of working and living.

    Doist is a completely remote, bootstrapped company with 50 people in 20 countries, representing 22 nationalities.

    Doist is a completely remote, bootstrapped company with 50 people in 20 countries, representing 22 nationalities.
  • i2S specializes in delivering to market the best software products for the life insurance business. With more than 30 years of experience, an impressive track-record of successful implementations of core insurance systems and a team of insurance business experts, i2S is the provider of choice of leading insurance companies.
  • Based in Porto, Blip is a software engineering company with a difference. Founded in 2009, we already have 300 Blippers. And we’re still growing.

    In 2012, Blip became part of the Betfair Group, based in London. Then, in early 2016, Betfair joined with Paddy Power, to become one of the largest and fastest-growing online betting and gaming operators in the world.

    The code we write is used by over five million people across the world. The websites, mobile apps and retail systems we create keep us three steps ahead of the competition, from Europe to Australia.

    With operations across Europe, Australia and the US, annual revenues over £1.5 billion and over five million customers, we’re a global player. Despite this, we’ve never lost our bold approach, or our desire to keep reinventing the industry.
  • Semasio is a German startup company that develops high-performant, low latency software, focused on infrastructures and machine learning for online advertisement. We have a main development center in Porto, a R&D center in Denmark, and business offices in Hamburg. We’re always looking for talented developers to join our team!
  • Life on Mars is an elite software consultancy based in Germany and Portugal. We balance a strong engineering culture with a set of agile processes. Our clients range from early-stage startups to large companies such as Twitter, under engagement types ranging from team extensions to emergency incident support.

spread the word

We're always looking into bringing more talent, diversity and great ideas to our event.
Help us spread the word by sharing in your social networks.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hardware Maintenance ×

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hardware Maintenance

  • Duration: 60 mins
  • Schedule: September 10th, Sunday, 10:30

Cleaning and caring for your computer, is it really needed? What for? It is not supposed to keep working for years without opening it?

Some questions that probably none of you asked since you own a computer. Maintaining your machine isn't hard, but it can be scary.

The truth is: no one cares about it or thinks it's worth the effort. Then, you start complaining that your machine "is becoming slow", "gets hot and shuts down" or even that "it broke right after the warranty period, the manufacturer does it on purpose so I need to buy a new one."

After this workshop, all above questions and complaints will disappear and you will have your computer as good as it came out of the assembly line or, in some cases, even better.

Requirements

Participants have to bring their own computer, otherwise they can't clean it. 🤓

HĂ©lder Silva

Currently working at Abyssal developing software for deep-sea remote operated vehicles. Has 9 years of experience in software engineering with experience in too many programming languages. Can say with confidence that hates all of them a little. It has a serious problem with duplicated code and loves to do code optimizations, some of them not very useful. He also has a special appreciation for hardware, mainly by disassembling stuff and put it back together, although these sessions eventually lead to the question "Um, where does this screw go"?

Should Coders Design? Ă—

Should Coders Design?

  • Duration: 180 mins
  • Schedule: September 9th, Saturday, 17:30

Should Coders Design?

Nobody knows. But in this workshop, you’ll have no other choice. You’ll be challenged to solve interface design problems, with each revealing key interface design principles, concepts and guidelines.

Requirements

Participants have to bring pen and paper.

Paulo Pereira

Once a coder, he taught himself design. And so can you.

A Server From Scratch — A DevOps Primer ×

A Server From Scratch — A DevOps Primer

  • Duration: 150 mins
  • Schedule: September 9th, Saturday, 14:30

You might've been taught how to leverage outside services and frameworks as needed, to write your own solutions on the technologies most appropriate to you and the problem, and how deployment isn't really your problem. This is not completely incorrect, but this is an outdated way of looking at things, as it doesn’t take into consideration things that are found valuable (and for some, critical) in today’s agile world — fast iteration, high reliability and continuous integration.

'DevOps' is a term with multiple definitions, depending on who you ask. You won't come out of this workshop a fully certified DevOps person, but chances are you'll find some appreciation for how better everything works together. We’ll bridge the divide between Dev and Ops by getting your hands dirty with a couple of more Ops-sided tasks.

We'll start from scratch and create and configure something that will be of value to you in your future endeavours — your own server (that you can “take home”) hosting a number of valuable services: a webserver for running a blog or your already existent personal website with HTTPS, a torrent service that you can use from anywhere, and your own (and private!) GitHub-like repository to store things too precious for this world. All of this while shining a light into how all these things click together — and all via the command line, so you can feel like The One while doing it!

Requirements

Participants have to bring their own computer.

JoĂŁo Anes

JoĂŁo is a Software Developer working for Life on Mars, with an MSc in Informatics and Computer Engineering from FEUP. Cursed with an itch for automation, you might find him drifting through the internet wondering how the tubes could tube better.

Introduction to 3D Printing and Parametric Design Ă—

Introduction to 3D Printing and Parametric Design

  • Duration: 180 mins
  • Schedule: September 8th, Friday, 17:30

So you're missing some gears, or maybe you lost a screw or two, and so you feel the need to fire up the old 3D printer and print some replacement parts.

Just as you are about to start drawing stuff, have you considered parametric design? Do your parts fail to fit together properly? or maybe you have a programmer's streak? Perhaps you will need to print the same part over and over again until it's right (trust me, you will). In those cases parametric design might just be useful.

This workshop will be divided in 3 parts:

  • The essentials of 3D printing
  • Parametric design, principles and resources
  • Designing and printing tutorial

Anyway, if you feel that writing code that will design parts for 3D printing sounds like a good idea, this might the workshop for you.

Requirements & details

  • Participants have to bring their own computer
  • Participants are required to have basic programming knowledge
  • Design will be done using openscad/openjscad

Rui Teixeira

Rui has approximate knowledge of many things. Experience with a couple more. In this case what we actually care about is his extensive experience working in the 3D printing biz @BEEVERYCREATIVE.

You can check him out on https://pt.linkedin.com/in/ruiteixeiraeng if you care about the other things.

My First Game with Unity3D Ă—

My First Game with Unity3D

  • Duration: 120 mins
  • Schedule: September 8th, Friday, 14:30

Assets

By the end of this workshop, you’ll have created and be able to play Super Angry Bowser, a 2D Angry Birds clone game using your newly learned Unity3D game development skills. This game encompasses the following features:

  • 2D Super Mario Bros. animated sprites
  • Original Super Mario Bros. sound effects and soundtracks
  • Physics based projectiles and objects
  • Simple GUI
  • Tap and fire mechanics

For the sake of briefness, some other game essential features will not be included in this tutorial (score, leaderboards, persistency of data, etc.). However, the bases will be set for you to explore Unity3D and add other things as you see fit, even well after the workshop is finished. Maybe some powerups, enemies or whatever you can think of. Let your imagination run wild.

Goals

The goal of this workshop is to present the Unity3D game editor, a tool that can be used for the development of cross-platform games. More specifically, this workshop will focus on slowly introducing Unity3D’s features as a 2D game is developed in it. As such, this workshop is adequate for people who have some programming background (OO, such as Java or C++. Ideally C#) yet new to the game development scene using Unity.

Method

The workshop revolves around the development of the game using already made assets (textures, sprites, fonts, audio clips), focusing on the Unity editor and the coding required to create such a game. The workshop will be very much hands on, with every participant being given access to all of the games assets, a written step-by-step tutorial, a compiled version of the game and the final project of the game, just in case they want to repeat the whole process at their own pace.

Results

By the end of the workshop you’ll have a Unity3D project, made by you, of the awesome Super Angry Bowser game, as well as all assets and materials from the workshop. And you’ll be able to take on a new, small scale 2D project using Unity.

Requirements

Participants have to bring their own computer, and must have knowledge of any OO programming language (ideally C++, Java or C#).

JoĂŁo Jacob

João is an Invited Auxiliar Professor at the Informatics Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto. His PhD thesis, under the topic “Estimating player performance and adaptivity in exergames and location-based games”, focuses on methods to foster the development of adaptive games that make use of the players’ context (“where” and “how” is the player playing).

Currently working as a Senior Researcher in INESC, in the H2020 project BEACONING, he’s looking into means of bridging learning content and game mechanics with the ultimate goal of bringing fun and engaging games to the classrooms. He's also participating in several projects in the fields of mobile multimodal games and virtual reality, just for the heck of it.

Introduction to the Arduino ecosystem and the Internet of Things Ă—

Introduction to the Arduino ecosystem and the Internet of Things

  • Duration: 180 mins
  • Schedule: September 9th, Saturday, 10:30

Developments in microcontroller technology have made it easier than ever to empower electronics projects with internet connectivity. Armed with very basic notions of electronics, programming and networking every junior engineering student has, this workshop will show you how to consolidate all that knowledge and put it to use to build and connect real-world circuits and devices to the internet.

We will build simple circuits using Arduino-like platforms and electronic components, like using temperature and humidity sensors and displaying its readings on a character LCD screen or using a relay switch to control a light bulb. We’ll then use the networking capabilities of the ESP8266 microcontroller to do prototypical Internet of Things tasks, like logging the sensor data with the help of a cloud service, or how to control your physical circuit’s on/off state from a web page.

Requirements

Participants have to bring their own computer, but we’ll provide all the needed electronic components (and yes, you get to keep them after the workshop!).

Mário Carneiro

Mário is a full-stack web engineer working for Life on Mars, with an MSc in Informatics and Computer Engineering from FEUP. Always a geek at heart, he’s happy that he gets to do what he loves everyday and get paid for it.

JoĂŁo Gradim

JoĂŁo is a web developer also working for Life on Mars, with an MSc in software engineering from FEUP. Passionate about all sorts of software and product development, loves to create and make all sorts of things come to life.

By Porto Summer of Code

Porto Summer of Code logo Make or Break is a 3-day tech fest with prizes, workshops, gadgets, food, and more.
Brought to you by the Porto Summer of Code team and co-organized by AlumniEI-FEUP

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