The best gifts are one-of-a-kind, personal, and hold a place in their recipients' lives over time. As technologists in 2024, we have never been better equipped to create custom devices to delight and/or assist our loved ones. This presentation will lay out some guidelines for designing bespoke hardware (and software!), as well as a collection of my favorite tools for getting things made quickly, affordably, and beautifully.

I'll share my thoughts for ~45 minutes, and then we'll walk through some of the tools and build out an internet connected gift together using CircuitPython and Val Town.

I will (hopefully!) have hardware for everyone, but if you want to build along in real time, please bring: - A computer with Google Chrome installed - A cable that you can use to plug a USB-C device into that computer