As nearly 70,000 people converge on downtown Atlanta for Dragon Con 2024 over Labor Day weekend, they’ll feel the impact of a handful of Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty.

None more ever-present than Professor Aaron Lanterman, who will be participating in or leading six sessions over the four-day event.

The sessions will be a mixture of talks and panels covering video games, robotics and the science of music, as well as providing hands-on demonstrations and doing Q&As with the audience.

ECE graduate-turned Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) senior research engineer Sean Wilson will also give a talk titled, “The Robotarium: Democratizing Access to Robotics.”

Stepping away from the science and into the sonics, Professor Larry Heck will be there on the trumpet with his band The Atlanta Swing Orchestra on Friday night .

They’ll play their swing jazz music for convention-goers in the Hyatt Regency Centennial Ballroom II-IV starting at 8:30 p.m.

Georgia Tech and ECE has had a presence at Dragon Con dating back several years. Lanterman has attended Dragon Con since 2001 and has spoken at it several times in the past. This year will be his first year speaking since 2021.

ECE Professor John Cressler also gave a talk in 2016 titled, “The Many Miracles of the Microelectronics Revolution.”

Starting in 1987, Dragon Con has grown into one of the largest pop culture conventions in the U.S., attracting over 85,000 people in 2019. It showcases the latest in science fiction & fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film.

Find the schedule for the ECE-involved programming below:

Friday, August 30, 2024

Building Custom Controllers
Time: 2:30 p.m. 
Location: Westin Augusta A-B
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
Arcade games like Asteroid, Inferno, & Defender require non-standard controller setups, & those can be hard to locate. Dr. Lanterman will talk about the work he & some of his students have done to make these kinds of controllers. There will also be time for a hands-on demo and Q&A.

Classic Gaming Hardware
Time: 4:00 p.m. 
Location: Westin Augusta A-B
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
From the 2600 to the Switch, the Atari 800 to the Amiga, 2D to 3D, player-missile graphics to FMV - dive deep into the CPUs, GPUs, & system architectures that ran your favorite games. Although accessible to a non-technical audience, some assembly code may be required.

Hand-on with Classic Video Game Hardware
Time: 5:30 p.m. 
Location: Westin Augusta A-B
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
You ever want to recapture (or maybe capture for the first time) the magic of playing on a retro console? Ever want to get some hands-on experience with a custom-made controller for a game rig? Now's your chance!

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Making and STEM Education (Panel)
Time: 10:00 a.m. 
Location: Courtland Grand Valdosta
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
This is a panel discussion from experienced Makers. The discussion will center around how the Maker Movement inspires young people to explore STEM Education and technical careers.

Resurrecting Vintage Synthesizers & Computers: Shall We Play a Game? 
Time: 1:00 p.m. 
Location: Courtland Grand Atlanta 1-2
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
Come flip switches on the IMSAI 8080 computer from Wargames or play tunes on synths like the 1970s Moogs. Learn to decipher schematics, replace exploded capacitors, safely discharge CRTs. Fabricate new electronics to meld with the old: PCB layout, front-panel fabrication, custom arcade controllers.

The Robotarium: Democratizing Access to Robotics
Time: 4:00 p.m. 
Location: Courtland Grand Atlanta 1-2
Speaker: Sean Wilson
Join Georgia Tech's Dr. Sean Wilson as he shares how the Robotarium provides a remotely accessible swarm robotics research platform to anyone in the world free of charge and demonstrates how you can control the robots yourself!

Monday, September 2, 2024

The Science of Music (Panel)
Time: 1:00 p.m. 
Location: Hilton 209-211
Speaker: Aaron Lanterman
Science lurks behind a lot of music, from the harmonics of overtones to the vibration of strings and air columns. We'll cover synths, singing, and more.