The GDevCon ANZ LabVIEW Developer Led Conference #1 Report
GDevCon ANZ is a non-profit incorporated association dedicated to running LabVIEW Developer-led conferences in the Australia and New Zealand region.
The inaugural conference was held on October 24/25 2023, at CSIRO Lindfield, Sydney, Australia.
It’s fair to say the first attempt was a roaring success, with ~75 people in attendance.
Most of the Wired-in Software crew made the pilgrimage from Melbourne to Sydney to be part of the event. Several members of the team were active in helping organise the event. This included:
- Chris, the GDevCon ANZ President.
- Janet, who coordinated the event on the day.
- Ashwini, Chris, Richard and Abhishek all prepared and partook in giving presentations at the event.
- Stuart, Himangini, and Kim all lent a hand on the day to ensure it was smooth sailing.
Getting there
The Wired-in Software crew flew up on the Monday morning, giving us a couple of hours to soak up a few of Sydney’s sights enroute to our accommodation. We strolled around the famous Circular Quay on a beautiful Sydney spring day, checking out the harbour bridge and the Sydney Opera House. We even managed to squeeze seven of us into our hired Kia Sorrento to get us from the airport through to our accommodation.
The presentations
We were treated to an excellent spread of technical content across the two days. The presentations were broken up into the following categories:
- Welcome Keynote
- Gold and silver sponsors
- ~12 technical presentations on topics that included LabVIEW/TestStand/Systemlink/etc
- ~5 7 minute lightning presentation
Day 1 – LabVIEW sessions.
Chris from Wired-in Software started the day with a “Welcome to Country”, followed by a welcome keynote.
Nancy Henson from NI then graced us with her presence, giving the Gold Sponsor presentation. Nancy has been using LabVIEW since 1989 and is truly an inspiration. It was so great to have Nancy with us at GDevCon ANZ #1
Sher Lentic kicked things off with an entertaining overview of what’s new in LabVIEW 2023. Lots of new features, especially the one we’ve all been waiting for: Zoom!
Nick Murray followed up with a nice session on quite a few handy tips for making yourself become a faster LabVIEW programmer. He kept it light and fun, but a heap of good tips!
Liam Granger then gave us a lesson on how to keep your LabVIEW development simple. With real-world examples showing us how they go about it at Softwire Systems, this was a really interesting and valuable presentation.
After lunch, we had some lightning talks. John Wu impressed us with his motion solutions, and his special pen giveaways! Jason Reeves gave us a Contract Manufacturing perspective, highlighting the important things to think about when designing products and test systems for manufacturing.
Chris Virgona then gave us arguably the best presentation of the conference. The presentation was titled “The Need for Speed”, and gave a number of real-world examples of how you can improve your code performance, supported by comprehensive benchmarking tests.
After the break, we heard from Chris from Wired-in Software. Chris presented on an inhouse tool being developed to help improve LabVIEW Code quality. Ashwini was meant to also join this presentation, but unfortunately she couldn’t make the trip to Sydney.
The last presentation of the day was by Tuan Nghia Nguyen. It was an impressive overview of the AI LabVIEW tools he has been developing and gave an example of where the tools are being used, and how they can be retro-fit into established manufacturing workflows.
You can read more about the presenters and download some of the slide decks here. Videos will start making their way onto Youtube soon.
Social Evening
At the conclusion of the first day, we had some caterers provide some delicious canapes and a beverage or two. It was a great night, allowing everyone to talk about what we’d learnt that day, build relationships with our peers, and enjoy the occasion.
Day 2 – Test Systems
After a very information first day, we were back for the 2nd day. Day 2 had a different flavour. This time focusing on test systems and tools that help make a good test system.
First up we heard from our Silver Sponsors – SoftWire Systems and Resonate Systems. Both brief and informative sessions from two of the bigger NI Alliance Partners in Australia.
After morning tea, we had Mark Lee share his recent experiences with NI Systemlink – a tool for managing the configuration and data of your test systems.
Feedback
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People loved the social aspect, the range of topics, and the venue.
We had a couple of little hiccups – not enough food on day one, among other things. But all things considered, the show was a great first conference!
Ideas for GDevCon ANZ #2
- Line up a presenter mentor for each presenter and to encourage new presenters to have a go
- Provide more resources for the presenters
- Encourage a couple of big names from the Global LabVIEW community to attend, to generate interest and attendance
- Include an “unconference” part of the conference where people dictate what gets discussed at the time of the event
- Host earlier in the year
- Explore other topics in test and measurement – ie. data analysis, manufacturing processes, measurement principles, etc