Closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony for CactusCon 14 opens with thanks to attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers. Organizers share participation figures: 136 technical track submissions, 42 accepted sessions from 68 speakers, 74 volunteers and nearly 1,900 checked-in attendees. Badges come next. The team plans to publish badge source code, tutorials and learning material on GitHub for both the main badge and the kids badge, and a Discord channel will field questions as people explore their badges. A bounty for the most creative badge project will reward two winners with special badges.

A presenter who wrote the kids badge code described what they learned, including using non-volatile storage so settings such as LED states persist, and a special mode that unlocks after completing the stations. The CTF awards followed. The kids CTF was a first for the event and aimed to be approachable rather than overwhelming, with three prizes for the top finishers. In the main CTF, all three top teams cleared the scoreboard, and awards went to ASU Hacking Club in third, Stellar in second and Shellfish in first.

The ceremony closes with logistics: a lost-and-found table, badge recycling bins near the front and back doors, and a reminder that next year marks CactusCon's 15th anniversary, with special plans already in the works.