Suggested Sessions
These are potential session ideas that still need someone to bring them to life. Pick one, click Run this session , edit the title and description if you want to, and tell us how to contact you. Instead of a "like" button, we have a "woulattend" button. (Only for those currently registered for Penguicon 2026, please.)
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Hacosot#
Players sit around a large table performing a pattern while singing a chant. "SAVE, YOUR, DIXIE CUPS, 'CAUSE WE'RE GONNA PLAY HACOSOT! SAVE, YOUR, DIXIE CUPS, 'CAUSE WE'RE GONNA PLAY HACOSOT!" The pattern is to take a dixie cup from the last player with one hand while passing the previous one with your other hand to the next player. And oh yeah, clap the dixie cup on the table before passing it. This always takes place after midnight, preferably in the lobby near the stairs and fountain.
In this late-night activity, game pieces are made of jello shots and alcohol-filled chocolate bonbons. A player who captures an opponents' piece picks it up and eats it.
Chocolate Ritual: Dark, Milk, and Heretical Fillings#
A ceremonial tasting and playful invocation of chocolate in multiple forms, directions, and moods. Not for the lactose-intolerant or the spiritually humorless.
Writing Science Fiction with Real Science#
Writing Science Speculative Fiction
Panelists discuss how much physics, biology, and plausibility your story really needs before it collapses into space opera.
Open Source and Fan Culture: Same Tribe or Parallel Worlds?#
Penguicon Writing Technology
A discussion of how fandom communities and software communities organize themselves, resolve conflict, and survive success.
Weekend-Long Diplomacy#
Players meet two-to-four times per day for a few minutes at a time, to resolve a turn of the game of Diplomacy. Then they go off into the convention to scheme and betray each other over the weekend.
Anime Midnight Madness: Three Episodes Too Weird for Daytime#
A late-night screening block of cult and experimental anime, introduced with brief context and warnings about plot coherence.
Junk Pile Engineering Challenge#
Teams receive a pile of obsolete electronics and must build something useful, artistic, or at least blinking by the end of the session.
Coffee Ritual: Congregation of the Caffeinated#
A morning gathering for those who worship the holy bean. Includes liturgy, debate over creamer doctrine, and quiet staring into mugs.
How to Run a Convention Room Party That People Remember#
Veteran hosts explain logistics, safety, ambiance, and how not to get shut down by hotel security in the first ten minutes.
NetHack, Roguelikes, and the Psychology of Permadeath#
Why games that punish you brutally are still beloved, and what they teach about risk, learning, and obsession.
Geek Music Sing-Along#
Parody songs, filk classics, and spontaneous harmonies. Lyrics provided, dignity optional.
Cybersecurity Myths from Movies and TV#
Separating cinematic hacking from what actually happens when systems fail in the real world.
Worldbuilding Through Food#
How cuisine, trade, and scarcity shape believable fictional cultures more than maps or magic systems ever will.
Participants design their own chess piece movement rules and then play a human-sized match. Strategy meets wearable signage.
Podcasting for Weird Niches#
How to record, publish, and sustain a podcast when your target audience is "people who like Linux and Victorian horror."
Buffy, Rewatched by Engineers#
A critical viewing of one episode with commentary on plot logic, monster design, and emotional recursion.
Filk 101: Why This Exists and Why You Might Love It#
An introduction to the long tradition of nerd folk music and parody songwriting.
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction#
What classic and modern SF gets right and wrong about thinking machines, and why it still matters.
Improvised Weapons in Roleplaying Games#
From teacups to keyboards: how to turn everyday objects into dramatic narrative tools without derailing the story.
Linux Installfest (Bring Your Own Laptop)#
Hands-on help installing or fixing Linux systems, with volunteers and spare flash drives.
How to Build a Con Badge That Does Something#
A show-and-tell panel on programmable badges, blinking LEDs, and why every convention eventually reinvents wearable hardware.
Science Fiction vs. the Future We Actually Got#
A discussion of which classic SF predictions came true, which failed, and which turned into social media instead.
Anime After Midnight: Questionable Life Choices Edition#
A late-night block of bizarre, hilarious, or emotionally confusing anime selected by audience vote.
Writing Short Stories That Don't Turn Into Novels#
Tips and tricks for finishing fiction before it grows out of control and demands a trilogy.
The Ritual of the Command Line#
A humorous-but-serious exploration of shell prompts, aliases, and the strange poetry of terminal culture.
Board Games for People Who Hate Monopoly#
A curated demo session of modern tabletop games with explanations of why design has moved past dice and rage.
Mad Science Show-and-Tell#
Attendees present their strangest projects: robots, art hacks, failed experiments, and things that probably shouldn't be plugged in.
Gender, Identity, and Aliens in Science Fiction#
How SF has explored (and avoided) questions of identity through nonhuman characters.
Improvised Tech Support Theater#
Volunteers role-play impossible customer support scenarios submitted by the audience.
Open Source Your Life#
A tongue-in-cheek panel on applying open source ideas--forking, version control, and bug reports--to personal projects and communities.
Cosplay Repair Clinic#
Emergency sewing, glue guns, and duct tape for costumes that did not survive the hotel hallway.
Podcasting from the Apocalypse#
How to keep making creative work when motivation, hardware, and sanity are in short supply.
The History of Weird Programming Languages#
From esoteric joke languages to ones people accidentally use in production.
Worldbuilding with Spreadsheets#
How authors and game designers use boring tools to create believable universes.
Filk Karaoke: Courage Required#
Sing parody and nerd songs with lyrics on screen and a room full of sympathetic witnesses.
The Physics of Giant Robots#
What would actually happen if mecha existed, and why the pilots would have a very bad time.
Privacy in a World of Dragons and Drones#
A speculative panel on surveillance, magic, and resistance across fantasy and SF settings.
Why finishing a game in six minutes is a different experience than playing it for forty hours.
The Internet Was a Neighborhood Once#
A reflective panel on early online culture, BBSes, forums, and how community norms changed with scale and platforms.
Intro to Hardware Hacking with Cheap Parts#
Learn how to make small interactive gadgets using microcontrollers, LEDs, and parts that cost less than lunch.
Writing Hopeful Science Fiction in a Dystopian Age#
How to imagine futures that are strange and challenging without defaulting to collapse and despair.
Build a Card Game in One Hour#
Small groups design, prototype, and playtest a brand-new tabletop game before time runs out.
An overview of password managers, encrypted chat, and why threat models should match your actual life.
Anime with Food: Cultural Context Edition#
A screening block paired with commentary on how meals and cooking are used to express character and mood in anime.
The Science of Time Travel (Bad News Edition)#
Why paradoxes, energy requirements, and causality make time machines deeply inconvenient.
Knitting, Coding, and Other Repetitive Arts#
A cross-disciplinary discussion of craft, pattern, and flow state.
Bad Ideas That Became Great Games#
Designers talk about mechanics that sounded terrible and somehow worked.
Fanfiction as Literary Experiment#
How fanfic explores voice, genre, and social critique outside traditional publishing.
Live Podcast Recording: Convention Edition#
A real-time episode recorded with audience participation and improvised segments.
Accessibility in Games and Software#
Designing for users with different bodies, senses, and cognitive styles.
The Ethics of Robots in Children's Cartoons#
Why animated shows keep sneaking serious philosophy into toy-friendly packaging.
Costume Failure Stories#
Panelists share disasters involving glue, armor, heat, and hotel elevators.
Introduction to 3D Printing for Absolute Beginners#
What printers can and cannot do, and why calibration is a personality test.
Geek Jeopardy: Linux, Sci-Fi, and Ridiculous Trivia#
A game show format with categories no other quiz night would dare use.
Making Ritual Without Religion#
How communities invent meaningful traditions without invoking gods or dogma.
Digging up forgotten platforms, memes, and digital ruins from the last 20 years.
Concert: The Erstwhile Duke of Portland#
An extremely-live performance by the yet-to-be-renowned comedy musician The Erstwhile Duke of Portland. Audience participation mandatory HELP HE IS MAKING ME WRITE HIS CONCERT BLURB CALL THE POLICE
Installfest: Resurrect That Laptop#
Bring in a machine that "just needs one more chance." Volunteers help install Linux, recover files, or declare honorable retirement.
The Great Fandom/Open Source Analogy Debate#
Speculative Fiction Technology
Is contributing to a codebase like writing fanfiction? Panelists attempt to map pull requests to zines and argue about governance models.
Chaos Machine 2.0: Now With APIs#
DIY Action Adventure Technology
A live demo of a marble-driven contraption wired to sensors and microcontrollers. Audience suggestions can trigger effects.
Intro to Git for People Who Are Still Afraid of Git#
A beginner-friendly walkthrough of version control. Branching, merging, and recovering from mistakes without panic.
Anime Nostalgia Hour: The Ones That Got You Here#
A curated discussion and clips from formative anime series of the 90s and 2000s.
Make a Zine in 90 Minutes#
Collaborative low-tech publishing with photocopiers, staplers, and too many inside jokes.
Hacking the Hotel Room: Travel Tips for Con Survival#
Power strips, extension cords, badge organization, and why duct tape solves most problems.
The Ethics of Resurrection in Fantasy and SF#
If death is reversible, what changes? Theology, economics, and narrative stakes examined.
Geek Game Show: Obscure Command Line Trivia#
Contestants answer terminal commands, science fiction deep cuts, and bizarre historical tech facts.
Creators discuss adapting stories between formats without losing voice.
Lockpicks, Passwords, and Social Engineering#
An overview of physical and digital security from a defensive perspective.
Fandom Archaeology: Mailing Lists to Discord#
Tracing the evolution of online community spaces and what was gained or lost.
A repeatable but unpredictable spectacle. Audience votes on classic vs. ill-advised flavor combinations.
Miniature Painting: From Grey Plastic to Glory#
Hands-on techniques for shading, dry brushing, and making tiny armor look heroic.
Board Game Design Lab#
Small teams prototype mechanics using paper, dice, and limited time constraints.
Privacy in Speculative Worlds#
How surveillance works in cyberpunk, fantasy kingdoms, and space operas.
Filk Jam: Bring an Instrument or Just Your Voice#
Collaborative music session spanning parody, earnest ballads, and improbable rhymes.
Intro to Esoteric Programming Languages#
A survey of joke languages, minimal languages, and why anyone builds them.
Open Source in Space#
What happens to licensing and collaboration when software runs on satellites or Mars rovers?
Building a Better Room Party#
Logistics, theme design, connecting to a hotel TV, doorstops, carpet-protecting film, trash bags, advil, and how to avoid becoming "that room."
Retro Tech Petting Zoo#
Hands-on display of obsolete hardware, from floppy drives to early handhelds.
Writing Hopeful Futures#
Constructing optimistic or resilient speculative worlds without ignoring conflict.
Anime Speed Review: Convince Us in 60 Seconds#
Attendees pitch their favorite series in one minute to win converts.
Morton's Reality Machine#
This is a capsule toy vending machine that dispenses destiny. Your random adventure, designed by the creators of Morton's List, will send you off into the convention to have strange experiences you wouldn't have otherwise, with people and things you may have overlooked.
Spaceteam#
A chaotic cooperative mobile game. Players shout technobabble instructions to each other while trying to keep their imaginary spaceship from falling apart.
Run This Session#
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