BSidesDayton 2026
Reactor Control Village

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Reactor Control Village is a hands-on industrial control challenge built around a small fictional power plant. You monitor the plant, interact with its controls, and explore how software decisions shape the outcome when the system enters a high-pressure shutdown scenario.

A control room you can actually touch

The village centers on a custom-built panel full of switches, sliders, lights, and status indicators that make the plant feel like a real operator console. Attendees can watch the process respond in real time and start building intuition for what the system is doing before they ever write a line of code.

Edit the script, run the simulation

A separate workstation lets you edit a simple Python script that controls how the plant responds once the SCRAM starts. With no script at all, the plant shuts down incorrectly, but without any negative effects. Better code can guide the system through a proper shutdown, while broken or intentionally harmful logic can turn the same simulation into a meltdown.

Two outcomes, one process to learn

This is not just a binary win condition. The same environment supports two very different goals: rescue the plant by preventing the output from collapsing, or learn the system deeply enough to bring it down on purpose. The fun comes from exploring the plant, testing your assumptions, and watching how small code changes ripple through the simulation.

Important: This is a fictional training environment inspired by classic control-room simulation gameplay, not a model of any real facility. Expect a mix of SCADA concepts, puzzle logic, code experimentation, and fast feedback from the simulator.