New SuperCon Badge is 40% Lighter and a Work of Art
The 2016 Hackaday SuperConference is just around the corner and today we get a good look at the hardware badge. It was designed by [Voja Antonic] — a legend of hardware creation who will be at the conference. I like to think of him as the Woz of the Eastern Bloc, having designed the Galaksija computer. This badge is a beautiful example of embedded design. We’ll dive into all of the details after the break.
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This badge hosts an 8×16 surface-mount LED matrix, four user buttons (plus reset and wake-from sleep), IR communications, and a three-axis accelerometer, all driven by a PIC18LF25K50, powered by two AAA batteries, and programmed via USB. That’s a mouthful of delightful hardware.
[Voja Antonic] based the design on the badge that he developed for the Hackaday Belgrade Conference in April (shown on the left). That was a stellar badge design, and [Voja] managed to improve on it for this one. I really like the edge-mounted single-AAA battery holders which, along with the replacement of the LED modules, cuts down on the thickness of the badge. They also reduce the weight, from 88 grams to 52 grams. Those with keen ears will note that I incorrectly quoted 62 grams in the video but the lower figure is correct.
There will be a few changes from what you see here. If you look closely you can see an acrylic bezel around the LEDs. On the final badge this will host an acrylic diffuser. This prototype, originally spun in June, has the incorrect location printed on it. The SuperCon will be in Pasadena, CA on November 5 & 6, 2016.
The badges are interactive. A kiosk at the conference will let you store your own scrolling messages on the badge. And if you’re really clever you can figure out how to make your badge prank those other people are wearing. The IR comms feature is also how you take part in the crypto challenge. [Voja] has cooked up some fun by placing badges around the conference with puzzles stored on them. Write a program to your badge to interact with them and decipher what is sent back. This was hugely popular in Belgrade and will be even better at SuperCon!
The nine-pin expansion header on the back is one more way that this badge is designed for hackability. We had such a great time last year with the bare-PCB hardware hacking it was important to provide direct access to the hardware on this badge. As with the amazing badge hacking of the Belgrade Conference, this badge is running a bootloader. It tends all of the hardware, providing memory-mapped access to the display, buttons, and peripherals. This means if you’ve never blinked an LED you will get up and running quickly. More seasoned programmers won’t have to get bogged down with low-level coding, and wizened experts can blow out the bootloader and go bare metal (don’t forget your PICkit).
I want to take a moment to showcase the craftsmanship of this badge. Check out the layout, and the aesthetic — this is a thing of beauty. Now take a really close look at that LED matrix (click to embiggen). When [Voja] first sent me the prototype I thought there was some solder balls stuck to the flux. Wrong. What looks like a stray cat hair or solder splash is a tiny wire — ninja-level rework that [Voja] performed by hand before shipping this my way. Check out some of the other projects he’s posts.
I love this badge. It really has pulled in the best of what we’ve done at the last two conferences. The only sure way to get your hands on one is to show up at SuperCon. Get your tickets now!
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