Timewarp Arcade – Badge Building

Many conferences these days now have electronic badges (e.g. https://hackaday.com/2018/10/17/the-supercon-badge-is-a-freakin-computer/ ) and this is just our attempt to create a low cost one for Dublin Maker. The badges consist of a micro-controller, display and buttons. As well as displaying the logo, the wearers will also be able to play individual and multiplayer games.

Frank Duignan explains the first build of the Dublin Maker 5 Euro badge :

The first build of the unofficial €5 badge is more or less done. The image above shows a front view. Two 3.5mm audio sockets act as communications ports and allow a stereo audio cable be used as a lanyard. A game-pad style interface is provided for the bundled games. Also provided is a 4 pin header for uploading and debugging new firmware. The badge is powered off a 1.5V AA battery which is stepped up to 3.3V using a boost converter (just below the left audio socket).

I attempted a previous version of this by soldering all components in place but quickly realized that was so difficult that there would be few successful builds. I’ve since switched to a mixed wire-wrap and soldered build as shown below (I know it’s a bit rough :). This approach is much easier and errors are easily corrected.

For more information check out http://timewarparcade.com/ and https://ioprog.com/