Universe 2026 Badger Hardware Ideas

[martinwoodward]

Just keeping notes for ideas of what we might want to do different hardware wise for next years badge:

1. Add an accelerometer (auto-rotate screen when in the upright position looking at your own badge, shake to clear screen in etch-a-sketch, step counter app)
2. A haptic module to allow the badge to buzz silently. ATM no audio is probably a feature rather than a bug for a conference badge although a sound module via I2C and on-board driver support might make sense?

[jcfield-boop]

I've added a small speaker and added audio to the built in games - makes it more engaging!

I would like to see some sensors/transducers and i2C connectors to use onsite next year

[martinwoodward]

Tell me more @jcfield-boop! Fancy doing a post in the Discussions about adding a small speaker?

Def want to have more sensors and things in the 'Hack your badge' area. We did have that in mind this time around but didn't quite pull it off for budget but also time reasons (not being able to do tutorials or train on-site folks etc). Def want to try and make that happen next year for sure.

Which things are you thinking? I was thinking some BME280's (Temperature, Humidity, Pressure). Maybe some air quality sensors. Some rotary encoders. Also thinking about some LED strips so people could bling up their lights

[martinwoodward]

@jcfield-boop has added more information on their speaker hack here: #68

[cardonator]

A couple things I thought would be interesting/fun.

• A QR Code Scanner (like the Tiny Code Reader) that could read QR codes and store them
• Pairing to your phone for various things like contact lists or something (didn't really think through this but could be interesting)
• NFC to share your github account with other attendees and potentially add things like following automatically when on wifi (or paired?)
• Another thing I thought of was something like those light up bracelets a lot of people do at concerts. Have the badge light up during keynotes/sessions and synchronize.

The weather station thing also seems pretty cool as does a speaker. This year it would have been neat to have something at the Hack station that used any of the JTAG, I2C, or SWD ports.

Good job working on this, it has been fun to mess around with! 😄

[martinwoodward]

@cardonator - my Tiny Code Reader sensor arrived today and what an amazing small board this is. Going to be playing with it. What's kinda hilarious as it has a whole RP2350B on the back and a camera on the front. But the exact same microprocessor that we have on the badge just powering the camera / QR Code scanner and emmitting codes over serial. So I see where your mind was going now about maybe just adding a camera sensor to the main badge board. Not sure about doing that from a privacy perspective. But the fact I can have that amount of tech on a PCB that is smaller than a stamp and costs less than $10 is mindblowing. What a time to be alive!

[cardonator]

Yeah it's an awesome little device and I was also surprised to see the 2350 on there 🤣

I was also wondering about the privacy aspect. I guess you would have to put something in the firmware and maybe an LED when the ISP is active... I don't know, but it's a fun idea!

[martinwoodward]

Another thing I thought of was something like those light up bracelets a lot of people do at concerts. Have the badge light up during keynotes/sessions and synchronize.

The Bracelets at Coldplay concerts etc work with the PixMob system which uses a custom IR based protocol to blast out to the crowd but there are other conferences that rely on a mesh bluetooth network. We also have WiFi polling possible. I think we have the hardware now to be able to do crowd light shows, just need to work on the software side and the in-event support. For contact detail sharing we were looking at using IR to transfer data or to at least initiate transfer then conducted over BLE.

Did think about NFC but the programmable NFC added a few dollars to the BOM. However if we added the radio stuff then the badge would have all the power of a Flipper which would be very neat.

The desire to do the phone stuff was a suprise, but I saw lots of attendees wanting that level of interaction and ability to customize their badge from their phone - that is def something to look at for next year. Think we have the hardware we need to do that.

I hadn't seen the tiny code reader - that's amazing! Going to get one of those and hook it up to the STEMMA QT / Qwiic port on the back of the badge and see what we can do. We wanted to have more hardware available at the hacker spaces, maybe this is something we could put in if we can't budget for adding the sensor to every badge..