Defcon 23 Shoot Electronic Badge

[seeess]

The code and manual is published https://github.com/seeess/Defcon-Shoot-23-Badge/
And I added a ton of info on the first post in this thread, you might want to take a look.

I still want to make a video of the features since no one reads manuals.

Remember that unless I specifically told you I'm holding badges for you, it is first come first serve. I'll sell 25 badges wed and thrs at the shoot for $20 at a loss, the rest will be $25 so I can try to break even. The cost sheet is posted on the first post if you want to take a look.
I'll take reservations only if you pre-pay with bitcoin, this is so I avoid getting stuck with badges that are never picked up

During the con twitter is probably the best way to reach me @see_ess

[Dallas]

Awesome - great work - in for one if you still have one.

[Weinie]

Seeess, please put one aside for Moi. You know where I'll be :-) I'll give you cash, or 50 rounds through the M60 :-)

Weinie

[seeess]

Seeess, please put one aside for Moi. You know where I'll be :-) I'll give you cash, or 50 rounds through the M60 :-)

Weinie

Anyone that wants one at the shoot will be able to get one, I have around 200 total and I don't think we've ever had that many people.
I'll sell the first 25 badges each day for $20, after that they'll be $25

[seeess]

Final video with all features posted, you probably want to play this back at 1.5x
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awRr_h3DX8c

[!#-Blunt]

Where will you be selling the remaining badges from? Would love to get my hands one one even though we may not make the shoot.

[matjam]

I'd love one of the badges, but not registered for the shoot. Can you hold one for me?

[seeess]

The badge contest is live, go get that half a bitcoin (~140 usd).
Start with the QR code, you have to modify the link a little bit but there's no trickery to the first step.

If you're still looking for a badge, following me or messaging me on twitter is your best bet. I still have more than 50 badges left.

[darkgrue]

seeess, definitely created a winner with the Shoot badge. I had three separate occasions where people stopped me in the hallway to ask about the badge and how to get one. Best I could do was direct them to the forums and this thread. But they definitely got noticed!

[seeess]

Thanks, you can send them to my twitter, I still have around 40 badges that I need to get rid of. @see_ess
I'm also going to enter the eff's badge contest tomorrow at 5pm, if anyone has any pull with that crew. I'm not above bribes

[seeess]

I posted the badge contest writeup that was solved, see the first post

[seeess]

Issues found / Changes if I had to do it again:
1. Basically the whole badge is a ground plane, this is common for high speed electronics but not needed in this instance. This includes the hole drilled for the lanyard attachments, making your metal lanyard an extension of ground. Before the con I noticed it was possible for a lanyard to get twisted up and contact the top of the battery pack causing a short, so I added a piece of electrical tape on the top of each badge.
This worked however it was even more rare but still possible, for the lanyard to twist all the way around and make contact with the top of a battery cell (shorting that to ground). Hopefully you would notice everything getting hot and an electronic smell if you are near it, if you aren't then the battery pack will begin to melt.
This happened once to me at the shoot, I swapped the batt pack in the HHV on thrs


If this happened to you, you'll just need to swap the battery holder hopefully. Before wasting any time you can verify that the rest of the badge still works by supplying 4v-6v to the batt holder pins on the board. If that works it is probably worth swapping batt holders. Slowly remove the sticky tape, I recommend using a knife. After the battery holder is unstuck from the board, desolder the two pins (make sure you heat it up hot enough before pulling the holder away, otherwise the pads might get removed). You could also try cuttong off the pins between the board and batt holder which should make it easier.
I used these batt packs if you're looking for the exact replacement: Eagle plastic devices 12BH349-GR

Prevention: You could add an extra piece of electrical tape over the top of the batts. You could also take a razor blade / knife and scrape out the metal contact on the inside of the lanyard holes.

2. Microphone breaking off, I've heard of this happening at least 3 times. The one board I looked at still had the pins soldered in place, so it seems like the microphone part failed (not the solder on the board). I had a way to shorten the lanyard to have it higher than your other badges, which may have helped protect the mic if you used it. But now knowing how fragile the mic is I probably would have put it below the pin headers for more protection.

If this happened to you, you can swap the mic similar to the batt cover. Take the battery pack off (see above), and solder in a new mic. Make sure you get the polarity right, but since there's a circle on the front of the board it is a little hard to mess up.
I used this microphone if you need a replacement. CUI Inc CMC-5042PF-AC

Prevention: Maybe you could use tape around the mic, or a o-ring which could reduce impact shock to the mic?

I'd love to have other feedback (especially negative) on the badge. What didn't work, what was overly confusing (the quick mute option in shot mode might have been).
Was it too hard for buyers to understand the capabilities prior to buying the badge? (I released the manual, and video prior to the con, and breadboard prototype videos months before)
Did you not have enough batts? I was giving out extra batteries to anyone I saw, but I also saw many people running at reduced brightness.

[seeess]

The badge made the "unofficial badges of defcon" story on hackaday
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/10/all-t...es-of-def-con/

[wishbone]

I loved playing with this thing all weekend. I was actually really shocked at how cheap you were selling them and that's why I bought 4 to hand out. Even though the dcdarknet badge had a freaking OLED this year, I still enjoyed this badge more (no offense to dcdarknet, they had an awesome piece of tech too). I already sent this to you on twitter, but if you decide to make another one next year I highly recommend a high output speaker of some sort. It doesn't have to have quality audio, but essential in a shot timer. Might also be interesting way to have the badges communicate somehow to each other. One of the things I loved so much about the DC 20 and dcdarknet badges is that they are social. Something about using the tech to interact with out people contest wise or just for fun seems like a great idea for this kind of event. Again, super impressed with everything you put into this badge, thank you for all your time and hard work there.

[seeess]

Thanks, yeah I wish I would've added a speaker too. I ran out of GPIO (and flash) on that chip even though I bought the 20-pin chip with the largest memory. Stepping up to a 28 pin added some cost, but I think it would've been worth it.

With A speaker I could've done a full shot timer where you could enter a "goal" time and have the speaker beep when that time is hit etc. Though that means more coding, and likely needing more buttons for a better UI... You can see how things snowball.

If you know C and want to buy a speaker, you could probably replace the tilt sensor with a speaker. The code is pretty heavily commented, and even though it might look like a lot, there's really only one giant for(;;) loop so it should be easy to figure out the general program flow.

This was my first time ever playing with a micro, but I did start excessively early which is probably the only reason this was successful. RF communication is certainly the bar for any badge, it was just out of reach for my skill level / one-man project.

I had some interesting conversations with other badge makers at the con. The big difference I saw with other badges is the number of people working on their badge. Every badge with moderate complexity had a team of at least 4-8 people collaborating. I was solo until the layout phase.

The other lesson was sponsorships, I (stupidly) attempted to find people to pay me cash, to use that cash to buy parts. I should've just gone to the parts suppliers like sparkfun / parallax and ask for discounted or donated parts to keep costs down (though gigs did step up in a pretty big way, especially considering I had no reputation in badge making).
If I do this again I'll be able to show what I can pull off which may help with sponsors. This makes me optimistic https://twitter.com/ParallaxInc/stat...57770496446465

If you have any ideas I'd like to hear them. Right now I can't think of any low-complexity ideas that bridge the hacker / gun community besides a shot counter / timer.