There were so many amazing unofficial badges at DEF CON this year that I can’t possibly cover them all in one shot. I tried to see every badge and speak with every badge maker — like a hardware safari.
Month: August 2018
Badgelife, The Hardware Demoscene
Last week, tens of thousands of people headed home from Vegas, fresh out of this year’s DEF CON. This was a great year for DEF CON, especially when it comes to hardware. This was the year independent badges took over, thanks to a small community of people dedicated to creating small-run hardware, puzzles, and PCB art for thousands of conference-goers. This is badgelife, a demoscene of hardware, and this is just the beginning. It’s only going to get bigger from here on out.
We were lucky enough to sit down with a few of the creators behind the badges of this year’s DEF CON and the interviews were fantastic. Right here is a lesson on electronic design, manufacturing, and logistics. If you’ve ever wanted to be an engineer that ships a product instead of a lowly maker that ships a product, this is the greatest classroom in the world.
Although badgelife may seem like a bunch of hardware engineers sitting behind a pick and place machine for a weekend’s worth of lulz, this is a masterclass of product design and manufacturing. Badgelife is product development, and unlike many other hardware design jobs, the ship date will not slip for any reason. The hardware must be done on time, and if you’re not shipping all the features you promised everyone will be upset. Badgelife is the best experience you’ll ever get in engineering for production, product design, and manufacturing.
A Motion Coprocessor Without The Proprietary Layer
When you have a complex task that would sap the time and energy of your microprocessor, it makes sense to offload it to another piece of hardware. We are all used to this in the form of the graphics chipsets our computers use — specialised processors whose computing power in that specific task easily outshines…
via A Motion Coprocessor Without The Proprietary Layer — Hackaday
Circuit VR: A Tale Of Two Transistors
Last time on Circuit VR, we looked at creating a very simple common emitter amplifier, but we didn’t talk about how to select the capacitor values, or much about why we wanted them.
Breakfast at DEF CON — The Greatest Illicit Meetup of All
Every year we host Breakfast at DEF CON on the Sunday morning of the largest hacker conference in the United States. I think it’s a brilliant time to have a meetup — almost nobody is out partying on Sunday morning, and coffee and donuts is a perfect way to get your system running again after…
via Breakfast at DEF CON — The Greatest Illicit Meetup of All — Hackaday
All the Badges of DEF CON 26 (vol 1)
Two or three years back you would see a handful of really interesting unofficial badges at DEF CON. Now, there’s a deluge of clever, beautiful, and well executed badges. Last weekend I tried to see every badge and meet every badge maker. Normally, I would publish one megapost to show off everything I had seen,…
I Can Solder Badge on Tindie
From Bradley Ramsey on the Tindie blog:
Say it Loud and Proud With The I Can Solder Badge
When you take your first steps on the road to becoming a maker, one of the first skills you’ll need to master is soldering. It’s the backbone of just about every electronics project, but it’s not an easy skill to master. Don’t let the fear stop you, soldering opens up a lot of DIY projects for you.
With the I Can Solder Badge, you’ll not only learn the basics, but you’ll also have proof to show the world. This badge project is unique in that it also teaches you about circuits and includes a switch to save the battery power.
Included in the kit is a purple PCB manufactured in the USA by OSH Park, an RGB LED, a resistor, a switch, and a battery holder for the CR2032. Keep in mind that you’ll need to purchase the battery yourself as it cannot be mailed out with the kit due to USPS guidelines.
The Square-Inch Project Rides Again
Want to play a game? Your challenge is to do something incredible with a printed circuit board that measures no more than one inch by one inch. It’s The Return of the One Square Inch Project and it’s going to be amazing! We can’t believe that it’s been three years! The original One Square Inch Project was […]
Car Hacking at DEF CON 26
A great place to get your feet wet with the data-network-wonderland that is modern-day automobiles is the Car Hacking Village at DEF CON. I stopped by on Saturday afternoon to see what it was all about and the place was packed. From Ducati motorcycles to junkyard instrument clusters, and from mobility scooters to autonomous RC […]
Big Power, Little Power, Tiny Power, Zap!
Our Hackaday Prize Challenges are evaluated by a panel of judges who examine every entry to see how they fare against judging criteria. With prize money at stake, it makes sense we want to make sure it is done right. But we also have our Hackaday Prize achievements, with less at stake leading to a more […]
OSH Park 