A Hackaday Conference Badge?

No, we're not having a con - at least not yet. We go to enough of those already. So many, in fact, that we thought it would be a good idea to have a Hackaday Conference Badge for all the conferences we go to. What is it? What will it do?

• It's a badge tied to a hackaday.io account.
• It's a badge with a radio module
• It's a badge with a LED array/display
• It's got buttons for UI
• It beeps and flashes when it's close to another hackaday badge wearer. It beeps super loud when someone on the Hackaday crew is nearby.
• It has an IR transceiver for sharing contact info.

So far, it's pretty similar to other conference badges we've seen before. What makes this badge special? If you go to a con that Hackaday is attending/covering, you get one of those sweet virtual badges on you hackaday.io profile. If we're throwing a swinging party in room 812, Hackaday can send out a message to everyone in attendance.

It's a physical extension of the hackaday.io community, made specifically for hacker gatherings of all types and sizes.

How are we going to do this?

We have hardware to build, and there are only a few months until all the cons start up again. We've decided on two boards: A 'user' badge that will have all the functionality described above, and a 'staff' badge that will make badges beep and blink on command (we promise not to abuse it(), collect IDs from user badges (to give out virtual badges on hackaday.io), and have some interesting security. If we're really clever with how we implement this, we can give out prizes to the people who visit the most hackady events in a year. 

So now what?

We start building hardware. With the right set of I/O, we can improve the functionality of these badges as time progresses. Right now we're looking at a few radio modules, and we're hoping this badge will also be a functional and useful development board. We'll also need to get started on the firmware and web side of the project, making this a physical extension of hackaday.io into meatspace.

Initial meeting notes:

The user badge will have:

• Will contain their .io number
  
  • how does the user semi-permanently set this easily
    • Brian likes having 16 solder jumpers for .io ID
• display badges it came in contact with
• LED display
  
  • .io leaderboards/badges
  • RSSI / proximity sensing
• beeper 
• Buttons
• (Micro) USB?
  
  • dumping data onto computer
• Beeps/flashes when within range of (other users) | (hackaday crew)
• A switch to select between beeping and flashing
• IR transciever
  
  • can send messages to badges it has already exchanged contact info with

The 'Master' badge

• Collects hackaday.io user ids
  • for virtual badges
  • Must be actually secure
• Makes badges beep
  • hacker_ID %10 = 10 voice polyphony
• Pushes messages to the badges
  • Specific badges
  • Badges it sees
  • All badges (send when encountered)