The month of April was spent developing the final design of the badge. We just completed the third revision and are confident in the design. We are ordering an initial round of 20 PCBs to perform a final validation before placing an order for the remainder. The 20 PCBs will serve as the special badges for friends and will be in a different color.

The focus now shifts completely to software and production. Software has reached 4000 SLOC and using about 75k of the badge. All hardware components are fully integrated and in use. The badge now includes a 2MB SPI flash chip, of which we are using about 200kB for animations, graphics, and settings. USB is fully functional and we routinely flash the badges over USB. Although, debugging over USB is difficult so we keep our USB to Serial adapters close by.

As far as bling goes, the badge has 14 different animations utilizing the display and LEDs with a few more planned.

As recently as last week we added a basic shell that runs over serial or USB for control of the badge and additional user interactions. There is something oddly satisfying seeing a terminal prompt come from an embedded device.

Since the last update, we've added a light sensor (to save power by dimming the LEDs) and a tilt sensor that flips the screen. This will make the badge useable when worn around the neck.

Next major features to add to the badge will be to build upon the social features and games (several planned).

On the production front, we have about 1/3 of our material in hand. Capacitors, resistors, flash chips, displays, tilt sensors, and crystals. With last of our capacitors and buttons in route.

Finally, we've produced three revision 2 badges that will be headed to Layer One in Los Angeles at the end of the month. Looking forward to showing them off.