2025
THOTCON 0xD Badge
A Tamagotchi with a touch wheel
THOTCON asked for a Tamagotchi. We built 2,000 egg-shaped badges with a screen, a touch wheel, and a village to look after, and shipped them in six months.
Read the four-part build logOur Work
A game console in development, a strategy game on Steam, and six generations of electronic badges for THOTCON, Chicago's hacker conference.
THOTCON Badges
Every badge is a working device that attendees wear, play, and take home to hack on. How we build them.
2023
THOTCON 0xC Badge
Laser tag for a whole conference
The theme was Contra, so the badge is a laser tag game the whole conference plays, in a molded plastic shell shaped like the target at the end of the first stage.
Read Rob Rehrig's write-up
2021
THOTCON 0xB Badge
Half NES controller, half circus ticket
The theme was Bozo the Clown. The badge is an NES controller crossed with a circus ticket. It plays the circus song, and when you tilt it, it turns into a synthesizer.
Read Rob Rehrig's write-up
2019
THOTCON 0xA Badge
A badge that talks and listens
The 0xA badge is about sound. It has a speaker, a microphone, and a face that lights up, and its firmware was a puzzle for the whole conference.
See the examples on GitHub
2018
THOTCON 0x9 Badge
A key that mines ThotCoin
THOTCON asked for a badge shaped like a key, then for a WarGames theme on top. It has Space Invaders, a currency called ThotCoin, and a game of Pokémon the whole conference played at once.
Read the write-up on Hackaday.io
2017
THOTCON 0x8 Badge
tesserHack, a maze with no screen
A game console with no screen. The game, tesserHack, is a maze inside a cube. You steer with three knobs and read the maze from four colored lights.
Read the write-up on Hackaday.io