DEF CON 15 · United States · 2007

DEF CON 15 Badge

95-LED scrolling-text badge with capacitive controls

A Joe Grand / Grand Idea Studio electronic badge for DEF CON 15, built around a Freescale MC9S08QG8, a 5-by-19 matrix of 95 LEDs, capacitive touch controls, customizable vertically scrolling text, persistence-of-vision behavior, and another official badge-hacking contest.

DEF CON United States MC9S08QG8 Freescale LED Matrix Capacitive Touch POV Badge Hacking Contest Badgelife Las Vegas North America

EventDEF CON 15

SeriesDEF CON

LocationLas Vegas, Nevada

CountryUnited States

People

Authors & Credits

badge design studio and documentation publisher

Grand Idea Studio

Publisher of the project page, schematics, BOM, assembly drawing, test procedure, source-code archive, slides, and contest material.

Source

badge designer and documentation author

Joe Grand / Kingpin

Grand Idea Studio documents Joe Grand's DEF CON 15 badge design, documentation, source, contest hosting, and project materials.

Source

badge-hacking contest second place

Team Slackers / Botten and Dov

Grand Idea Studio names Team Slackers, Botten and Dov, as the second-place team for the pGina single sign-on generator.

Source

badge-hacking contest winners

Team Osogato / Len Sassaman, Meredith Patterson, Dustin Cooper, Martin Murray, Tongen, and Maxinux

Grand Idea Studio names Team Osogato and members as the winning hardware/firmware modification team for the line-level meter hack.

Source

contest-lore music collaborators

The Brothers Grimm

Grand Idea Studio says Team Osogato worked with The Brothers Grimm on a rap song based on Joe Grand's Ode to the DEFCON Badge poem.

Source

Why It Mattered

It shows DEF CON's official electronic badge lineage maturing immediately after DEF CON 14: the badge moved from a two-LED proof of culture into a higher-volume display platform with source code, schematics, BOM, assembly, test, slides, contest entries, and documented hardware-hack winners.

Hardware

Grand Idea Studio documents an MC9S08QG8 8-bit microcontroller, 95 LEDs arranged as 5 columns by 19 rows, two Quantum Research QT100 capacitive sensors, two CR2032 3 V lithium coin cells, six clientele-specific text cut-outs and soldermask colors, 6,800 manufactured badges, and unpopulated optional circuitry for an MMA7260QT triple-axis accelerometer and MC13191FC 2.4 GHz RF transceiver.

Software & Apps

The project page says the source was developed with CodeWarrior Development Studio for HC(S)08 and links the released MC9S08QG8 source archive. The documented operating states are text-message display, text-message entry, scroll-speed selection, persistence-of-vision, and sleep.

Lore

The 2007 badge-hacking contest had seven official entries. Team Slackers placed second with a badge-backed single sign-on generator for pGina, while Team Osogato won by modifying hardware and firmware into a line-level meter that fed audio into an A/D channel and used the LED matrix for peak-level display.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

badge display platform source-backed

95-LED scrolling text matrix

The badge used a 5-by-19 LED matrix for user-customizable vertically scrolling text, with a default DEFCON 15 message and separate text-entry and scroll-speed states.

Compatibility: DEF CON 15 Badge

Source

badge interaction surface source-backed

Capacitive touch and POV modes

Two QT100 capacitive sensors controlled the five operating states, including text display, text entry, scroll-speed selection, persistence-of-vision, and sleep.

Compatibility: DEF CON 15 Badge

Source

event challenge historical

DEFCON 15 badge hacking contest

The 2007 contest drew seven official entries, including Team Slackers' pGina single sign-on generator and Team Osogato's winning hardware/firmware line-level meter.

Compatibility: DEF CON 15 Badge

Source

unpopulated expansion design documented

Optional accelerometer and 2.4 GHz RF footprints

Grand Idea Studio says the fully designed but unpopulated circuitry supported an MMA7260QT triple-axis accelerometer and an MC13191FC 2.4 GHz RF transceiver for motion and ZigBee-class experiments.

Compatibility: DEF CON 15 Badge

Source

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

contest-archive scope note

The project page names seven official contest entries and links several archives, but this pass records the main winner/runner-up facts rather than unpacking and modeling every submitted ZIP as separate source material.

The badge page preserves the contest lineage while leaving full per-entry reconstruction for a later archive pass.

Confidence: primary project page plus linked archives
Status: needs deeper archive review
Timeframe: current catalogue build
Source note: Grand Idea Studio DEFCON 15 badge project page and linked contest-entry archives.

missing rights-cleared image note

No local DEF CON 15 badge photo has been added because the recovered Grand Idea Studio badge photos are not paired with an explicit reusable image license, attribution string, and processing provenance for this catalogue.

The entry remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying project-page WebP photos without complete rights clearance.

Confidence: local project policy
Status: needs licensed original replacement
Timeframe: current catalogue build
Source note: badge.gallery image policy and Grand Idea Studio project-page/copyright context.

unpopulated expansion caveat note

Accelerometer and 2.4 GHz RF support was fully designed but unpopulated on the badge circuit board.

The catalogue records the expansion footprints as a design surface without implying that every attendee badge shipped with populated motion or RF hardware.

Confidence: primary designer source
Status: documented
Timeframe: 2007 production badge
Source note: Grand Idea Studio DEFCON 15 badge project page.

Resources

DEFCON 15 Team Slackers contest entry contest entry archive · Contest archive linked from the project page for the Team Slackers pGina single sign-on generator entry. DEFCON 15 badge assembly drawing assembly drawing · Assembly drawing source for board population and manufacturing reference. DEFCON 15 badge bill of materials bill of materials · Grand Idea Studio BOM PDF for parts and sourcing context. DEFCON 15 badge project page project page · Primary designer page with MC9S08QG8, LED matrix, capacitive sensor, optional accelerometer/RF, production, role variant, operating-state, contest, and documentation details. DEFCON 15 badge schematic schematic · Grand Idea Studio schematic PDF for the DEF CON 15 badge hardware. DEFCON 15 badge source code source code · Released CodeWarrior source archive for the MC9S08QG8 firmware. DEFCON 15 badge test procedure test procedure · Production test procedure source for functional verification workflow. DEFCON 15 line-level meter contest entry contest entry archive · Contest archive linked from the project page for the winning Team Osogato line-level meter entry. Making of the DEFCON 15 Badge slides · Slide deck source for badge design, implementation, and conference context. Ode to the DEFCON Badge lore artifact · Poem referenced by the contest-winning rap-song collaboration with The Brothers Grimm.

Sources

Grand Idea Studio: DEFCON 15 Badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary source for MC9S08QG8 hardware, 95-LED matrix, capacitive sensors, optional accelerometer/RF circuitry, operating states, 6,800-badge production, role variants, and contest winners. Grand Idea Studio: DEFCON 15 Badge Schematic Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary schematic source for component-level hardware evidence. Grand Idea Studio: DEFCON 15 Badge Bill of Materials Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary BOM source for parts-list evidence and hardware corroboration. Grand Idea Studio: DEFCON 15 Badge Source Code Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary released source-code archive for CodeWarrior / MC9S08QG8 firmware evidence. Grand Idea Studio: Making of the DEFCON 15 Badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary slide source for design, badge-making, and conference presentation context.