DEF CON 14 Badge
A Joe Grand-designed skull-shaped PCB badge for DEF CON 14, built around active electronics, open hackable circuitry, two blue LEDs, one button, seven soldermask role variants, and an official badge-hacking contest.
DEF CON
DEF CON 14
The 2006 DEF CON edition whose Joe Grand-designed PCB badge introduced active electronics, open circuitry, colored attendee-role variants, and a badge-hacking contest to DEF CON.
Las Vegas, Nevada · United States · 2006
Lifecycle
Add-ons & Upgrades
DEF CON 14 Badge
historical
DEFCON Badge Hacking Contest
Grand Idea Studio hosted a badge-hacking contest for obscure or mischievous badge hacks, including synthesizer control, TV-B-Goon, multicolor LEDs, flame effects, and Morse-code firmware.
DEF CON 14 Badge
historical
Event Generator Ghoul
The winning contest entry connected badge LED behavior through a stereo plug into an analog synthesizer as event generators and added piezo debug output.
Operational history
Issues & Camp Impact
DEF CON 14 Badge
note
Primary designer materials use DEFCON while current event branding is commonly written DEF CON.
The compendium uses DEF CON for the series and event but preserves DEFCON in source titles where that is the original title.
DEF CON 14 Badge
note
The DEF CON 14 image uses Eliot Phillips / RobotSkirts' Flickr documentary photo of the badge under CC BY-NC 2.0.
The entry now has a real rights-cleared documentary photo without copying Grand Idea Studio's all-rights-reserved project-page images, generated art, or placeholders.
Resources
Badgelife history
article · VICE/Motherboard history placing the DEF CON 14 badge in the origin story of DEF CON badgelife.
DEF CON 14 Flickr badge photo
licensed photo · Flickr source for Eliot Phillips / RobotSkirts' CC BY-NC 2.0 documentary photo titled DefCon 14 2006.
DEFCON 14 badge project page
project page · Primary designer page with hardware, production, role-color, contest, documentation, source-code, and hack details.
DEFCON 14 badge slides
slides · Joe Grand's DEF CON 14 slide deck covering badge conception, specification, PIC firmware, production, and contest context.
Sources
Flickr: DefCon 14 2006
Retrieved 2026-05-15 · CC BY-NC 2.0 original photo source by Eliot Phillips / RobotSkirts showing the DEF CON 14 badge; used for image provenance, not as a hardware-spec source.
Grand Idea Studio: Behind the Scenes of the DEFCON Badge
Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary slide source for specifications, 6,055-unit quantity, cost target, feature set, firmware states, and production process.
Grand Idea Studio: DEFCON 14 Badge
Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary source for first-DEF CON-electronic-badge claim, PIC10F202 hardware, LED modes, production quantity, role-color variants, and contest lore.
VICE / Motherboard: A History of Badgelife, Def Con's Unlikely Obsession with Artistic Circuit Boards
Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Secondary history source for DEF CON 14 as the first electronic badge and the broader badgelife context.