DEF CON
The 2007 DEF CON edition whose Joe Grand / Grand Idea Studio badge used an MC9S08QG8, a 95-LED matrix, capacitive sensors, optional accelerometer and RF footprints, customizable scrolling text, and another badge-hacking contest.
Las Vegas, Nevada · United States · 2007
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.
Lifecycle
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.
Two QT100 capacitive sensors controlled the five operating states, including text display, text entry, scroll-speed selection, persistence-of-vision, and sleep.
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.
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.
Operational history
The badge page preserves the contest lineage while leaving full per-entry reconstruction for a later archive pass.
The entry remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying project-page WebP photos without complete rights clearance.
The catalogue records the expansion footprints as a design surface without implying that every attendee badge shipped with populated motion or RF hardware.