Hacker Con Badges

Onion DAO

Onion DAO 2026

The June 2026 Onion DAO year-two four-week Chicago builder festival, whose official site describes hardware, AI, cybersecurity, and blockchain programming. The organizer says every accepted attendee gets a hardware badge at registration, with most components already on the board and a final soldering step. The official site links to OnionDAO's public badge repository, which documents an ESP32-S3 design and its open hardware/software sources; public sources do not establish an exact recipient ledger, completed handoff, or final population of every attendee unit.

Downtown Chicago, Illinois (address shared with accepted attendees) · United States · 2026

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge

Onion DAO's official 2026 Chicago festival page says every accepted attendee gets a hardware badge at registration, with most components already on the board and a final soldering step. The same official site links to OnionDAO's public oniondao-badge repository, which documents a hacker-conference-style ESP32-S3 design, optional RF/audio modules, a display socket, secure element, expansion ports, and source trees for hardware and software. The public record supports a real organizer-published artifact and design, while exact recipient allocation, completed assembly, and final attendee population remain unverified.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge official 2026 festival page; final handoff unverified

attendee hardware-badge workflow

Accepted-attendee soldering completion

The official festival page says every accepted attendee gets a hardware badge at registration, with most components already on the board and a little soldering needed to bring it alive.

Compatibility: Onion DAO 2026 accepted-attendee context only; no public recipient ledger, finished-unit count, final assembly option, or individual completed handoff is established.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge public hardware documentation

display hardware option

24-pin e-paper or TFT display socket

The organizer-linked design documents a 24-pin J4 socket for e-paper or TFT SPI display modules, with GPIO, reset, busy, data-command, chip-select, clock, and MOSI details.

Compatibility: OnionDAO Badge design; the documentation does not establish which display, if any, was fitted to every attendee unit.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge public source guide

firmware development workflow

ESP-IDF v5.5.x USB flash and recovery workflow

The official guide specifies ESP-IDF v5.5.x with the Arduino core, an ESP32-S3 target, CH340 USB serial flashing, auto-reset, and a manual BOOT/RESET recovery sequence.

Compatibility: The public source-tree workflow; it does not establish a final conference image, attendee update cadence, support commitment, or safe compatibility with all optional modules.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge public hardware documentation

hardware expansion interface

Dual J8/J10 expansion-port contract

The hardware guide documents two 10-pin side ports with power, ground, and GPIO for external modules, lanyards, or hardware modifications.

Compatibility: OnionDAO Badge design; source documents a physical interface, not safety, electrical compatibility, or production support for every third-party expansion.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge public hardware documentation; installed variant unconfirmed

swappable RF module

CC1101 Sub-GHz module option

The module guide documents a CC1101 SPI radio option for 315, 433, 868, or 915 MHz matching-network variants, powered through the peripheral rail.

Compatibility: OnionDAO Badge side-port module option; the source does not establish a universal installed frequency, antenna, firmware configuration, or legal authorization for any particular user or deployment.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge public hardware documentation; installed variant unconfirmed

swappable audio module

Sound module option

The module guide documents an optional NS4168 I2S amplifier and SPH0641 PDM microphone sound module on the side-port hardware.

Compatibility: OnionDAO Badge side-port module option; it shares GPIO with the CC1101 design and is not established as a universal attendee population.

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge note

attendee allocation and handoff caveat · official event page · accepted-attendee badge and soldering workflow announced; final outcome unverified

The official festival page says every accepted attendee gets a hardware badge at registration and finishes a small soldering step, but the reviewed public sources do not provide an attendee list, unit count, on-site registration ledger, completed distribution report, assembly completion rate, final kit contents, replacement policy, or post-event fulfillment record.

The catalogue preserves the organizer's explicit attendee-badge statement without presenting it as a verified universal handoff or a completed configuration for every individual participant.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge note

final hardware population caveat · official hardware and module documentation · source design detailed; attendee population unresolved

The source tree documents a display socket, dual side ports, optional CC1101 and sound modules, multiple module populations, and shared GPIO constraints. It does not establish the display, radio/audio/storage module, power source, battery, antenna, enclosure, lanyard, exact board revision, assembly quality, or physical configuration that each issued attendee device actually carried.

The record distinguishes open design capability from a claimed uniform production configuration or a complete inventory of event-issued variants.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge note

firmware and licence scope caveat · official repository documentation · public source tree; final event firmware and per-mod licence scope unverified

The repository documents source folders, guides, ESP-IDF v5.5.x tooling, hardware sources under CERN-OHL-S v2 unless a file header says otherwise, and software that defaults to MIT with individual mods allowed to override. Its reviewed public page had no tagged releases, and the sources do not identify a final event firmware image, provisioning state, attendee update path, security review, or a blanket reuse licence for every source, mod, binary, image, and build artifact.

Readers can follow the open source trail while the catalogue avoids treating a default licence statement or development guide as final firmware provenance, a universal binary licence, or a deployment guarantee.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge note

missing rights-cleared image · policy decision · open

No Onion DAO 2026 badge image is published locally because the official festival page and repository tree do not pair a selected documentary photo or upstream raster with an unambiguous image-specific reuse licence or permission basis, attribution, source URL, and processing record. The repository's visible board-top raster remains source evidence only because the README's hardware-source licence statement does not unambiguously grant independent reuse of that raster as a published image.

The Chicago record remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying event media, board screenshots, GitHub previews, social images, generated approximations, or an unclear-rights upstream raster.

Onion DAO 2026 Hardware Badge note

radio, expansion, and secure-element use caveat · official module and hardware documentation · capabilities documented; operational use remains user-specific

The optional CC1101 design names region-dependent Sub-GHz bands and the module guide gives scanning and ASK/OOK replay as examples only with authorization. The secure element and exposed side-port GPIO make the hardware capable of identity and external-hardware experiments, but the reviewed sources do not establish frequency legality, authorization, emissions compliance, antenna safety, third-party-module electrical compatibility, credentials/provisioning, privacy controls, or appropriate use for a particular user or venue.

The record documents the available hardware surfaces without endorsing RF transmission, replay, credential use, or unreviewed expansion hardware.

Resources

OnionDAO Badge repository hardware and software source repository · Organizer-linked public repository describing the ESP32-S3 badge, KiCad sources, manufacturing outputs, hardware and software source layout, licensing boundary, and community-driven firmware path. Onion DAO 2026 festival and badge official event page · Primary organizer source for the June 2026 Chicago Year Two festival, its hardware and cybersecurity context, accepted-attendee hardware-badge statement, soldering-completion wording, high-level ESP32-S3/radio options, and the organizer-controlled GitHub link. OnionDAO Badge ESP-IDF flash guide official firmware guide · Primary guide for the ESP-IDF v5.5.x and Arduino-core source environment, USB serial flashing, automatic reset, manual recovery, and source-tree scope. OnionDAO Badge hardware overview official hardware documentation · Detailed primary hardware documentation for the ESP32-S3 N8R8 module, CH340C, secure element, button matrix, display socket, side ports, power rails, and fabrication outputs. OnionDAO Badge swappable-module guide official module documentation · Primary documentation for the CC1101 Sub-GHz and sound modules, shared GPIO/mutual-exclusion boundary, supported radio bands, and authoring a new module. OnionDAO official GitHub organization official source-publisher profile · Organizer-linked GitHub organization profile whose listed public oniondao-badge repository ties the festival site to the technical source trail.

Sources

Onion DAO: Onion DAO 2026 festival and badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary organizer source for the June 2026 Chicago builder-festival context, four hardware/AI/cybersecurity/blockchain weeks, accepted-attendee hardware badge, final soldering step, high-level ESP32-S3/radio statements, and official repository link. OnionDAO-git: OnionDAO Badge Hardware Overview Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary hardware source for the processor/memory, USB and boot path, power rails, I2C devices, display socket, buttons, secure element, expansion ports, and fabrication-output claims. OnionDAO-git: OnionDAO Badge README Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary project README for the ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N8R8, board/source layout, display socket, secure element, I2C button expander, side ports, hardware and software licensing language, and community firmware path. OnionDAO-git: OnionDAO Badge Swappable Modules Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary source for CC1101 and sound-module hardware, shared-GPIO and mutual-exclusion behavior, radio-band boundary, and authorization wording for example use cases. OnionDAO-git: OnionDAO official GitHub organization Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Organizer-linked source-publisher profile that lists the public oniondao-badge repository. It corroborates the relationship between the official festival site and the technical source tree, not an individual maker attribution. OnionDAO-git: Setting Up VS Code + ESP-IDF to Build & Flash the Badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary source for ESP-IDF v5.5.x and Arduino-core build guidance, target/memory configuration, UART flashing, automatic reset, and BOOT/RESET recovery. It does not identify a final event firmware image or every attendee's firmware state.