Hacker Con Badges

ROOTCON

ROOTCON 20

The completed September 23-25, 2026 ROOTCON twentieth edition at Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark, whose con-goers guide promised first-come electronic badges at on-site check-in with a Type-B non-electronic fallback. September 26 through 29 rechecks found the homepage still in pre-event wording, but the September 30 recheck found an official post-event ROOTCON 20 media drop dated September 28, 2026 with TRACK01 and TRACK02 talk-slide archives, speaker bios, lanyard and pouch artwork, the ROOTCON XX Homecoming Edition magazine, and the rc20-human-fw.bin ESP32-S3 Meshtastic badge firmware, so the edition is now marked completed while electronic-badge counts and the Type-B split stay unverified.

Royce Hotel & Casino, Clark, Pampanga · Philippines · 2026

ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge

The ROOTCON 20 con-goers guide documented a September 2026 badge distribution model: electronic badges distributed first-come during on-site check-in while supplies last, with a simpler Type-B non-electronic badge fallback. After the September 23-25 event, ROOTCON's official media server published a post-event ROOTCON 20 drop on September 28, 2026, including rc20-human-fw.bin, a compiled ESP32-S3 firmware image that identifies itself as the ROOTCON 20 Badge and runs a Meshtastic LoRa mesh stack on an SX1262 radio with an SSD1315 OLED, four WS2812B LEDs, and Tetris and Breakout games.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge official firmware binary

badge games

Tetris and Breakout games

The firmware includes Tetris and Breakout with high scores saved to /prefs/tetris.dat and /prefs/breakout.dat, a GAME OVER screen, and a games-reset option.

Compatibility: ROOTCON 20 electronic badges running rc20-human-fw; controls and any CTF or quest layer are not documented.

ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge official pre-event policy

distribution policy

Type-B non-electronic fallback

The RC20 con-goers guide says electronic badges will be first-come at on-site check-in while supplies last and that a Type-B non-electronic badge will be provided as the fallback.

Compatibility: ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge; the post-event split between electronic and Type-B badges is not published.

ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge official firmware binary

radio firmware feature

Meshtastic LoRa mesh with PH_433 region lock

The official firmware carries a Meshtastic-derived mesh stack on an SX1262 radio, with node database, beacon, and hop-scaling logic and a ROOTCON 20 region lock that forces the PH_433 band.

Compatibility: ROOTCON 20 electronic badges running rc20-human-fw; interoperability with stock Meshtastic nodes is not documented.

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

ROOTCON 20 Electronic Badge note

firmware source and licence gap · official media-server listing and local binary inspection · binary-only release

ROOTCON published only the compiled rc20-human-fw.bin image, built from a dirty 5b987d4 tree, with no source repository, licence, flashing guide, schematic, PCB, or BOM. Meshtastic itself is GPL-3.0 licensed, but no corresponding source for this build has been located.

Hardware and feature claims are limited to what the ESP32-S3 image header and embedded strings declare, and the record does not describe the board layout or unpublished variants.

Resources

ROOTCON 20 homepage event page · Official homepage documenting September 23-25, 2026 dates and Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark for ROOTCON 20; the September 26 through 30, 2026 rechecks after the elapsed dates still show the pre-event banner, while the post-event material appeared on the media server instead. ROOTCON FAQ faq · General ROOTCON badge taxonomy source for electronic, non-electronic, black, and electi badge definitions applied to the RC20 record. ROOTCON 20 con-goers guide guide · Official RC20 guide documenting September 23-25, 2026 dates, Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark, first-come electronic badge distribution, and Type-B non-electronic fallback; unchanged in the September 30, 2026 media-server recheck. rc20-human-fw.bin official badge firmware binary · 1,595,248-byte ESP32-S3 application image (SHA-256 3def651c51f2131cd4399c17375772f16a4edf415874d8794039a199c0559a5a) uploaded September 28, 2026. Its app descriptor names project rc20, build 5b987d4-dirty, ESP-IDF 5.5.5, and a September 6, 2026 build date; its strings identify the ROOTCON 20 Badge, a Meshtastic stack, SX1262 LoRa, SSD1315 128x64 display, four WS2812B LEDs, a PH_433 region lock, and Tetris and Breakout. No source, licence, or flashing notes are published. ROOTCON XX Homecoming Edition magazine official commemorative publication · Official twentieth-edition magazine PDF in the September 28 media drop. Its badges section traces ROOTCON badges from passes to hackable hardware, credits Electronic Cats and AND!XOR for earlier badge work, and names Mr. Blinky Bling as the hands behind the ROOTCON 20 badge under a Before the Reveal heading; it does not describe the final hardware. ROOTCON 20 media server directory official post-event media archive · Official ROOTCON media-server directory for the edition. The September 30, 2026 recheck found Artwork, Badge, Speakers, and Talks folders added on September 28, 2026, three days after the event, next to the September 16 pre-event Downloads folder. ROOTCON 20 talk-slide archives official post-event talk archive · Official TRACK01 and TRACK02 tar archives of ROOTCON 20 presentation decks uploaded September 28, 2026, used as post-event evidence that the scheduled conference tracks took place; they contain no badge talk. ROOTCON Black Badge policy policy · Official ROOTCON Black Badge policy source for contest/community-award context and free-pass perk framing.

Sources

ROOTCON: RC20 Con-Goers Guide Retrieved 2026-09-30 · Primary pre-event source for September 23-25, 2026 dates, Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark, first-come electronic badge distribution, and Type-B non-electronic fallback. The September 30 media-server recheck found the September 16 guide unchanged alongside the sponsors primer. ROOTCON: ROOTCON 20 Homepage Retrieved 2026-09-30 · Official event source for September 23-25, 2026 dates and Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark venue. September 26 through 30 rechecks after the elapsed dates still found the banner announcing the dates and no homepage wrap-up or archive entry for ROOTCON 20; post-event evidence comes from the official media server instead. ROOTCON: ROOTCON Black Badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Official policy source for ROOTCON Black Badge contest and community-award context. ROOTCON: ROOTCON FAQ Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary badge-taxonomy source for electronic, non-electronic, black, and electi badge definitions used to frame the RC20 record. ROOTCON: ROOTCON Media Server: ROOTCON 20 Retrieved 2026-09-30 · Primary official post-event source: Artwork, Badge, Speakers, and Talks folders dated September 28, 2026, including track slide archives and speaker bios, establish that the September 23-25 edition was held. The drop does not state electronic-badge counts, Type-B allocation, or who received which badge. ROOTCON: ROOTCON XX - Homecoming Edition Retrieved 2026-09-30 · Official commemorative magazine whose ROOTCON 20 Badge / Before the Reveal page credits Mr. Blinky Bling with the twentieth-anniversary badge. The PDF was produced on August 15, 2026, before the event, so it is a credit source rather than a distribution record. ROOTCON: rc20-human-fw.bin Retrieved 2026-09-30 · Primary technical source, inspected locally from the official binary: ESP32-S3 image header, rc20 app descriptor built September 6, 2026 with ESP-IDF 5.5.5 from PlatformIO environment rc20-human-fw, ROOTCON 20 Badge banner strings, Meshtastic mesh modules, SX1262 radio driver, SSD1315 128x64 display, 4x WS2812B GPIO37, ROOTCON 20 region lock forcing PH_433, NimBLE, libpax counting, and Tetris and Breakout high-score files. String evidence describes the compiled build only; it does not prove every feature was enabled on shipped boards.