THOTCON
The May 30-31, 2025 Chicago THOTCON edition whose official site, contests page, Hackaday.io project, and public example repository document an ESP32 touch-wheel electronic badge and badge-hacking contest.
Chicago, Illinois / TOP_SECRET venue · United States · 2025
The THOTCON 0xD badge was a Fourfold-built electronic conference badge for the May 30-31, 2025 Chicago event, documented as a 2,000-unit ESP32 touch-wheel badge with ST7789 TFT display, buzzer, six LEDs, LiPo power, add-on header, games, visual effects, and challenge hooks.
Lifecycle
The public firmware archive includes ToneChaser examples for musical modes while the project writeup documents audio games and badge sound output.
Hackaday.io documents an exposed add-on header as part of the badge's expansion and badgelife compatibility surface.
The `thotcon-examples` repository preserves cleaned-up Arduino/ESP32 examples for touch input, LEDs, audio modes, display output, menus, mini-game placeholders, and credits.
Hackaday.io and the repository README document an ESP32-compatible badge architecture with capacitive touch-wheel input, center button, TFT display, buzzer, LEDs, and LiPo power context.
The README documents three capacitive touch sensors for wheel input plus a center capacitive button, matching the touch-wheel interaction model described in the project writeup.
The public sources identify an ST7789 240x320 TFT display and six LEDs as the badge's main visual surfaces.
Operational history
The United States record remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying source-page media, documentation screenshots, event photos, social media, placeholders, or generated approximations.
The software description separates the recovered demo archive from the full shipped event firmware so the record does not overstate public source completeness.
The catalogue cites the repository as evidence and a user-facing reference without treating its images, firmware, or hardware files as freely reusable beyond what the source itself permits.