Series
Grand Rapids hacker, cybersecurity, and AI conference lineage, represented here by the source-backed unofficial 2024 BadgeBuddy friend-distribution ESP8266 badge and its companion backpack scoreboard archive, the organizer-confirmed planned 2026 volunteer staff identity badge, and the attendee-documented 2026 15th-anniversary ATtiny1616 electronic badge with its hidden serial challenge. The public staff terms do not identify the staff credential's physical form, electronics, technical function, or delivery.
Grand Rapids hacker, cybersecurity, and AI conference lineage, represented here by the source-backed unofficial 2024 BadgeBuddy friend-distribution ESP8266 badge and its companion backpack scoreboard archive, the organizer-confirmed planned 2026 volunteer staff identity badge, and the attendee-documented 2026 15th-anniversary ATtiny1616 electronic badge with its hidden serial challenge. The public staff terms do not identify the staff credential's physical form, electronics, technical function, or delivery.
Badges
Unofficial ESP8266 proximity-animation badge
BadgeBuddy was an unofficial GrrCON 2024 electronic badge built for roughly thirty friends, using an ESP8266 WiFi module, an 8x8 LED matrix, battery power, proximity scanning for other BadgeBuddy SSIDs, and a public code/wiring archive.
ATtiny1616 coin-cell admission badge with a hidden serial-console challenge
GrrCON's 15th-anniversary 2026 badge, documented after the September 24-25 conference by an attendee writeup and a published firmware dump, is a coin-cell electronic badge built around a Microchip ATtiny1616. Its artwork shows a green cat with a tentacle mane coiled around a circuit on an amber disc inside a bolted green ring, edged with green LEDs and a single yellow eye LED. A hidden 9600-baud serial console, reached by grounding one pin, asks for a secret code; the answer, rick astley, returns ACCESS GRANTED and a rickroll link. The writeup credits Dave Schwartzberg of Hak4Kidz as designer and challenge author.
Planned volunteer staff identity credential for Grand Rapids conference
A conservative planned GrrCON 2026 volunteer identity-artifact record from the organizer's official volunteer terms. The terms say selected volunteers will be given a GrrCON staff badge and say dismissal revokes that badge. The official home places the September 24-25 conference at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, but neither source establishes the badge's material, electronic form, technical function, completed issuance, or use by general attendees.