ioprog

The first build of the unofficial €5 badge is more or less done. The image above shows a front view. Two 3.5mm audio sockets act as communications ports and allow a stereo audio cable be used as a lanyard. A game-pad style interface is provided for the bundled games. Also provided is a 4 pin header for uploading and debugging new firmware. The badge is powered off a 1.5V AA battery which is stepped up to 3.3V using a boost converter (just below the left audio socket).

I attempted a previous version of this by soldering all components in place but quickly realized that was so difficult that there would be few successful builds. I’ve since switched to a mixed wire-wrap and soldered build as shown below (I know it’s a bit rough :). This approach is much easier and errors are easily corrected.

Remaining tasks:
Tidy up the back of the badge
Develop a multiplayer game
Get ready for the badge “make-a-thon” in Tog later in May

Code and docs are available over on github