It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the factory. We were approached by the coordinators of STEM 2022, a conference that brings together experts in STEM with educators and innovators. They wanted a badge, an interactive and electronic conference badge. We prepared a short video showing the manufacture of the badges that made it to the conference.

I'd like to introduce you to the STEM 2022 conference badge designed and manufactured right here in Newcastle. These conference badges feature an interactive game so you can play rock paper scissors with other conference members and keep a running score. At the top of the badge, there are three components: an infrared transmitter and receiver that allow your badges to communicate wirelessly, and a green status LED in the middle that lets your opponent know you're up for a game and it flashes while you hold your selection.

On the backside of the board, there are three buttons labelled rock, paper, and scissors. To play a game, you hold down your selection and your opponent responds by holding down their selection. Above the buttons are a win and loss indicator lamp and a draw is shown by illuminating both at the same time. Across the center, there is a row of LEDs that keeps track of your running score shown in binary. To calculate your score, simply add the numbers that are above the LEDs. For example, if LEDs 16, 4, and 1 are illuminated, that sums to 21.

We have a score of 21. Let's demonstrate a game. I'll need an opponent, so G'day Luke, what's your score? Luke has three, and I have two. We play and I win. Luke now has four, and I'm still on three. That's everything you need to know to go and challenge other conference members and see if you can get the highest score.

If you'd like to see the advanced manufacturing processes that went into creating these badges, enjoy this short presentation. It took us a couple of runs to be happy with the design. Our version 0.1 design was literally just a hardware design with no artwork. We got the schematic laid out and did a artwork tone test to see what kind of color tones we can get for the artwork. We had a buzzer on this version, but we decided against that because it would be really annoying at a conference. We're running the at tiny 1616 microcontroller, which is a really tiny but decently featured microcontroller. We use that in a lot of our PiicoDev products as well. On the version 0.2, we have a bunch of fly leads to get the power management correct. We also have a UPDI programming pin.

We can do things like measure the current draw of various elements, tune up the power management of the microcontroller, and experiment with sleep mode to get the power consumption really low. This version 0.3 was the final production candidate, identical in hardware to the badges that made their way to the conference, except the badges that went there would have had version 1.0 on them. We replaced the buzzer with some wind loss indicator LEDs, added reverse polarity protection to the battery, and were able to validate the power budget. The standby current is around 350 nanowatts, and you'll easily get a year out of your batteries. All the peripheries are switched off, and we even shut down the infrared receiver. We have a MOSFET sitting on the high side of that so we can power and depower it only when necessary. These all use AAA alkaline cell or nickel metal hydride cell batteries as a safe alternative to button cell batteries.

The idea of playing rock, paper, scissors wound up being quite the design challenge. By all accounts, the STEM22 conference and the badges were a resounding success. They seem to work as a really great icebreaker. Graham said that he played against every single person that turned up at the Core Electronics booth. The keynote speakers were fascinating.

We had a great time talking about STEM, PiicoDev, and this cool project. We spoke to many dedicated educators and experts about the topics. If you would like to learn more or have any questions, please open up the thread on the Core Electronics forums.

Thank you for watching!