What is this?
CCCamp Logo CCCamp 2023

It’s about a name tag. The first thing you build in elementary school. Well. Only in Cool. With LEDs … and colorful! But in principle not so different. Just like in school, you write your name on it. Ideally with a black sharpie. And you can be called by the chosen name. This alone would be boring though, so it can blink.

The CCCamp Nametag front, 3D Rendering

The nameplate, or as I call the project internally “blinkYourName”, consists of a circuit board with addressable RGB LEDs and a “display” backlight, on which the own name can be written. It is intended to be eye-catching, but also to serve the practical purpose of a name badge.

On this website, I want to provide all the information you need to understand and use a name tag if you get one at camp. This includes, of course, the software and “hackability” of the name tag. In theory, you can build your own name tag with the information gathered here. But since the name tag is not primarily intended as a kit and the LEDs are partly not trivial to solder, I’ll refrain from building instructions here. If you have already dealt with Gerber data and PCB assembly, you are welcome to use the data and build your own nameplate after the camp.

Why?
CCCamp Logo CCCamp 2023

Every time you are at a congress or the CCCamp there is this moment when you meet people with a lot of flashing badges dangling around their lanyards. And often enough these people like to tell you where they got which kit, if they didn’t even hand them out themselves. I rarely left the congress or camp without something cool. And this camp, after 3 years Corona break I would like to contribute something. I personally think that both Congress and Camp live enormously from the fact that people prepare such cool stuff. And as a hobby electronics developer and professional PCB assembler I know that a lot of work goes into such PCBs. The name tag is very simple in comparison (and really no comparison to the effort of the flow3r badge, neither in development, nor in production). And even that had to go through about 3 prototype cycles and took almost 2 months.

The original plan was even just to build in the “display” backlight and use resistors to prepare it in a fixed color. I had planned maybe 20-50. Not More. That it didn’t stay that way is the fault of @omniskop, my neighbor, good friend and person who always persuades me to do crazy things (and I mean that in a positive way 😉).

Okay, how do I get this thing?
CCCamp Logo CCCamp 2023

That’s the easy part: I’m going to carry some around with me all the time, as long as I have some. I’m not going to hand them all out on the first day, so don’t worry. There are several chances. The best way is to just find me (@hazecore) or my friends (The people in the “thank you” below) and have a nice chat with me or the others. If you found this site after I gave you one: All the better. Then you now have a place to go for all the information you need.

In total there are only about 100. Of course that’s not much with 6000 camp participants, but please remember that my friends and I financed this privately! And if you didn’t get one directly from me: please say thank you to my friends, without them it wouldn’t have been possible!

Thank you
39C3 Logo 39C3 2025

I want, need and will thank some people here, whether because of “work” or because of financial support. Without these people the name tag in this form and amount would simply not have been possible.

Thanks 39C3 2025

  • @omniskop@chaos.social (Financial support & software & just being the most awesome buddy one can have)
  • Dorota Moszczynska (Our production manager in the PCB assembly)
  • My (now former) employer (Printed circuit board assembly)

Thanks CCCamp 2023

Repositories

Firmware Repo (PlatformIO): https://github.com/HazeCore/CCCamp_Nametag_Firmware
Hardware Repo (KiCad 7): https://github.com/HazeCore/CCCamp_Nametag_Hardware