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> Y’all need project managers, at least someone with a plan! jeez. Or do what every other event does, and don't make your badges so complicated they need a pro

> Y’all need project managers, at least someone with a plan! jeez. Or do what every other event does, and don't make your badges so complicated they need a project manager Every other event has badges that look like they cost substantially less than $1. I'm not saying they have to go that cheap - but when you're hiring a project manager to coordinate the multiple teams, schedule challenges, and providers biting off more than they can chew? Maybe scale things back a bit.

firesteelrain 2y ago
They tried last year with the injection molded plastic part that you could mod and didn’t get enough of them shipped in time. To your point on $1 badges, they gave paper out and people complained (and still complain) for a long time. They felt they spent $300-400 plus travel expenses so they have this idea they should get a special badge. It has an entire culture around it. Me and a partner designed an insert that fit into that injection molded part and it had games. You could even connect via RS232 if you had the right board and it would print out DEFCON in ASCII then it had whole menu of games. We sold this add on for $20 at cost to recoup our costs. Sold about 100+ of these add ons. DEFCON definitely bit off more than they could chew. We designed our add on around a cheap STM32 series chip and wrote the code ourselves in C. It didn’t have an emulator like this as this is like an entire gaming platform that DEFCON created. But ours was more like DOS level game add on that took us a couple months to make and have produced. We made the stickers ourselves and cut acrylic ourselves.
dfox 2y ago
I suspect that the comment implies the absence of project manager on the Entropic side of the deal. As for the cost of the badge, sourcing even sub-$1 badge is still a project. And especially when your target audience is somewhat skilled at counterfeiting such things.
- echoangle 2y ago
  Is the badge the actual thing that lets you enter? Why don’t they just have digital tickets that get scanned at the entrance like everyone else? Does the badge need to be hard to counterfeit?
Dylan16807 2y ago
If you take this situation and make the circuit boards not be the badge, it doesn't really change the situation much. There's a little bit less pressure if the badge is separate, but I'm sure an emergency backup badge could have been arranged. If you're saying not to have a cool gizmo at all, I think that's too harsh of a lesson.
bawolff 2y ago
I mean, its defcon's money, if they want to spend it on fancy badges, that is there right. If someone offers to do something, knowing full well what the requirements are, but can't, that is not defcon's fault but the people who agreed to do the badges.
kelnos 2y ago
From what I understand, the DEFCON badges are a fun thing they like to do every year. I don't see this as a problem; what is a problem is deciding to try to create something so complicated in under eight months. I get that it might be a heavy lift for them to start planning and engaging companies to work on the DEFCON '24 badge before DEFCON '23 had even happened, but this particular badge warrants a year-plus of lead time.
- tptacek 2y ago
  If that's the case, a competent vendor should not have signed contracts committing themselves to deliver it.
  - jhaand 2y ago
    It could even be that EE was not the first engineering firm contacted by Defcon. But they were the ones that said yes to this product.
darksim905 2y ago
On what planet can you get ICs for less than a $1?
- boring_twenties 2y ago
  Here's not only the IC but an entire development board for $0.95: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805283269799.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805283269799.html
  - darksim905 2y ago
    cool, I guess we can go make lightsabers instead of badges...

firesteelrain 2y ago

They tried last year with the injection molded plastic part that you could mod and didn’t get enough of them shipped in time. To your point on $1 badges, they gave paper out and people complained (and still complain) for a long time. They felt they spent $300-400 plus travel expenses so they have this idea they should get a special badge. It has an entire culture around it. Me and a partner designed an insert that fit into that injection molded part and it had games. You could even connect via RS232 if you had the right board and it would print out DEFCON in ASCII then it had whole menu of games. We sold this add on for $20 at cost to recoup our costs. Sold about 100+ of these add ons. DEFCON definitely bit off more than they could chew. We designed our add on around a cheap STM32 series chip and wrote the code ourselves in C. It didn’t have an emulator like this as this is like an entire gaming platform that DEFCON created. But ours was more like DOS level game add on that took us a couple months to make and have produced. We made the stickers ourselves and cut acrylic ourselves.

dfox 2y ago

I suspect that the comment implies the absence of project manager on the Entropic side of the deal. As for the cost of the badge, sourcing even sub-$1 badge is still a project. And especially when your target audience is somewhat skilled at counterfeiting such things.

echoangle 2y ago
Is the badge the actual thing that lets you enter? Why don’t they just have digital tickets that get scanned at the entrance like everyone else? Does the badge need to be hard to counterfeit?

Dylan16807 2y ago

If you take this situation and make the circuit boards not be the badge, it doesn't really change the situation much. There's a little bit less pressure if the badge is separate, but I'm sure an emergency backup badge could have been arranged. If you're saying not to have a cool gizmo at all, I think that's too harsh of a lesson.

bawolff 2y ago

I mean, its defcon's money, if they want to spend it on fancy badges, that is there right. If someone offers to do something, knowing full well what the requirements are, but can't, that is not defcon's fault but the people who agreed to do the badges.

kelnos 2y ago

From what I understand, the DEFCON badges are a fun thing they like to do every year. I don't see this as a problem; what is a problem is deciding to try to create something so complicated in under eight months. I get that it might be a heavy lift for them to start planning and engaging companies to work on the DEFCON '24 badge before DEFCON '23 had even happened, but this particular badge warrants a year-plus of lead time.

tptacek 2y ago
If that's the case, a competent vendor should not have signed contracts committing themselves to deliver it.
- jhaand 2y ago
  It could even be that EE was not the first engineering firm contacted by Defcon. But they were the ones that said yes to this product.

darksim905 2y ago

On what planet can you get ICs for less than a $1?

boring_twenties 2y ago
Here's not only the IC but an entire development board for $0.95: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805283269799.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805283269799.html
- darksim905 2y ago
  cool, I guess we can go make lightsabers instead of badges...