With every large event in our circles comes a badge, and Electromagnetic Field 2024 is no exception. We’ve told you about the Tildagon when it was announced, it’s a hexagonal badge designed with provision for user-created “Hexpansions”, which can be picked up at future camps. The idea of this badge is to make something with a lifetime beyond the one camp, and we’re interested to have received our badge. It’s unusual for a hacker camp badge in that it costs a little extra rather than just coming with the ticket.

In a pair of anti-static bags are the front and rear PCB assemblies, a piece of ribbon cable, a couple of glue pads, and some screws. It could be bought with a battery, however since it’s compatible with the EMF 2016 and 2018 batteries we opted to use one of those instead. Assembly is a case of attaching the cable between the two boards, sticking the battery in place with the glue pads, hooking it up, and screwing the two together.

Looking at the boards, we find the ESP32-S3 microcontroller running the show, and the six sockets for the hexpansions. These last components as well as a set of metal threaded standoffs are evidently not cheap parts, and we’re guessing they’ve had quite some effect on the BOM. The front PCB has a round LCD display module attached, this is of slight interest because it’s done with a row of offset PCB holes rather than a socket. It appears to form a decent connection and hold on to the display adequately.

Software-wise, there’s the option for an over-the-air update, which we did through the camp network. There are a set of buttons round the points of the hexagon which form the interface, but sadly there’s little in the way of cues as to which does what and it’s a case of figuring it out for yourself. We managed to repeatedly crash our badge when we tried anything, however  it’s not unusual for better working firmware versions to emerge hot on the heels of the badge itself.

We like the hardware of this badge, it’s robust and cleverly designed. We like the idea of a badge for future camps too, and the hexpansions are a pretty neat idea. It’s plain that the firmware version on the first day is a bit flaky, but especially since this is a badge for the long term we’re sure this will get better. All-in-all an eye-catching badge with a future!