Presentation delivered at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE), 21st Edition in March 2024.

In this demo, Kerim Satirli and I explain the do’s and dont’s when building a single board computer-powered conference badge.

Description

Attendee badges at conferences are sometimes boring, sometimes fun and quirky. This project aims to make them a bit more fun, reusable and practical by enhancing them with compute. The idea is to have a fleet of badges that can be controlled from a central location, display information, and interact with each other.

GitHub repository | Slide Deck (PDF download)

Hardware

  • Raspberry Pi Zero 2W - for compute. W version for WiFi to be able to connect to the control plane
  • Waveshare e-ink display HAT - 2.13 inch fits perfectly on top of a Pi Zero, but is too small to be useful; 2.7 and 2.9 inch are better

Software

  • Waveshare’s Python SDK (note: each board size and revision has a different SDK) to output information on the e-ink display
  • A Flask API to enable remote updates
  • Nomad to orchestrate the Flask API and get it to all Raspberry Pis