MiniBadges are the trading-card circuit boards of SAINTCON. About 1” square, they plug into your conference badge, commemorate a skill you learned or a thing you did, and (most importantly) get traded.
In a typical year, 17,000+ minibadges show up at SAINTCON. You’ll see homemade prototypes, limited-run community pieces, and fully functional small computers. They are one of the most SAINTCON things about SAINTCON.
What they are
“Small circuit boards that act as a badge of honor you receive for learning a skill, hacking a website, picking a lock, or participating in an event.”
MiniBadges were originally designed by zZq. The concept is simple: a tiny PCB with a standard edge connector that plugs into a slot on the main conference badge, giving you a visible, physical record of the things you’ve earned.
Designs range wildly:
- A single LED that lights when plugged in.
- A little game or animation.
- A fully addressable display.
- A microcontroller running someone’s ambitious weekend project.
As long as it builds to the standard, it’ll plug into any recent SAINTCON badge.
The community
The MiniBadge community is led by SHIFTY and distinctm1nd. They run the MiniBadge community space at the conference and coordinate year-round via the #minibadge-creators Discord channel.
At the conference
- MiniBadge community space & display. A dedicated area where you can show off your collection, admire other people’s, and trade.
- Bingo card. Pick one up at the MiniBadge community. Collect minibadges around the conference to fill out your card. One of the first three attendees to blackout gets a special prize.
- Trading etiquette. Bring duplicates of your design. Trades happen everywhere: hallways, talks, meals. Don’t be weird about it.
Design submission
The community welcomes all community-friendly designs. One big ask:
Please BUILD THEM FIRST.
If your design is still a rendering, you’ve got work to do before bringing it to the community.
The Standard
MiniBadge is an open hardware standard. The full spec (footprint, pinout, power, signaling) is published on GitHub:
- Repository:
github.com/lukejenkins/minibadge - License: OSS hardware; fork, adapt, contribute.
- Build guide: available for download; see the repo’s README for the current link.
Because the spec is open, minibadges from any year still plug into any compliant badge. Your 2019 piece still works on the 2026 badge.
Make your own
Three video tutorials from SAINTCON 2020 walk through the full process, from installing the design tools through ordering boards from a fab. The standard hasn’t meaningfully changed since, so they’re still the best starting point:
- Minibadge Tutorial Part 1: Installing Software
- Minibadge Tutorial Part 2: Schematic and PCB
- Minibadge Tutorial Part 3: Ordering
Once you’ve got boards in hand, bring duplicates of your design to the conference to trade.
How to get one (if you’re new)
- Show up and trade. The easiest way. Lots of people want the badge-trading economy to include new folks.
- Earn one for solving a challenge, attending a community, or completing a small task. Many communities hand out custom minibadges.
- Build your own. Follow the standard, order a small run from your favorite PCB fab, and bring them to trade.
The 10x10 display board
The Minibadge 10x10 is a display case, not a minibadge. Designed by compukidmike, it’s a soldering project in its own right: 200 8-pin headers, over 1,600 solder joints, and a 10 by 10 grid that holds up to 100 minibadges on a single board. A few are on display each year at the MiniBadge station.
The 2024 revision moved the USB connector to the underside and ships with it pre-soldered. The rest of the board (headers, button, power switch, screw terminal, and the surface-mount CLK driver chips) is up to the builder. The CLK drivers are fine-pitch SMD and, per compukidmike, “isn’t for the faint of heart”; a stencil and a reflow oven make life much easier.
Warning from the repo: the back of the board has 10 solder jumpers that are ONLY for when the CLK chips are missing. Bridging them with the CLK chips in place will damage the chips and can start a fire.
Build it yourself. The repo ships the full KiCad project, Gerbers, schematics, and a bill of materials under an open-hardware license:
github.com/compukidmike/minibadge10x10
Limited quantities of assembled 10x10 boards are usually available at the SAINTCON Store.
Past years’ minibadges
A gallery of past designs is in the works. Check back or browse the archives in the meantime. If you’ve got photos of past minibadge lineups, the community would love to see them on Discord.
Questions?
#minibadge-creatorson Discord (year-round).github.com/lukejenkins/minibadgefor the spec and build guide.
