I make electronic badges for hacking conferences. So, a couple of years ago, I was asked to host a soldering village by OWASP Bangalore community in an international hacking conference in Kochi, India. So inspired by OWASP's logo, I came up with the bee design. It also represents the bug we find in the hacking world.
BugZee v1 {Obstacle detection}Design
The process starts by staring at the ceiling for an undefined time until it "clicks" in the brain and I try to draw it on paper with my below average drawing skills followed by the design in CorelDraw. The first circuit was cellphone vibrator that helps the bee move around making a buzzing sound.
Design on paper and CorelDraw.
This was the first version of BugZee badge where the second circuit is a buzzer with an infrared sensor. So that the bee screams buzzer whenever there's an obstacle in front of it.
BugZee with obstacle detecting & screaming circuit (IR sensor + Buzzer)
BugZee v2 {Glow in the dark}
For the next conference, I replaced the IR sensor + buzzer circuit with Photoresistor + LED circuit that allowed the Bee to glow in the dark. No, it doesn't sting users yet but maybe it's a good add-on idea?
Functioning
Solder all the parts: PCB as the body, resistors for legs, battery holder in the stomach on the rear side, LEDs on the wings and vibrator motor, photoresistor and transistor on the back.
Insert the battery in vibration circuit battery holder and it'll start vibrating and moving around depending on its orientation of resistor legs. Try folding the resistors a little to see how differently it moves around.
Insert the battery in photoresistor circuit battery holder and wait for the day to get over for darkness. Or you can just cover the photoresistor and it'll allow current to pass through the circuit and glow LEDs.
Glowing wings in the dark.
Slow motion video about light to darkness transition.
I'm putting these up for online purchase on my website Hackerwares.in very soon along with other hardware I built.
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