The AI Village Badge

The Design

I was brainstorming AI Village badge ideas with the crew for their 2024 edition. And we decided to do a blinky badge with a special twist to it. The village already had the artwork ready for their 2024 edition - a couple of robot dogs created by Kassandra Jodar. The artwork is inspired by real-life dogs.

We also wanted to put something special for the GRT part of the village. So an alternate version with a different colour scheme was made by Lauren.

While we’re at it, the hard-working village staff, GRT staff, as well as speakers deserved their exclusive version. So we put those distinctions too.

The circuit would be a blinky badge. The AIV dog tag would blink RGB. The eyes would do a slow RGB transition. And the horns would be alternating the glow as if sending a signal.

The Metallic Shine

For the special part, we wanted part of the dog body to be made out of metal and have a reflective surface as opposed to the matte finish of UV Print.

Some tests are carried out to test the idea on copper surface as well as HAL surface.

The copper surface prototype naturally oxidised within a few days. So there needed a coating of some sort to protect the badge from oxidising.

So we went with the HAL surface idea but quickly realised we still anyway needed a coating for that as well to properly level the badge surface.

Enter : Transparent Varnish Coating

It is a very thin layer so it didn’t add any observable bulge. It was transparent so it didn’t interfere with artwork colour accuracy. And it was readily available and easy to print alongside the UV printing. So with a custom workflow, every board would get UV printed and then varnish coated immediately after.

Putting Everything Together

Inserting 2 CR2032 Coin Cells turns on the blinky bling!

Many versions of badges...

Inspirations

The artwork is inspired by real-life dogs.

Meet Vers.

And Cya.