StoryTheDesign
In 2023, we built our first-ever acrylic UV-printed badge for Buddobot which was a massive hit. We were looking for sponsors for our BSidesSF village which we've been hosting for a few years now. And Buddobot was very kind and generous to support us instantly.
For the past years, we did USB rubber ducky as well as the Astronaut CTF Badge. So for 2024, we wanted to do something more in-depth so it had to have a display as well as a fun element. The design was an easy choice of Buddobot's swirl logo and all that was needed to do was arrange everything together in a coherent art form.
Getting it into the PCB software render...
Putting the OLED display in the centre to match the LED strip animation. The LED strip contains 20 LEDs of which 10 are Red and 10 are Blue.
Each challenge can unlock either 2 Red LEDs or 2 Blue LEDs based on the response.
2 Coin cells in series power the circuit with ATmega32A. Also features Micro-USB for CTF interfacing and SPI pins for reprogramming.
The badge frontside artwork is printed in charcoal grey colour with the hurricane pattern. Putting everything together, we get the badge.
The CTF Dichotomy
The CTF consists of 5 challenges based on Crypto, Stegano and Hardware. However, after solving each challenge the user gets an option to make a choice for a fun hypothetical scenario. Based on the response to it, the badge either glows red or blue for the given challenge part.
At the end of the CTF, based on the responses the badge either glows fully red or fully blue making it a fun Red Team / Blue Team contest.
During the 2 conference days, a total of 23 people solved the CTF. Of which 13 were the Red Team and 10 were Blue Team.
Comments