Aerospace Village Celebrates 120 Years of Flight with This Limited Edition Commemorative Badge

The Aerospace Village announced two Wright brothers-inspired badges for DEF CON 31. The Wright Flyer commemorative badge celebrates two milestones: their 5th DEF CON anniversary and 120 years of flight, now available as a limited edition.

DEF CON is an annual hacker convention held in Las Vegas, NV. The 31st conference occurs August 10-13, 2023. Each year domain-specific villages give talks and teach skills. For example, the Aerospace Village focuses on cybersecurity in the aviation field.

The Aerospace Village first appeared at DEF CON 27 as the Aviation Village five years ago. It is a diverse group of hackers, engineers, pilots, and policy leaders who strive to share research and inspire people interested in aviation security.

Like many villages, the Aerospace Village plans to sell a self-designed badge specific to DEF CON 31. They named this year's village badge "The Wright Stuff," but details for this badge have yet to be available. But what is better than one badge? Two badges!

The other badge is a limited edition named "The Wright Flyer Badge." Not only does it celebrate the village's 5th year at DEF CON, but it also celebrates the 120th year since the famous Wright Brothers' powered flight. (Albeit a few months early.) Proceeds for the badge go toward supporting the village.

The Wright Flyer has an ESP32-S2 microcontroller and an SAO add-on. Popular features of DEF CON badges are puzzles or challenges which unlock additional capabilities. Since the ESP32 has Wi-Fi, the badge functions as a Wi-Fi access point, you can connect wirelessly to find the badge's easter eggs.

The SAO add-on port allows you to adorn this commemorative badge with LEDs, sensors, displays, and even other badges. However, the Wright Flyer has badge bling we have not seen before: spinning propellers!

You can purchase one of the 50 limited edition badges from the Aerospace Village Tindie store. To keep the challenges secret for as long as possible, the source code for the badge will be available after DEF CON 31.