The Wireshark 0x4e00 Badge Sings the Worst Song, and I Bet You Can Guess Which One It Is

Every once in a while a song will come along that is simultaneously extremely annoying and mind-bogglingly popular. When I was a child, it was “The Song That Never Ends” that was sung by Lamb Chop until parents were driven to fantasizing about filicide. For kids today, it seems to be the version of “Baby Shark” from a video that was produced by sadistic South Korean education brand Pinkfong. For some reason that can only be comprehended by the insane, TwinkleTwinkie decided to make a badge that beeps out that rage-inducing tune.

The badge itself, called Wireshark 0x4e00, actually looks very nice. The design features a happy little shark that seems to be trapped inside of a spool of wire, but who isn’t terribly concerned about it. The wire on the spool is the actual copper of the PCB, which is a nice touch. The back side of the PCB has “Doo Doo Doo Doo” printed over and over again on the silkscreen layer to foreshadow what is to come. If you want to wear the badge— and promise not to ever turn it on — there is an area on the back to attach a pin bar.

The electronics are pretty simple, and the most important bit is a small ATtiny13A microcontroller. A CR2032 coin cell battery provides power, a push button toggles functions, and there are a few resistors and capacitors to help things along. The final component is a piezo buzzer, which is where the trouble starts. When the button is pressed, it will start beeping out a rendition of “Baby Shark” that is almost certainly even more irritating than the version we’ve all heard. Wireshark 0x4e00 badges were distributed at the Hackaday Supercon 2019, where they presumably drove attendees to madness.