Part 1 of 4 — Building a HackerSpace Badge · Next: Building on the Breadboard
One night at Bit Haven, one of the founders mentioned wanting a custom badge for the space. They weren’t sure exactly what they wanted, but I let them know I had a degree in Electronics Engineering and could probably make one. That conversation kicked off my journey toward building the badge.
For anyone who hasn’t been to one, a hackerspace is a community workshop where people share tools, benches, and knowledge to build things such as electronics, software, hardware, cybersecurity, whatever you’re into. Bit Haven is ours.
The idea we landed on was a through-hole soldering kit: something inexpensive to produce and fun for people to build at Bit Haven. Through-hole parts are big, forgiving, and beginner-friendly, which makes them perfect for a kit anyone can pick up and assemble themselves.
I also knew I wanted to avoid using a microcontroller, so I started looking for simple analog circuits instead. I wasn’t looking for anything complicated. I wanted a circuit I could understand, build with through-hole components, and have working without touching a compiler or programmer.
That mattered, because this was meant to be a starter soldering kit: something for people brand new to electronics to build at Bit Haven. The whole point was a first solder, not a firmware tutorial.
I spent some time digging through Instructables and other project sites, watched a few YouTube videos, and searched specifically for 555 timer LED circuits. After looking through a number of different designs, I eventually settled on the 555 Dual LED Flasher. It was simple, used only through-hole components, and fit exactly what I wanted for a beginner-friendly soldering kit.
A circuit you can assemble, solder together, and watch come alive the moment the last joint cools is the kind of first win that gets someone hooked.
It looked great on paper, but paper isn’t a breadboard. Before it could become a badge, I needed to build it, test it, and find out if it actually worked.