FRC Badge

A small keychain/badge thats lights up in a

shape of a star when the button is pressed

Project Overview

FRC Badge is a beginner electronics project where I designed and assembled my first printed circuit board with guidance from Hack Club Solder, an online event to teach beginner electronics and circuit design. The badge features cool silkscreen art about me and a simple circuit that lights up ten LEDs while a push button is held down, demonstrating basic PCB layout, soldering, and circuit logic. This project marked my first hands-on experience with electronics and Hackclub.

Key Features

Switch – The tactile switch controls the LEDs by closing the circuit.
Battery – A 3V 2032 battery used to power the circuit
Resistors – 10 100 Ohm resistors used to limit current
LEDs – 10 Red LEDs as the load
Silkscreen – A bunch of info on our FRC team on the front with person related items on the back
Keychain Hole – A place to hang the circuit as a keychain

Tools Used

Hardware: Soldering Station

Software: KiCad EDA 9.0, Falstad Circuit Simulator

What I Learned

Learned: KiCad EDA, Falstad Simulator, General Circuitry/Electronics, Soldering

Reflection: I used to think that electronics was this dangerous, complicated field where one wrong mistake could break tons of stuff costing lots of money or even your life. Don’t get it wrong, this is still true in a lot of scenarios, but for the average hobbyist, electronics isn’t nearly as dangerous or difficult. Throughout my short adventure in this field, I learned the basics of electronics through the building of my first electronic circuit in KiCad to the final iteration of soldering it.