                BadgePirates
              

                The May Dispatch · 2026
              

                Issue 06 · Lunar Lander Edition
              

The badge that flew at three cons is now on Tindie.

If you've been eyeing the BSidesKC '26 hardware — the ESP32-S3 with the touchscreen, the NeoPixels, the Lunar Lander game baked in — we have a small batch on Tindie. Same hardware that shipped at BSidesKC 2026, CactusCon 13, and CactusCon 14. Now you don't have to attend a con to get one.

                      Badge Drop
                    

BSidesKC '26 / Lunar Lander Badge

ESP32-S3, 320×240 touchscreen, six NeoPixels, WiFi + BLE 5.0, USB-C, LiPo with fuel gauge. Ships pre-flashed with the BSidesKC '26 firmware: Lunar Lander game with multiplayer, BLE social, achievements, nine-scene cinematic screensaver. Or flash it with our Marauder port, the CactusCon 13/14 firmwares, or your own ESP-IDF / PlatformIO build. Open hardware, all KiCad files on GitHub.

Use code 6CB104F4 at checkout for 25% off through May 21.

→ Get one on Tindie

                New on the Blog
              

How a one-and-a-half-person shop runs with seven AI agents

We started a series on the blog about how BadgePirates actually operates. Episode 1 — "The email I forgot to read for ten weeks" — is up. It's the story of a customer email an inbox automation dug back out for us, ten weeks after it was buried, that turned into a real consulting engagement. Spoiler: the agent didn't replace anyone. It caught what we couldn't.

Episodes 2 through 6 are queued at one a week through early June: killing the inbound noise, the shared task queue the agents started using on their own, the dashboard that makes seven agents legible, the boring architecture that holds it together, and what we got wrong building it.

→ Read Episode 1

                New in the Docs
              

Four new pages on docs.badgepirates.com

The docs site has been thin for a while. We just shipped four pages worth pointing at:

Catalog — every BadgePirates badge, kit, and side-project since 2018, organized by year and event with build guides linked where they exist.
Flash Your Badge — how to update firmware on any BP badge: web flasher, esptool fallback, OTA, dev mode, brick recovery.
ESP32-S3 Platform Reference — pin map, peripherals, dev environment for the shared hardware behind CC13, CC14, BSidesKC '25, and BSidesKC '26.
About BadgePirates — who we are, what we make, where to find us.

                Field Report
              

BSidesKC '26 wrap

BSidesKC 2026 is in the books. Big thanks to everyone who came by Solder Village, picked up a kit, and made it through the build — first-time solderers and grizzled vets alike. The Lunar Lander game on the ESP32-S3 badge picked up a few unexpected fans (and one or two Apollo nerds who appreciated the 1202 alarm Easter egg).

We have a few learn-to-solder kits left from the run — keep an eye on the Tindie store, those should land alongside the badge listing.

                Drop Anchor With Us
              

Find your crew

Got a badge you flashed with something weird? Working on a build that needs a sanity check? The BadgePirates Discord is where it all happens. Customer support, build help, war stories, and the occasional cursed circuit.

→ Join the Discord

Making badges for fun and no profit since 2016.

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