When we started brainstorming what we could do for the summit badge, we came up with a few goals:
Should represent and promote Open Design and Collaboration, Should promote and represent Wyolum projects and process, Should promote and represent Seeed as a premier implementation partner, Prominently display or embody the Open Hardware Logo, and finally Hardware should be be useable for projects after the show (e.g. nice dev platform, preferably arduino compatible)
I think the BADGEr is the best of all /possible/ badges that we could have come up with. A handful of people, spread over the planet, accomplished this with very limited funds. Open Hardware Rules! (pun intended).
Justin Shaw WyoLum.com
When I first got my hands on some raspi / arduino hardware it seemed to open up a lot of doors, creatively. When you mostly work with software it's pretty amazing to make something you can touch.
My guess is that for some attendees this will be the push they needed to try hardware hacking for themselves.
How about something new, like using the same hardware to effect an opening/closing hours sign for a small shop whose owner could update it remotely if running late? Or a dynamic version of the advertisement placards in casual restaurants? Why not an assistive device for mute people?
Making an excuse to literally pin Arduino to your body to show to other people like you is not very interesting.
This is a badge for a conference about open hardware. Having a badge that encourages attendees to go home and repurpose it is a great way to achieve some of those cool ideas you listed.
Hopefully some attendees will do just that!
Its not a simple task to hook up an epaper display to an atmega328
also, PCB design is not trivial, especially with odd surfacemount connectors
