I’m a child of the 80s. I grew up playing Nintendo. There’s an original Teddy Ruxpin on the shelf immediately to my right. If you were a kid in the 80s in the US, you will almost certainly remember the startup sound of the LazerTag StarSensor.
I never actually had any LazerTag gear. I had friends that did though and I thought it was very futuristic, and very cool. If you’re unfamiliar with the brand, it was an IR light-gun tag game line of toys. The most basic set was a gun, and a sensor.
I was thinking about making one of these last year for the 2024 Supercon SAO contest, but I already had two projects in the works and adding another would have been too much. So I held on to it for this year.
Part of the appeal of this project is that its just 3 colors. It occurred to me with the right manufacturer I could produce this with a red soldermask, black silkscreen, and an exposed HASL surface. With the introduction of cheap full-color PCB silkscreen printing, the “art” of the SAO and badges in general might start to fall away. So this was a way for me to challenge myself to solve the layers creatively.
I’m kind of approaching this project backwards. I’m confident I can get the electronics part working, so I’m starting out with the visual design.
