badgeman

A standalone, offline digital name badge management server designed for use in large special events.

NOTE: This project is extremely WIP and so expect frequent breaking changes! A release will be made when things are a bit more settled.

Architecture

This version of the app is designed to be run entirely locally on a private subnet. It incorporates a web server for the front-end badge editor web app and a REST back-end API server for data access for the UI/badges.

Here's a diagram (click to open in Miro):

Repo structure

Simplified to illustrate where the core files are. The Express back-end lives at ./api and the React front-end at ./client.

.
└── config.ini
└── package.json
└── api
│   └── app.js
│   └── package.json
│   └── bin
│   └── models
│   └── public
│   └── routes
│   │   └── api.js
│   └── views
└── client
   └── package.json
   └── build
   └── public
   │   └── index.html
   └── src
       └── css
       └── fonts
       └── index.jsx
       └── routes
           └── Login.jsx
           └── editor.jsx
           └── error.jsx

Prerequisites

For the WLAN:

• a meaty wireless access point that can handle your client numbers
  • I'm using a UniFi Lite 6
  • Make sure to disable any upstream connection monitoring; UniFi APs have this enabled by default and it took me a week to figure out how to turn it off :(

For the host server:

• a local MongoDB server
• a DHCP server
  • I'm using dhcpsrv for Windows right now because it's easy; I've included config files for this
  • This will change when this project is containerised

For the badges:

• a WiFi-enabled microcontroller to communicate with the network and control the display
  • I'm using Raspberry Pi Pico W flashed with MicroPython binaries; my controller code here
• e-paper digital name badges
  • I'm using Waveshare Pico-ePaper-2.9 and Pico-ePaper-2.9-B because they were the ones in stock and within budget; see this repo for my drivers

Installation

• clone the repo
• run npm install
• once complete, we need to patch some JS polyfill issues -- edit ./client/node_modules/react-scripts/config/webpack.config.js at the resolve tag, like this:

    resolve: {
      fallback: {
        "fs": false,
        "http": require.resolve("stream-http"),
        "https": false,
        "zlib": require.resolve("browserify-zlib"),
        "path": require.resolve("path-browserify"),
        "stream": require.resolve("stream-browserify"),
        "util": require.resolve("util/"),
        "assert": require.resolve("assert/"),
        "buffer": require.resolve("buffer/"),
      },
  

API reference

• GET /badges

  returns all badge data for all badges

• GET /badges/by-id/X

  returns all badge data for badge with ID X

• GET /badges/by-mac/XXXXXXXXXXXX

  returns all badge data for badge with MAC address XXXXXXXXXXXX

• GET /network/devices

  returns IP and MAC for all devices on the LAN

• GET /network/badges

  returns IP and MAC for badges on the LAN

• POST /badges

  creates a new (blank) badge entry on the database with given payload:

  {
  	macAddress: "XXXXXXXXXXXX"
  }

• PUT /badges/by-id/X

  updates badge with ID X with given payload:

  {
  	name: "",
  	pronouns: "",
  	affiliation: "",
  	message: ""
  }

Future plans

Check out the 2023 roadmap thread in the discussions!