Last week I was assembling about 480 badges with the help of a pick and place machine. There are about 100,000 parts, and we completed everything in about five or six hours. After this, the only thing left to do was depanelize the boards and solder on the battery holders. There are two battery holders, so only 960 more parts to go.

Depanelizing and soldering on those battery holders took 18 hours. My hands hurt now.

What's left? Programming and putting all these badges in bags with lanyards and stickers. Then they're shipped off to Vegas. This means I need a programmer. Here's what I came up with:

It's a standard off-brand FTDI adapter, some pogo pins I found on Amazon, and a 3D printed adapter. Completely custom work, and it'll get the job done.

Oh, this is going to be on Engadget, so that's cool, I guess.