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.

Just look at this picture and tell me you don't know the sound.

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.