
Features i'm looking for:
- Use: A business card is something you take, use one or two times and through it away or store it in some dark drawer for the rest of the eternity. I want to give it a second life, a use for something else.
- Design: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs
- Innovation: Innovation is always good, or so the news says.
- Price: A business card can't be expensive, you are giving it away for free!
- Thickness: I don't want to have a wallet about to explode in my pocket, i want a slim card.
- Coolness: If it has an use and also looks cool, what more do you need?
And with those features in mind, I designed my business card.
Use
i had some ideas. First, i wanted to use it as a memory storage device to store my CV, but Mathiew Stephan already did a nice work with the two versions of his business card. So not to leave the innovation aside, I wanted to make something different. I was between two ideas, in one hand I wanted to use it as a USB midi device (a piano was my first approach) and in the other hand a gamepad controller. Gamepad sound a lot cooler, so we have the use!
Design
I'm not a very good designer, but as the quote I wrote before, i tried to focus on the simplicity and the usefulness of the card.
Innovation
The most difficult part. Luckily for me this project started not only because I wanted my own business card, but also because I have an idea of a USB PCB connector. So my contribution to the world is a new type of PCB connector. Free connectors for everyone!
Price
One microcontroller, one crystal (needed for the USB timing), ten passive components, a PCB. USB PCB connector: free, PCB touch buttons: free. Can it be cheaper?, maybe, but not much more.
Thickness
0.6 mm looks thick to you? most RFID cards are 0.8mm ;). Due to the USB micro B PCB connector it uses, the thickness of the PCB must be 0.6 mm to assure a good fit of the plug, that makes a very thin card. Is true that you need to account also the thickness of the components once soldered to the PCB, that makes the card a little bit thicker, but hey!, is a 1 mm gamepad, what more do you need?
Coolness
Gamepad... in your wallet... When your wallet gets stolen on the way to work, you are going to be sad, not for the money, or the photos of your family, you are gonna be sad because today you are not going to be able play old video games when your boss is not looking :_(.
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