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!

mhmatthall/badgeman