Anime CTF Badge

The Idea

I was asked by Parker from Raytheon to brainstorm a badge for their coveted CTF in Texas Cyber Summit. Parker wanted us to use a touch of anime and unlock superpowers with correct flags.

The Design

Although I always wanted to dive deep into animes, I never got a chance to do so. So my good friends helped conceptualize the design. A character in action unleashing his superpowers seemed a perfect fit and so we arrive at this idea.

I wanted the background to be clear epoxy so as to bring some light diffusion from superpowers and the anime-like colour scheme.

We reverse-mounted all the SMD LEDs to glow the eyes and superpowers through the PCB. Choosing the micro-USB port for CTF was a no-brainer as it makes it very easy for everyone to play the CTF.

Special attention was given to the lanyards which came with their own twist to the CTF.

The Working

To play the CTF, ensure that the coin cell is removed from the battery holder and plug in your micro-USB cable.

To interface the badge, you can use the terminal or something as easy as Arduino IDE's in-built serial monitor. Make sure you select the right port, 9600 baud and set it as Both NL & CR.

To initialise the CTF, send three stars *** in the serial monitor. This will put the badge into CTF mode.

The CTF is designed in a filesystem theme. Feel free to run into all the directories and find clues to connect the dots together. If the program seems to get stuck at any point, just type and send RESET through your serial monitor. Disconnect the badge and connect it again. This will factory reset the badge.

A particular command will glow the eyes while other commands will need you to provide the correct flag. Apart from the actual answers, there's a secret flag that puts the badge in blinky animation mode.

Once you're able to write the correct flag for the Blue set of LEDs, remember to put in your coin cell battery quickly before disconnecting the badge.