This Saw Badge Honors Billy, the Iconic Horror Movie Puppet

The Saw horror movie franchise has become a staple and will see its next release, The Organ Donor, in May of 2020. Over the past 15 years years, the franchise has gained the honor of being one of the most well-known in history. That’s likely due to the diabolical traps and puzzles that are the mainstay of the movies, but the imagery in the films also plays a big role. In that area, nothing is more recognizable than Billy — the tricycle-riding puppet used by Jigsaw. To celebrate Saw and Billy, Mark of Magic Stone Tech designed and built this fantastic badge.

Mark built SAW: The Badge for DEF CON 27, which just ended this past weekend. As with any good badge, Mark wanted the artwork to be front and center. He accomplished that by really pushing the boundaries of what is possible to achieve using the limited color palette of a PCB. That’s most noticeable on Billy’s face, where Mark used a maze-like pattern to create a grayish color in a much more interesting — and relevant — way than a standard half-tone technique. Billy’s infamous spiral cheeks are made using red SMD LEDs, and his eyes are backlit with more LEDs. He’s even wearing a OLED name tag so you’ll know his real name (it’s not Jigsaw).

The badge is controlled by a Microchip SAMD21G18 32-bit fmicrocontroller, which is on a module based on a design by Sean Hodgins. Additional hardware includes a power switch, mode button, LED controllers, a LiPo battery circuit, and a v1.69bis SAO (Shitty Add-On) connector. Of course, no badge is complete without a Shitty Add-On, and Mark used the micro cassettes from the movies as the inspiration for that. The cassette SAO has LEDs controlled by the main badge that spin when it’s plugged in. The result is the perfect homage to one of the most popular horror movie franchises of all-time.