Motivation

First I had no idea. I wanted to skip this contest because of that. All I came up with was another name tag and there were already lots of those. Then a pen pal sent me an idea of a customizable tag to display emotions. Of course I went into full over engineering mode after that initial spark.

I had a video call with a friend who has an autistic son. He told be that this could help his son recognize emotions. I'm not sure if this really helps. I hope it does and I will send him some tags to try it. If you are in contact with persons with autism, please let me  know if you think this tag may help them or if you have any suggestions!

Features

• Change and mixable symbols sets. Choose your own, the only limit is your imagination (and the unicode consortium). 
• Customizable dimensions and fonts. Too small? no problem: make it bigger. There are only a few numbers to fiddle with and the rest adjusts itself so that everything looks neat. 
• Different mounting options. Of course you will have to attach it to yourself in some way. There are 4 options to choose from, 5 if you include double sided tape.

Customisation Options

Basically everything is customizable.

• Name (of course)
• Symbol set (see above)
• Height and width
• Font (See “Help” → “Font List” in OpenSCAD for available fonts)
• Boldness of font and symbols (try different settings and check how your slicer reacts to get it perfect)
• Dovetail Gap (Printer, Filament, Slicer and Profile setting affect how tight this fit gets. Try a test print to be sure what works best for your setup)

The design automatically adjusts its minimum width to accomodate all the symbols.

In case you have a long name you may have to increase the width manually because OpenSCAD does not know how wide the name will be in the font you chose.

Symbol Sets

The set of symbols are just unicode symbols. Your computer needs the “Symbola” font to display most of these. This font is usually installed on every modern operating system.

Here are some ideas of different sets of symbols: (Copy and paste them to OpenSCAD)

• Emotions, because we all lost social skills to be empathic:
  😐🙁🙂😻⚠🤮
  Also very useful when talking to an autistic person who has difficulties recognizing emotions in others.
• Going out to the Club or Bar and let others know what you are looking for (choose male or female dancer or both):
  🗨♥🍆🍺💃🕺
• Gender (being genderfluid was never easier):
  🐇♀⚧♂🚁
• Include this “Name Badge” symbol to indicate that this name badge is a name badge:
  📛

You can use this web page to select symbols: https://www.emojiall.com/en/platform-symbola

Height and width

The height determines the size of the tag. Fonts and rails are scaled accordingly.

The width parameter is a minimum width. The width is determined by the number of symbols used in the tag. If however your name happens to be wider than the width determined by the symbols you may want to adjust the width with this parameter.

Fonts and Symbol parameters

Every font available to OpenSCAD can be used for the name. See “Help” → “Font List” in OpenSCAD for available fonts. For the symbols I used the Symbola font which should be available on every operating system.

Use the font boldness parameters of name and symbols to fine tune the font representation on your slicer. Sometimes fonts are very thin and the slicer doesn't even draw all required features. In this case increase the boldness until the result fits your needs. The same goes for the symbols.

Dovetail Gap

You will have to figure which is the best value for your printer. It affects the frame and not the rail. Because of this you can easily print a several of frames with varying “dovetail_gap” values without wasting too much filament. A lower value results in a tighter fit. 

Frame Options

The frame height is the height above the rail and the frame border sets the border width.

Mounting Options

Choose one from the drop down box. These are available:

• None (use double sided tape, velcro,..)
• One eyelet (to weare it around your neck)
• Two eyelets (one on each side for better stability, always the right side up)
• Safety pin (this is tricky, see details below)
• Clip (a clip to snap on to the backside of the tag)

None

Just the tag, no 3D printed mounting parts.

One eyelet

A single eyelet in the middle of the tag. Can be used to wear it around your neck or use a laynard.

Two eyelets

This is the more advanced version with two eyelets. This ensures that the tag doesn't get turned on its back.

Clip

A clip to snap on to the back of the tag to attach it to the pocket of your shirt.

Safety Pin

The pin is inserted while the print stops for the first filament change. The first change is when the printer moves from the baseplate to the letters and symbols. The automatic sign detection in Prusa Slicer gets it perfectly right.

Font Downloads

The fonts I used came preinstalled with Debian Linux, I cannot attach them here so here are download-links in case you want to use them and your OS does not have them:

Symbola: https://www.wfonts.com/font/symbola

Z003: https://github.com/ArtifexSoftware/urw-base35-fonts/raw/master/fonts/Z003-MediumItalic.otf

Final Thoughts

I think this has great potential and the symbol sets I came up with are only the beginning. I am eager to see what you think may be a useful set of symbols. Perhaps some changing status/level/ability in a LARP? 

Credits

Adjustable emotions name tag idea: Luna - Perth WA