Sign up first. Then build shows, request hardware, and start testing.
Create a Contributor Portal account to view hardware resources, preview the web show editor and inventory tools, and request hardware when you are ready for field testing. Current contributor hardware is shipped for free, or you can manufacture the open hardware yourself.
Start in the Contributor Portal
The easiest way in is to create an account in the Backyard Hero Contributor Portal. You can view hardware resources, preview the web show editor, and use the inventory interfaces before you have hardware, so you can explore the workflow, build a mock show, and see how the system fits your setup.
When you are ready for hardware, approve the prototype hardware disclaimer in the portal, then request what you need and track the request from there. During this testing stage, contributor hardware is shipped for free when stock is available.
The other path is full DIY. All hardware designs are public: schematics, gerbers, BOMs, and 3D-printable enclosure files for the receiver, cue modules, and dongle. If you've got a soldering iron, a fab-house account, and the patience to follow a guide, you can manufacture the same hardware yourself.
A starter system is usually one dongle, one or two receivers, and a handful of 8-cue modules. A two-receiver, 32-cue setup runs about $110 in materials before PCB fab, e-fuses, batteries, and filament. Detailed cost breakdown lives on the components page.
Read the disclaimers first. This is DIY pyro hardware on unlicensed RF bands; you're responsible for what you build and how you use it.
Build, test, and run shows
The portal gives you the hosted web show builder first. Once hardware is on the bench, the field stack still comes from the public repo: flash the ESP32-S2 receiver and dongle firmware with mainline Arduino or PlatformIO, assemble your cue modules, and bring up the host app on macOS, Linux, Windows, or a Raspberry Pi.
The host is the same show builder described across the site: rack design with fuse-burn math, satellite-image field layouts with safety rings, beat-detected pyromusical timing, continuity checks, receiver telemetry, and printable cue sheets. ./start.sh in the host directory brings up the Docker stack.
Start small: pair the dongle, load a test show, confirm continuity colors match between the field hardware and the browser, then run dry-fire timing before anything live. The most useful feedback comes from real setups: range notes, RF weirdness, continuity edge cases, enclosure problems, cue-module behavior, and anything that made a show harder than it should have been.
- Hardware
- Dongle, receivers, cue modules
- Firmware
- ESP32-S2 · Arduino / PlatformIO
- Portal
- Resources · requests · show editor · inventory
- Host
- Docker · laptop or Raspberry Pi
- First run
- Pair, load, continuity-check, dry-fire
- Then
- Run shows and send field notes