The club has professionally made hard plastic badges, but the class has paper badges that go into clear plastic badge holders.
Badge Holders
As of 2015, we have a large number of magnet backed badge holders. Use those. We also have some pin-backed ones, avoid using badge holders, don't use those.
If the badge holders break, or get lost, or there aren't enough of them, we need to buy more. For the magnet-backed ones it's probably worth shopping online to bring the price down. Brian got them at Pinless where they're now (2010) up to 90 cents per badge for 4"x3". (There's a cheaper one at 60 cents but the magnet back on those is smaller and easier to lose. We could use them as a source of replacement fronts, though. They also sell replacement magnet backs.) Buy them online. We've used Pinless in the past.
Making the Badges
Use a word processor of your choice. We typically center the names, with first name big and easy to read and last name underneath smaller. If PE is offered, mark PE on the PE student badges. Alternatively you can use the badge maker in the locker (/mit/tech-squares/club-private/badges/) Edit the file badges.txt.
The class badges are usually made for the second or third week of class.
Students are encouraged to return their badges to the badge box at the end of each night so they don't lose them. At the end of the class, collect the class badges so the badge holders can be reused the next semester.