[Kenneth Finnegan’s] EPIC Burning Man Slideshow

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Whether or not you manged to attend this year’s Burning Man festival we’re dead certain you’ll enjoy reading [Kenneth Finnegan’s] show and tell about the event. This was his first time attending. Aside from his noobish excitement (which is really the only way to approach writing something like this) we’d never know he wasn’t a seasoned veteran. From what he and friend [Marcel] packed along with them, to the attractions he visited, he did Burning Man right!

The two snapped a selfie in the truck on their way to Black Rock City, the community that sprouts up in the Nevada desert every year for Burning Man. Bumper-to-bumper traffic is a surprise in the middle of nowhere, but when you find out that BRC boasted about 68,000 residents this year it’s no wonder. [Kenneth] spends some time talking about the camp they set up, including more than enough solar power, and an amateur radio setup that came in handy in lieu of phone service. This flows into his collection of cool art he came across, most of it massive in scale. There’s even an airport, which is how he was able to snap the aerial photo above.

We think the coolest part of his recollection is the view of ‘city life’. There are night clubs, bowling alleys, radios stations broadcasting live interviews and hosting talk shows, cafés, and much more. Hanging out in the desert at the end of August may not sound like your thing, but reading about [Kenneth’s] odyssey makes us think Burning Man is like Disneyland for Hackers.

Hackaday Podcast 238: Vibrating Bowl Feeders, Open Sourcery, Learning To Love Layer Lines

Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this week’s episode off with some deep space news, as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx returns home with a sample it snapped up from asteroid Bennu back in 2020. From there, discussion moves on to magical part sorting, open source (eventually…) plastic recycling, and the preposterously complex method newer Apple laptops use to determine if their lid is closed. They’ll also talk about the changing perceptions of 3D printed parts, a new battery tech that probably won’t change the world, and a clock that can make it seem like your nights are getting longer and longer. Stick around until the end to hear about the glory days of children’s architecture books, and the origins of the humble microwave oven.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Go ahead and download it!

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New Renewable Energy Projects Are Overwhelming US Grids

It’s been clear for a long time that the world has to move away from fossil energy sources. Decades ago, this seemed impractical, when renewable energy was hugely expensive, and we were yet to see much impact on the ground from climate change. Meanwhile, prices for solar and wind installations have come down immensely, which helps a lot.

However, there’s a new problem. Power grids across the US simply can’t keep up with the rapid pace of new renewable installations. It’s a frustrating issue, but not an insurmountable one.

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Hackaday Podcast 162: Hackaday Prize Is On, Thermal Printers Are So Hot These Days, Cloud Chambers Are Super Cool, And Batteries Must Be Replaceable

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi for your weekly review of the best projects, hacks, and bits of news that we can cram into 45 minutes or so. We’ll look at the latest developments in DIY air-powered engines, discuss the whimsical combination of GitHub’s API and a cheap thermal printer, and marvel at impressive pieces of homebrew biology equipment. We’ve also got an exceptionally polished folding cyberdeck, a bevy of high-tech cloud chambers, and some soda bottles that are more than meets the eye. Finally we’ll go over the pros and cons of today’s super-smart cameras, and speculate wildly about what a new EU law means for our battery powered gadgets.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download, and listen whenever you like.

 

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A Tetraquark For Muster Mark!

The holy grail of every particle physics experiment is the discovery of a new particle. Finding a new constituent of matter may earn you eternal glory within the history of physics. Unfortunately, since the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the Higgs boson, was discovered in 2012, and with still no clue about the nature of dark matter and dark energy, there is not much hope to stumble upon a new fundamental building block of matter any time soon.

Luckily, this is not true for composite particles, especially the strange world of quark matter still yields some potential for new discoveries. The latest of such was the observation of a new tetraquark by the LHCb experiment. But what the hell is a quark anyway and why is it named after a German dairy product? Continue reading “A Tetraquark For Muster Mark!”

Ammo Can Battery; 50 Ah LiFePO4 Clad In Army Green

For the price of a mid-range Android phone, [Kenneth Finnegan] turned a 50 caliber ammo can into a 50 amp-hour portable power supply. The battery pack uses four 3.5 V LiFePO4 cells wired in series to achieve a nominal 12 V supply that stands in for a traditional lead-acid battery. The angel of second-hand purchases was smiling on this project as the cells were acquired on eBay in unused condition, complete with bus bars and mounting spacers. All it took to fit them in the case was to grind off the spacers’ dovetails on the outer edges.

There are many benefits to Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry over traditional lead acid and [Kenneth] spells that out in his discussion of the battery management system at work here. While the newer technology has a much better discharge curve than lead-acid, there’s a frightening amount of power density there if these batteries were to have a catastrophic failure. That’s why there are Battery Management Systems and the one in use here is capable of monitoring all four cells individually which explains the small-gauge wires in the image above. It can balance all of the cells to make sure one doesn’t get more juice than the others, and can disconnect the system if trouble is a-brewin’. Continue reading “Ammo Can Battery; 50 Ah LiFePO4 Clad In Army Green”

Could You Repeat That?

Ever been out in a big field and need to tell something to Joe at the other end? If you’re lucky Sally is in between and you can shout to Sally to tell Joe your message. Maybe Joe shouts back to Sally in reply.

That’s how amateur radio repeaters work.

Friend of Hackaday [Kenneth Finnegan] got tired of explaining the details of repeaters so he put together a pair of repeater tutorial videos, the first of which is found after the break.

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Image source KV5R

The higher radio frequencies, say 50 MHz and above, typically only propagate within line of sight. Add in limited power and antennas from a hand-held, typically under 5 watts and the ubiquitous ‘rubber ducky’ antenna, and you cannot talk very far. Mobile rigs in vehicles with 50 watts and larger antennas do better but in reality they don’t help all that much.

What really makes an improvement is height to improve range. Height provides a longer line of sight with fewer obstructions. Hams created repeaters and put them on towers, buildings or hill tops to expand the radio horizon. The ultimate repeaters are space satellites. Can’t get much higher than that. A close second are balloons going to near space altitudes with repeaters which will provide multi-state coverage.

Besides providing height, a repeater will also have higher output power and much better antennas, especially important for receiving weak signals from distant handhelds. A signal comes in and is repeated back out on a slightly different frequency. All modern ham gear on these frequencies is setup to handle this offset frequency operation.

Whether hams came up with the idea is arguable, but they were certainly there during the early days.

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