Hackers And Heroes: A Tale Of Two Countries

January 11, 2016 by Elliot Williams 42 Comments

Hacker culture in Germany and the US is very similar in a lot of ways, from the relative mix of hardware versus software types to the side-affinities for amateur radio and blinkenlights. Reading Hackaday, you’ll find similar projects coming out of both countries. Both countries have seen hackerspaces bloom in the last decade to the point that there’s probably one or two in whatever city you’re living in. But there’s one thing that hackers in the USA are still lacking that German hackers have had for a while: respect.

Say the word “hacker” in different social circles, and you never know what kind of response you’re going to get. Who exactly are “hackers” anyway? Are we talking about the folks blackmailing you for your account details on Ashley Madison? Or stealing credit card numbers from Target? Or are we talking about the folks who have a good time breaking stuff and building stuff, and taking things apart to see how they work?

The discussion over who’s a “hacker” is as old as the hills, by Internet standards anyway, and it’s not going to get settled here. But think about the last time you heard the word “hacker” used in anything but its negative sense in the popular press. If you can’t remember a single instance in this century, you’re living in the USA. If you answered, “just yesterday, in one of the nation’s most important newspapers”, then you’re living in Germany.

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Flat Camera Uses No Lens

January 11, 2016 by Al Williams 51 Comments

Early cameras and modern cameras work pretty much the same way. A lens (or a pinhole acting as a lens) focuses an image onto a sensor. Of course, sensor, in this case, is a broad term and could include a piece of film that–after all–does sense light via a chemical reaction. Sure, lenses and sensors get better or, at least, different, but the basic design has remained the same since the Chinese built the camera obscura around 400BC (and the Greeks not long after that).

Of course, the lens/sensor arrangement works well, but it does limit how thin you can make a camera. Cell phone cameras are pretty skinny, but there are applications where even they are too thick. That’s why researchers at Rice University are working on a new concept design for a flat camera that uses no lens. You can see a video about the new type of camera below.

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PiNoculars – A Farseeing Pi Camera

January 11, 2016 by Rud Merriam 26 Comments

The Raspberry Pi camera provides a 5 megapixel resolution with still images of up to 2592 x 1944 and multiple video modes including 2592 x 1944 at 15 frames per second. With it being mounted on a small board it is ideal for using in hacks. [Josh Williams] mounted the camera on the lens of binoculars to capture some startling images, including this squirrel.

The camera is installed on a custom, laser cut mount that fastens to one eyepiece of the binoculars. The Pi itself is mounted above the binoculars. An LCD touch screen from Adafruit allows [Josh] to select the image and adjust the focus. Snapping pictures is done using either the touch screen or switches that come with the screen.

The Instructable [Josh] wrote is extremely detailed and includes two different ways of mounting the Pi on the binoculars. The quick and dirty method just straps on with tape. The highly engineered method delves into Inkscape to design a plywood mount that is laser cut. For portable operation, [Josh] uses one of the ubiquitous battery packs meant for USB charging.

Basic setup of the Pi and camera are in a video after the break.

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Laser Cutting A Bread Knife

January 10, 2016 by James Hobson 19 Comments

What started out as simply a question of whether or not they could… [G2AS] decided to try making a laser cut serrated bread knife — out of plastic.

Now from a distance this may look like they just took their laser cutter and cut out the pattern of a knife, with a jigsaw edge. But no, they actually laser cut a jig which allowed them to cut the serrated edge on an angle, creating an actual sharp edge. It’s quite the setup, but a pretty awesome result. Continue reading “Laser Cutting A Bread Knife” →

Warm Up Your Small Talk With A Thermometer Scarf

January 10, 2016 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

Just how cold is it out there? This giant thermometer scarf is a fantastic entry-level wearables project. It’s sure to strike up conversations that move past the topic of weather.

The scarf is built around a FLORA, a Neopixel ring that represents the bulb, and a short length of Neopixels to show the temperature in Fahrenheit and Celsius. Temperature sensing is done with a poorly documented DHT11 that gave [caitlinsdad] the fits until he found Adafruit’s library for them.To make the scarf, [caitlinsdad] used a nice cozy micro-fleece. He built a pocket for the electronics and padded it with polyester fiber fill to diffuse the LEDs. This makes the lights blur and run together, resembling a mercury thermometer.

Once it was up and running, [caitlinsdad] figured out the temperature scale based on the DHT11 readings and marked it out on the scarf with a permanent marker. [caitlinsdad] has a few mods in mind for this project. For instance, it would be easy to add haptic feedback to keep you from being exposed for too long. Another wearable in the same spirit is this hat that has a sunblock reminder system.

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Rube Slowberg

January 10, 2016 by Anool Mahidharia 16 Comments

This one was buried in our tips line for a couple of months, but we’re glad it eventually surfaced. [Bob Partington] built the “Rube Slowberg” contraption – it’s billed as the world’s slowest Rube Goldberg Machine. The golf ball that he tee’d off took six weeks to reach it’s rather dramatic end.

Rube Goldberg machines are fascinating, but most often the fun ends quite quickly. [Bob] decided to slow it all down and it took several hacks to get that done. Thankfully for us, the edited video with extensive use of stop-motion and fast forwards brings the chase down to under three minutes.

Check out the video below. It starts with the Golf ball riding a slow boat on molasses, hitching a ride on a Tortoise, running through a series of melting popsicle sticks and then being propelled one tiny bit at a time by a bunch of growing grass. If you are interested is seeing behind the scenes, watch the other video where he talks a little about how he managed to pull it off.

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Hackaday Links: January 10, 2016

January 10, 2016 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

Everybody loves cheap stuff, and we hate telling everyone about coupon codes. That said, TI has a new LaunchPad development board they’re promoting. It’s based on the MSP432, the ARM extension of their MSP430 line. The MSP432 is an ARM Cortex M4F, low power, and planned for production later this year.

Here’s your daily CES garbage post. Through a collaboration between Sony and Nissan, a car has become a video game controller controller. A controller plugs into the ODB II port, reads throttle, brake, and steering wheel positions (and buttons on the dash/steering wheel, I guess), and translates that into controller input for a PlayStation 4. What games do they play with a car? You would think Gran Turismo, Rocket League, or other games with cars in them. Nope. Football.

Dangerous Prototypes is a legal Chinese company! [Ian] didn’t say anything about the process about becoming a legal Chinese company because he wrote a blog post, not a book. Shenzhen Dangerous Prototypes Electronics Technology Limited allows them to have an office in the Shenzhen electronics market, hire local and foreign hackers, host Hacker Camp Shenzhen, and allow people to apply for ‘Authorized Authority’ visa letters for the people who need them. Great news for a great company.

The Forge hackerspace in Greensboro, NC is growing. In just over a year they have 160 members and they’ve already outgrown their 3,400 square foot space. Now they’re moving to a larger space that’s twice the size and they’re looking for donations.

People have been taking old iPad screens and turning them into HDMI displays for years now. [Dave] got his mitts on a panel from a Macbook Pro 17″, and turned it into a monitor. It required a $50 LVDS adapter, but the end result is great – a 1920×1200 panel that looks pretty good.