Super Low Tech Mario

November 16, 2017 by Pedro Umbelino 20 Comments

Browsing around the depths of the Internet we came across a super low tech version of Super Mario from [Sata Productions]. The video presents a complete tutorial on how to make a playable, cardboard version of the famous Super Mario game. If you are a fan, you probably going to like this.

You basically need cardboard, a hot glue gun, a ball bearing, a couple of DC motors, some iron BBs, some magnets, batteries, some wires… it sounds just like shopping list for a MacGuyver episode. But it works and it’s playable. It has a wired remote control, you control Mario to move and make him jump up and down in a kind of turning dashboard game. It even has a game over screen when Mario dies. Yes, Mario can die in this cardboard version. If you want to make a custom version you can always print a bigger level and resize the cardboard box.

Super Mario has had its shares of hacks, like this interface hack using a Kinect to control Mario or this super tricky jailbreak hack that allows players to run their own game mods, but this one is just on another level: a low tech approach. It seems like it could be a fun weekend project, especially if you have kids. If you’re not into Super Mario, it’s possible to just print a different game, the supporting platform is pretty generic and could support several simplified platform games.

Check out the video:

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The Hacker Village Of Supercon

November 16, 2017 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

I’m utterly exhausted and still in a state of awe. The Hackaday Superconference has grown in so many ways, but one thing remains the same: the spirit of the Hacker Village — an intangible feeling that grows up around all who attend — is bliss to take part in.

There’s really no substitute for having been there in person. I’ll go into detail below and try to share the experience as best I can. But the gist of the atmosphere is this: everyone at Supercon is the type of person you’d want to be stuck in a rowboat with, or partnered with on an engineering project, or to have next to you while trying to save the world. There are no looky-loos at Supercon. It turns out we are all stuck in a rowboat together, we are all working on engineering projects, and we are all trying to save the world. And when we all get together it feels like a drug our pragmatic minds never knew existed. This is the recharge for that sense of urgency that keeps you going all year long.

So yes, you really missed it. But start now. Become friends with all of these people over the next year. Begin building your Supercon community now and it’ll feel like a reunion when it rolls around again next November.

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Your Drone Is Cool, But It’s No Jet Fighter

November 16, 2017 by Jenny List 45 Comments

There are some communities with whom our happy band of hardware hackers share a lot in common, but with whom we don’t often associate. The more workshop-orientated end of the car modification or railway modeler scenes, for instance, or the model aircraft fraternity. Many of these communities exist more for the activity than for the making, some of them dabble with building kits, but among them are a hard core of people who create amazing projects from scratch.

Take [Igor Negoda], for example. Not content with building just any model aircraft, he’s built his own from scratch, to his own design. And if designing for yourself what amounts to a scaled-down jet fighter wasn’t enough, he’s also built his own jet engine to power it. His videos are all in Russian so use YouTube’s subtitle feature if you’re not a Russian speaker, but they’re so good that if you couldn’t access the English translation you’d want to learn the language just to hear his commentary.

The video below the break shows us first a fast-taxi test using a ducted fan, then a full test flight with the jet engine. There is an explanation of the fuel system and the flight control systems, before an impressive flight from what appears to be a former Cold War-era runway. There are a few funny moments such as transporting a large model jet aircraft in a small hatchback car, but the quality of the work in a garage workshop shines through. Suddenly a multirotor doesn’t cut it any more, we want a jet aircraft like [Igor]’s!

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Hacking An Industrial 42″ Multitouch PC

November 16, 2017 by Steven Dufresne 51 Comments

We’re slowly moving in the direction where everyone will have a touch screen desk like in the 1982 TRON movie or in the 1987 Star Trek: The Next Generation series with its ubiquitous touchscreen starship controls. [FFcossag] lucked into that future when a local company offered him an industrial 42″ multitouch PC that they were throwing out. A few hacks later and he has us all suitably envious.

Before hacking away though, he had to take care of some magic smoke. The source of this turned out to be yellow goop on the PC’s power supply that had turned conductive across a resistor. Cleaning it fixed the problem.

Moving on to the hacks, he added brightness control by using a potentiometer to control the power to the backlight. Be sure to watch carefully in the video below where he’s attaching a magnet and cord to the potentiometer, and encasing it all in epoxy. At that point, we’re pretty sure we see him spin up a hard drive platter with a sandpaper disk attached to it, forming a bench top disc sander and making us like this hack even more.

He also replaced a small speaker with a larger speaker and amplifier, giving a volume and sound quality difference that’s like night and day. He also added a breakout board with relays for power management, eliminating a seven watt continuous draw when in standby mode.

Be sure to watch the video to the end where he leaves us with a tour of the hacked interior hardware. We like how he’s labeled all his handiwork for any future hacker who might open it up

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Surprise Your Loved One With A Heart Keychain

November 15, 2017 by Will Sweatman 20 Comments

Sometimes the simplest projects can be the most impressive. Most of the time our simple projects are not as neat and elegant as our more time consuming ones. Sometimes they don’t even leave the breadboard! When [Sasa Karanovic] first envisioned his key-chain idea, he knew it would be simple. But he made up for the lack of sophistication with style.

The heart-shaped key-chain has one goal – to flash a pair of red LEDs when a capacitive button is touched. He was able to accomplish this with a PIC12LF1822 and a handful of supporting components. We’re quite impressed with the soldering skills and layout of the PCB. The resistors, LEDs and single capacitor are 0603 surface mount devices, which push the limits of hand soldering. [Sasa] gives a great explanation of how capacitive touch buttons work and how they can be easily incorporated directly into a PCB.

What’s the smallest SMD you’ve soldered? Let us know in the comments, along with what you think about this nifty key-chain.

IoT Garage Door Opener From Scrap

November 15, 2017 by Will Sweatman 6 Comments

[Hans Nielsen] has a couple roommates, and his garage has become a catch-all for various items. And like any good hacker’s garage, it boasts an IoT controlled garage door opener. It had a problem though, it used a Particle Photon – a popular IoT board that required internet access and a web server to operate. So [Hans] raided his roommate’s spare parts bin and set-forth to rebuild it!

One of his main goals was to make something that did not require internet access to operate. Anyone connected to the local WiFi should be able to open and close the door via a web interface, and he would give our good friend [Linus Torvalds] a call to make it happen. The key component in the build is the C.H.I.P SBC that made the news a while back for being ridiculously cheap.

Be sure to check out [Han’s] blog if you’re at all interested in working with the C.H.I.P. He does a fantastic job of documenting the ins and outs of getting a project like this working.

NodeConf EU Hackable Badge

November 15, 2017 by Anool Mahidharia 4 Comments

During conferences, a name-tag is one of the first things people look at when bumping in to others – mentally trying to keep track of faces and names. But gone are the days when your name tag was a post-it stuck on your arm. Over the years, conference badges have become increasingly interesting and complex. Hackable electronic badges are becoming the norm, and not just at hardware cons. For the recently concluded NodeConfEU conference in Ireland, [Gordon Williams], of Espruino fame, designed a JavaScript centric hackable badge.

NodeConf EU is the key Node.js event in Europe, providing a forum for the Node.js community. So when they brain-stormed ideas for a conference badge, they obviously gravitated towards a design that could run JS. [Gordon]’s Puck.js fit the requirements perfectly, and he was tasked with creating a new design based on the Puck.js. The feature list included BlueTooth Low Energy, low power consumption so it could run off a CR2032 battery, a high contrast LCD, some buttons, NFC, and a prototyping area – all packaged in a beautiful hexagonal shaped PCB (obviously) to resemble the Node.js logo. The badges were programmed with attendee names, but the fun, juicy part could be accessed by pressing buttons in the Konami code sequence.

Easy to follow, detailed documentation helped hackers quickly get started with code examples. They were also presented several challenges to work through allowing them to get familiar with the badge. Hacked badges were entered for a Grand Challenge with a chance to win a free ticket to next years conference. The badge hardware and firmware are open source and source files are hosted in a Github repository. Check out a short overview of the badge in the video after the break.

Thanks to [Conor] from nearForm for letting us know about this awesome badge.

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