2020 Hackaday Prize Reveals Four Open Challenges And New Dream Team Program

May 19, 2020 by Mike Szczys 17 Comments

The 2020 Hackaday Prize begins right now. Our global engineering challenge seeks solutions to real-world problems. If you like to come up with creative solutions to tough problems, four non-profits can use your help. We need hackers, designers, and engineers throughout the world to work on designs for conservation, disaster relief, renewable resources, and assistive devices.

This is the seventh year of the Hackaday Prize, and like past years we want to see your ideas take shape, so share your design process in detail as a project page on Hackaday.io. Over $200,000 in prizes are at stake, with a $50,000 prize for the all around best solution which will then be designed for manufacture at Supplyframe’s DesignLab, produced in a limited run, and deployed in the field.

New this year is our partnership with non-profits that have each outlined challenges they are facing. Eight projects, one top finisher, and one runner up from each of the four categories of challenges, will receive $10,000 and $3,000 respectively. As with previous years, the bootstrap round offers some seed money for getting your prototype off the ground: up to $500 for each of the top twenty during early entry judging. There’s even a $5,000 wildcard prize for entries that don’t specifically address challenges from the four categories. Here’s a taste of the categories you can work on:

Develop solutions to combat invasive species in marine and island environments, and help craft tools for protecting our natural ocean landscapes
Low cost tools for use in the field like a heat sealers/welders, and medical devices like IV fluid warmers
Adaptive technologies for workstations like trackballs, joysticks, and large button controllers
Modular add-ons for earthen housing for connectivity, light, heating, and water storage

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IMac G4 Reborn With Intel NUC Transplant

May 19, 2020 by Tom Nardi 25 Comments

Released in 2002, Apple’s iMac G4 was certainly a unique machine. Even today, its hemispherical case and integrated “gooseneck” display is unlike anything else on the market. Whether or not that’s a good thing is rather subjective of course, but there’s no denying it’s still an attention grabber nearly 20 years after its release. Unfortunately, it’s got less processing power than a modern burner phone.

Which is why [Tom Hightower] figured it was the perfect candidate for a retrofit. Rather than being little more than a display piece, this Intel NUC powered iMac is now able to run the latest version of Mac OS. He even went as far as replacing the display with a higher resolution panel, though it sounds like it was dead to begin with so he didn’t have much choice in the matter.

Somewhere, an early 2000s Apple engineer is screaming.

The retrofit starts off with a brief teardown, which is quite interesting in itself. [Tom] notes a number of unique design elements, chief among them the circular motherboard. The two banks of memory also use different form factors, and only one of them is easily accessible to the end user. Something to think about the next time somebody tells you that Apple’s “brave” hardware choices are only a modern phenomena.

There was plenty of room inside the iMac’s dome to fit the NUC motherboard, and some extension cables and hot glue got the computer’s rear panel suitably updated with the latest-and-greatest ports and connectors. But the conversion wasn’t a total cakewalk. That iconic “gooseneck” put up quite a fight when it was time to run the new wires up to the display. Between the proprietary screws that had to be coerced out with a Dremel to the massive spring that was determined to escape captivity, [Tom] recommends anyone else looking to perform a similar modification just leave the wires on the outside of the thing. That’s what he ended up doing with the power wires for the display inverter.

If you like the idea of reviving old Apple hardware but don’t want to anger the goose, you could start on something a little easier. Like putting an iPad inside of a Macintosh Classic shell.

Self-Shutting Face Mask Is Hacker’s Delight

May 19, 2020 by Moritz v. Sivers 28 Comments

Most of us currently have to deal with wearing face masks in our daily life. An experience that is not entirely pleasurable as it is more difficult to breathe under the mask and can become hot after a while. In addition, you have to take off the mask whenever you want to eat or drink. [DesignMaker] has attempted to solve these problems by creating a mask with an opening that shuts automatically when other people are nearby.

While homemade masks are usually made from fabric [DesignMaker]’s version is much more to a hacker’s taste and includes 3D-printed parts, an Arduino Nano, PIR sensors, an SG90 servo, and some Neopixels. [DesignMaker]’s background in industrial design certainly helped him when modeling the mask as it looks just plain awesome.

His goal was to use PIR sensors to detect when a person is moving nearby. The servo then shuts an opening located at the mouth part of the mask. However, he soon found out that the mask often shuts when nobody is around. The reason is that the sensor can be triggered by ambient IR radiation when it is moving by itself. In the end [DesignMaker] decided that having the mask shut when you are moving is not a bug, it’s a feature.

Of course, the mask is just a prop and should not be used as protective equipment. As shown in the video below, also the false triggering of the PIR sensors can be annoying at times. But [DesignMaker] is already thinking of improvements like having the mask properly sealed with fabric or replacing the PIR sensors by a camera with face detection.

If you want to learn how to sew a proper fabric face mask have a look here. It’s a lot less ridiculous, but a lot more effective. You can’t have everything.

Video after the break.

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