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!
Episode 238 Show Notes:
News:
- Capsule Containing Asteroid Bennu Sample Has Landed – OSIRIS-REx Mission
- Kenneth Finnegan: The Hackaday Superconference #HackerTrain
What’s that Sound?
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
- Feed Your Fasteners In Line, With A Bowl Feeder
- Getting Shredded Plastic…and Legs
- The Reverse Oscilloscope
- Beating Apple’s Secret Lid Angle Sensor Calibration With Custom Tool
- Processes, Threads, And… Fibers?
- Powder Your Prints For Baby-Smoothness
Quick Hacks:
- Elliot’s Picks:
- Tom’s Picks:
I looked into vibratory bowl feeders once for a home DIY project that was being built (for a coin collecting friend) to sort copper pennies from zinc-based pennies. But the cost of the bowl feeders proved to be too high. What did I do? Well, what any regular Hackaday reader would do … I built my own penny feeding mechanism with stuff sitting around the house including a cat food feeder, a custom tray made from aluminum sheeting, a rotating motor from a kid’s toy, and a small plastic cylinder that was just wider than a penny to stack the coins on top of each other. Ended up working like a charm to feed pennies one by one into the rest of the discrimination machine that I also hacked together! Elliot once commented a few years ago in the Hackaday chats: “I’d love to see the writeup on that”. Alas, I still need to document the project on Hackaday.io. :-)
“The rest of the discrimination machine”…
Is it by weight? (Zn pennies weigh less)
Conductance?
Color?
“I 3D Printed some throwing stars for my son’s birthday party”? Wow! You must live near a REALLY GOOD Emergency Department! And you must have a VERY understanding partner!
What’s for next year?
3D printed Skittles Fragmentation Grenades?
Bubble Tea Cluster Munitions?
Chocolate Chip Landmines?
Parent: “Hello? Herr Williams? What should my child wear to your son’s birthday party?”
Elliot: “Oh! I’d suggest Kevlar. But whatever he’s comfortable in is fine.”
Parent: “Yah…I zee…”
Love your show! Your son’s got a very cool dad!
It was ninja-themed. It happens a lot with like 7-year-olds. :)
And again, the radius of the fat filament helped.