It’s been a good 2025 so far! I just got back from Chaos Communication Congress, which is easily my favorite gigantic hacker conference of the year. (Partisan Hackaday pride puts Supercon up as my favorite moderate-sized conference, naturally.) CCC is huge. And it’s impossible to leave an event like that without your to-hack list at least doubling in length.
And then I got back home and started prepping up for the podcast, which meant reading through about a week’s worth of Hackaday in a single sitting. Which in turn adds a few more projects to the list. Thanks for that, y’all!
All of this was possible because people who do crazy nerdy things decided to share their passions with everyone. So in the spirit of the New Year, I’m going to try to document my own projects a little bit better, because if people can’t see what you’re doing, they can’t get inspired by it.
And while it’s my day job, it’s not yours, so I’d like to encourage you to point out a cool project if you see it as well. Because what’s better than inspiring other hackers to pick up the torch on a project you love?
My list for this year:
Christmas ornament reusable platforms:
– Ch32 led per gpio, 1 resistor, usbc board edge target 1$ bom plus board
– Esp32 neopixel 2020 wled
Crawl space inspection and mapping robot majority from parts on hand
Siding/Shingle overlap addressable led installation
Shed roof solar mower charge station
Cove molding led lighting
Finish usb keyboard sniffer to key specific typewriter sound actuators to turn any usb kb very clacky
Reorganize my shared space for hw dev quick set up and put away
Buy a new second hand tractor, A hydrostatic Kubota, with about 40 horse worth and turn it into yet an agricultural robot as documented at: https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/WEEDINATOR_2025_879fb9ec.html
Cyberdeck. That is getting closer to being a Framework casemod.
Actually got inspired by a comment on here. That everyone slammed but I think the guy had a decent idea. It was something something cyberdeck original material assembled out of seperate parts to make a cyberdeck and is not self contained.
Anyways got inspired and said hey I want a laptop but I don’t need a laptop all the time since I have my pc. So why not modularity.
Computer
– I’m fairly set on getting a Framework mainboard. Hits most of my checklist.
– Something I can use as a server when its not a laptop. I’ve been hitting the performance ceiling on my rpi4 so this would be good.
Display
– I could use a second display.
– However I don’t want to play internal adapter hell by say getting a Waveshare display then going adapter adapter to usb c port on the Framework. I wanted to use the mainboard’s internal eDP which would just need a quick passive cable conversion from Framework’s standard to regular DP. But I can’t find good small displays with DP. So I might just go with a Framework display then cobble some adapter for it later along with some quick connect ports. Idk only just started researching this
Power/Battery
– Not too confident in my skills to make my own batterybank sooo again might go for a Framework battery. But then again I haven’t really researched this yet.
Gimmick
– Every cyberdeck needs a good one. I was thinking of going for an AM/FM radio and gps. But idk.
Keyboard
– Detachable 65% keyboard with the big full size switches I can use on my pc aswell. Actually what I’m working on now.
– Going to have another macropad manufactured with its own embedded microcontroller. After I get the results of that. I’ll integrate the design into the keyboard I have drawn up in Kicad.
– I looked into Framework’s internal keyboard connection. Its a direct keyboard matrix connection with a reprogramable controller behind it. This would be easy enough to do. Although the question would be how to do the connector from keyboard to mainboard. The little ribbon connector is not friendly.
– Btw a thank you to Kristina Panos for steadily eroding me through their articles into me actually making my own macropad last year.
Case
– I’m kinda new to CAD so I’ve been working on that. OpenSCAD since Freecad seems to like borking itself on my Arch install.
– Also don’t have a 3D printer but my instructor for welding class said I did decent TIG sooo idk might go back to the center and see about making something out of aluminum sheets.
This will probably be a big boy when I’m done. But idc for thin and lithe laptops.
So thats my new years gotta have this made project resolution.
Resolution: less buying, more building, since I have so much parts, modules and other stuff already on hand. It’s a win if I manage to use up a bunch of things.