The site is called Hackaday, and has been for 21 years. But it was only for maybe the first half-year that it was literally a hack a day. By the 2010s, we were putting out four or more per day, and in the later 20-teens, we settled into our current cadence of eight hacks per day, plus some original pieces over the top. That’s a lot of hacks per day! (But “Eight-to-Ten-Hacks-a-Day” just isn’t as catchy.)
With that many posts daily, we also tend to reach out to a broader array of interests. Quite simply, not every hack is necessarily going to be just exactly what you are looking for, but we wouldn’t be writing it up if we didn’t think that someone was looking for it. Maybe you don’t like CAN bus hacks, but you’re into biohacking, or retrocomputing. Our broad group of writers helps to make sure that we’ll get you covered sooner or later.
What’s still surprising to me, though, is that a couple of times per week, there is a hack that is actually relevant to a particular project that I’m currently working on. It’s one thing to learn something new every day, and I’d bet that I do, but it’s entirely another to learn something new and relevant.
So I shouldn’t have been shocked when Tom and I were going over the week’s hacks on the podcast, and he picked an investigation of injecting spray foam into 3D prints. I liked that one too, but for me it was just “learn something new”. Tom has been working on an underwater ROV, and it perfectly scratched an itch that he has – how to keep the top of the vehicle more buoyant, while keeping the whole thing waterproof.
That kind of experience is why I’ve been reading Hackaday for 21 years now, and it’s all of our hope that you get some of that too from time to time. There is a lot of “new” on the Internet, and that’s a wonderful thing. But the combination of new and relevant just can’t be beat! So if you’ve got anything you want to hear more about, let us know.
Squirting spray foam into 3D prints for structural rigidity and buoyancy really is a forehead slap “why didn’t I think of that?” moment.
With some of the smaller/tighter spaces you could probably get away with using fine needles to inject binary foam. Shouldn’t be that hard to do volume calculations so you don’t split your print from over expansion.
This has happened to me so many times I can’t even remember. Greetings fellow hivemind-ers
I imagine people (who are not makers themselves) stumble upon this website and leave hate in the comments because they don’t get their fill from the usual social media websites. If you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one. Please keep posting hacks and don’t feed the trolls in the comments.
I’m a long time reader of Hackaday, and the content has shifted away from the engineering to the more popular YouTube videos. While there is still good content from time to time, it’s often lacking in some regard. Where the focus is entertainment and not so much usefulness or reproducibility. Even in this community, there is a lot of distrust if you point out an issue with a build, even more so for community favorites like Samy Kamkar. (His creations are more reproducible than average, though.)
Most of my complaints are, of course, as I also learn and grow. From focussing on obscure technology to teaching others these skills as a job. I got where I am due to my curiosity, and sites like this one for having interesting content. I want the starters of today to have a chance to grow, and have better role models than the average YT ‘engineer’. It’s just much more difficult to find quality content than it used to be.
“the content has shifted away from the engineering to the more popular YouTube videos.”
I don’t disagree, but I think rather than blaming HAD, part of the blame falls on folks publishing video content, vs an actual write-up with static pictures and actual text words. This seems to be a foreign concept any more, and I don’t know if folks are too lazy to find an appropriate hosting (e.g. instructables), are too lazy to write in general, or are just trying to collect Youtube sponsorship.
Sure, videos can be handy in specific instances, but I flat refuse to watch a 30 min video, even if I can block the ads and sponsor crud, for 30 seconds of content.
To the general point, just last week there was an article about doing 3D printing a particular way that was absolutely dead on for something I needed in a project I was working on right then. Incredibly helpful and timely. (And the article in question had no videos. Win for the win!)