Heirloom Knife Will Carve Pumpkins For Years To Come

November 3, 2022 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

Halloween may be behind us, but that just means that we’ve reached the best time to buy pumpkins. After all, it’s still fall, and there are pies to be made and tables to be decorated. Why should carved-up pumpkins be restricted to spooky season?

The only problem is that it’s 2022, and we’re still expected to use those terrible little serrated knives to carve our pumpkins. Those orange-handled garbage ‘knives’ are hardly suited to cut the lid, much less carve any of the intricate designs that come in the little booklet. So what’s a pumpkin-carving enthusiast to do? If you’re [XYZ Create], you make your own out of walnut, maple, and a gently-used jigsaw blade that’s still way sharp enough to tear through pumpkin flesh.

[XYZ Create] started with a nice chunk of walnut, which he split lengthwise in order to insert the blade, which sits in a cavity within a thin piece of maple. Once [XYZ Create] had the handle ready to go, he inserted the jigsaw blade and epoxied the sandwich together. After sanding down the edges to make a comfortable grip, he finished off the build by rubbing a bit of carving board wax into the handle. Check out the build video after the break.

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Cursive Out Loud: Dealing With Dragons

October 28, 2022 by Kristina Panos 21 Comments

When we last left this broadening subject of handwriting, cursive, and moveable type, I was threatening to sing the praises of speech-to-text programs. To me, these seem like the summit of getting thoughts committed to what passes for paper these days.

A common thread in humanity’s tapestry is that we all walk around with so much going on in our heads, and no real chance to get it out stream-of-consciousness style without missing a word — until we start talking to each other. I don’t care what your English teacher told you — talking turns to writing quite easily; all it takes is a willingness to follow enough of the rules, and to record it all in a readable fashion.

But, alas! That suggests that linear thinking is not only possible, but that it’s easy and everyone else is already doing it. While that’s (usually) not true, simply thinking out loud can get you pretty far down the road in a lot of mental vehicles. You just have to record it all somehow. And if your end goal is to have the words typed out, why not skip the the voice recorder and go the speech-to-text route?

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Cyberdeck Contest 2022: Gibson Rev 001 Thinks Outside The Pelican Case

October 25, 2022 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

As we’ve gushed previously in these pages, we saw an incredible turnout for our first-ever cyberdeck contest — so many cool ‘decks rolled in that it made judging them all quite the feat, and we would be remiss if we didn’t feature the favorites that, for whatever reason, didn’t make the cut. One of these is the aptly-named Gibson Rev 001 from [Gadjet].

This cyberdeck may be on the pocket-sized side of things, but don’t let that fool you, because it’s loaded with I/O and sensors galore. A Pimoroni Breakout Garden provides particle/smoke and pulse oximetry, temperature/pressure/altitude, an air quality sensor, and a UVA/UVB light sensor — plenty of feelers for judging conditions on the fly. As you might expect, the brains of the operation is a Raspi 4, which is running Twister OS.

We love the dual-display thing going on with the 7″ touchscreen and the color e-ink display — really gives it a cobbled-together-yet-polished, futuristic feel. May the rest of the post-apocalypse gadgetry have such clean lines and cheerful colors (if that’s what you’re into).

Hackaday Podcast 190: Fun With Resin Printing, Tiny Tanks, Lo-Fi Orchestra, And Deep Thoughts With Al Williams

October 21, 2022 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos rendezvoused in yet another secret, throwaway location to rap about the hottest hacks from the previous week. We start off by gushing about the winners of the Cyberdeck Contest, and go wild over the Wildcard round winners from the Hackaday Prize.

It’s the What’s That Sound? results show, and Kristina was ultimately stumped by the sound of the Kansas City Standard, though she should have at least ventured a guess after shooting down both modem and fax machine noises.

Then it’s on to the hacks, which feature an analog tank-driving simulator from the 1970s, much ado about resin printing, and one cool thing you can do with the serial output from your digital calipers, (assuming you’re not a purist). And of course, stay tuned for the Can’t-Miss Article discussion, because we both picked one of resident philosopher Al Williams’ pieces.

Direct download.

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!

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PCB-Filled Dream Desk Will Only Get Cooler With Age

October 7, 2022 by Kristina Panos 27 Comments

We all have one. Maybe you’re sitting at it now, or just wishing you were — that perfect desk. You know the one — a place for everything and everything in its place, ample acreage, specialized storage, and top-notch looks. Oh, and blinkenlights. Can’t forget those.

It took four months of hard work, but [Build XYZ]’s dream desk has been finely fabricated into fruition. There’s a lot to unpack with this build, which you can appreciate after the break, but it all started with a donated up/down desk from Progressive Desk. After building the base and putting it through its body weight-driven paces, [Build XYZ] set about making the perfect top, which, as you can see, highlights an assortment of PCBs by encasing them for eternity in resin.

But don’t let your admiration stop there, because the woodworking is just as much a part of the show. In addition to the functional blinkenlights that notify [BuildXYZ] when it’s time to stop working for the day or just take a break, there’s a working wireless charger hiding among the FR4. We can’t wait to look back on this desk in 20 years or so and we also can’t wait to see how PCBs will change over the next 20 years.

This tightly-produced video is a fascinating look into the process of forever immortalizing things in resin. So much resin, in fact, that [Build XYZ] came up a gallon short during the pour and had to wait an excruciatingly long time before more resin showed up. Seeing as how you totally can’t tell at all in the final build, we have maximum respect for [Build XYZ]’s inclusion of this part in the first place, which serves as a warning to the rest of us.

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Five-Foot Keyboard Lays It All On The Line

October 7, 2022 by Kristina Panos 17 Comments

We would bet that among the most technologically-inclined of our readership, there are plenty of hunt-and-peck typists. Because of course, typing quickly and from the home row has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with practice and rote muscle memorization. But what if the keyboard was all home row?

That’s right — Google Japan (translated) is back at it with another joke peripheral that happens to be 100% real and open-source. Whether you want to keep your distance from others while you toil at the coffee shop, or really, really want to get into the pair programming thing, this is the keyboard for you. While the prototype was a whopping seven feet long (or wide, whatever), the final version is shorter and friendlier, and can double as a walking stick on those outdoor sanity breaks with the addition of a protective shoe.

As with their mug keyboard, we appreciate the work that went into making this keyboard real just as much as the joke itself. Our favorite factoid has to be that this is made up of 17 different circuit boards, including the control board. Be sure to check out the fairly hilarious promo video after the break.

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Immersive Cursive: Growing Up Loopy

October 6, 2022 by Kristina Panos 28 Comments

Growing up, ours was a family of handwritten notes for every occasion. The majority were left on the kitchen counter next to the sink, or in a particular spot on the all-purpose table in the breakfast nook. Whether one was professing their familial love and devotion on the back of a Valpak coupon, or simply communicating an intent to be home before dinnertime, the words were generally immortalized in BiC on whatever paper was available, and timestamped for the reader’s information. You may have learned cursive in school, but I was born in it — molded by it. The ascenders and descenders betray you because they belong to me.

Both of my parents always seemed to be incapable of printing in anything other than all caps, so I actually preferred to see their cursive most of the time. As a result, I could ~~copy~~ read it quite easily from an early age. Well, I don’t think I ever had any hope of imitating Dad’s signature. But Mom’s on the other hand — like I said in the first installment, it was important for my signature to be distinct from hers, given that we have the same name — first, middle, and last. But I could probably still bust out her signature if it came down to something going on my permanent record.

While my handwriting was sort of naturally headed towards Mom’s, I was more interested in Dad’s style and that of my older brother. He had small caps handwriting down to an art, and my attempts to copy it have always looked angry and stilted by comparison. In addition, my brother’s cursive is lovely and quick, while still being legible.

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