Author: Fenix Guthrie

42 Articles

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! The Magic Of The Scroll-Like Phone Which Wast Not!

April 7, 2026 by 10 Comments

When LG left the smartphone market, quite a number of strange devices were left behind. While some, like the Wing, made it to consumers, others did not. The strangest of these would have to be their rollable phone concept; a device which would expand by unrolling a portion of the screen like a scroll. This never made it to market, but one managed to make its way to [JerryRigEverything’s] workbench, and we are fortunate enough to see the insides of this strange device. 

There are a few interesting tidbits about the device before even entering the device. Very clearly this phone was ready to be sold, with a tidy user interface for expanding the display, and even animated wallpapers which expand with it. The display, when rolled onto the back of the device, sits behind a glass cover to keep it protected from debris, and can be used to take selfies with the larger sensors of the rear facing cameras. You can also see a bit of the track that the screen rolls on, hinting at what lies inside.

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Simulating The AVR8 For A Browser-based Arduino Emulator

April 6, 2026 by 9 Comments

It’s always nice to simulate a project before soldering a board together. Tools like QUCS run locally and work quite well for analog circuits, but can fall short with programmable logic. Tools like Wokwi handle the programmable side quite well but may have license issues or require the cloud. The Velxio project by [David Montero Crespo] is quite an excellent example of an (online) circuit simulator with programmable logic and local execution!

It’s built largely around Wowki’s AVR8JS library for Arduino simulation. All CPU simulation occurs on the local computer, while sketch compilation happens on the backend using official Arduino tools. But this was certainly not the most impressive aspect of the project. Likewise, Velxio features RP2040 execution using the rp2040js library. It also features the execution of some ESP32 derivative boards built around the RISC-V architecture using the RiscVCore.ts library.

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Looking At A Bike Built For The Apocalypse

March 26, 2026 by 17 Comments

So-called bug out cars are a rather silly venture that serve little purpose more than snagging your jumper. The odds of a car working well through a nuclear winter are rather minimal. But what about a bicycle? On paper it’s a better choice, with extreme efficiency, reliability, and runs off whatever sustenance you can find in the barren landscape of a collapsed society. But [Seth] over at Berm Peak proved an apocalypse bike is at least as silly as a bug out car.

While a utilitarian bike fit for a cross-country trek across a nuclear wasteland can certainly be a reasonable venture, this particular bicycle is not that. This three wheeled monstrosity of a bicycle (is it still a bicycle if it has three wheels?) was built by [TOMO] for the Bespoked bike show’s apocalypse buildoff. It placed second among a number of strange bikes with features ranging from pedal driven circular saws to beer keg grills. But this particular example of apocalypse bike is easily the strangest example of the lot.

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GameCube Dock For Switch, Revisited

February 15, 2026 by 3 Comments

While modern game consoles are certainly excellent, there is still something magical about the consoles of yore. So why not bring the magical nostalgia of a GameCube controller to the Switch series of consoles?

This isn’t [Dorison Hugo’s] first attempt at building a Switch dock, but with seven years of development, there are a lot of updates in the project to unpack. One version allows the user to play on the Switch’s screen instead of on a docked display, and another comes with a mechanical lock to prevent the console from being stolen. But what really caught our eye is the modifications made to the OEM Switch docks.

As it turns out, there is enough space inside a Switch dock to stuff in four GameCube ports. Short of spinning a custom board, the trick was picking the right commercial adapter to start with. The Wii U branded adapter [Dorison] was using wouldn’t fit. However, a rather small third-party adapter from Input Integrity got the job done. Space was still rather tight, and the ports needed to be removed from the board to fit. Some cables with simple connectors on the GameCube connector side make cable management a bit simpler later. Holes have to be very neatly cut into the front of the Switch dock to complete the look, with the mods held in with some superglue, epoxy, and hot glue.

Shortly after the completion of the dock, the Switch 2 was released, so naturally, that dock went through a similar process. While there is more internal space for cable management on this iteration of the console, there is too little space for the ports to fit without modification. Shaving off a few millimeters from the top of the ports allows them to fit inside the case, but makes cutting professional-looking holes in the front panel all the more challenging. Unfortunately, there is no good way to connect the adapter’s USB cable to the dock’s PCB, so an extra USB cable became necessary.

Regardless of any imperfections, both modified docks look excellent, with near-OEM quality!

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Bike Spokes, Made Of Rope

January 25, 2026 by 25 Comments

We know this one is a few years old, but unless you’re deep into the cycling scene, there’s a good chance this is the first time you’ve heard of [Ali Clarkson’s] foray into home made rope spokes. 

The journey to home-made rope spoke begun all the way back in 2018, shortly after the company Berd introduced their very expensive rope spokes. Berd’s spokes are made of a hollow weaved ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) rope with very low creep. They claim wheels stronger than steel spoke equivalents at a fraction of the weight. Naturally forum users asked themselves, “well why can’t we make our own?” As it turns out, there are a handful of problems with trying this at home.

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Making A Mountain Bike Data Acquisition System

January 18, 2026 by 14 Comments

Professional mountain bike racing is a rather bizarre sport. At the highest level, times between podiums will be less than a second, and countless hours of training and engineering go into those fractions of seconds. An all too important tool for the world cup race team is data acquisition systems (DAQ). In the right hands, they can offer an unparalleled suspension tune for a world cup racer. Sadly DAQs can cost thousands of dollars, so [sghctoma] built one using little more then potentiometer and LEGO. 

The hardware is a fairly simple task to solve. A simple Raspberry Pi Pico setup is used to capture potentiometer data. By some simple LEGO linkage and mounts, this data is correlated to the bikes’ wheel travel. Finally, everything is logged onto an SD card in a CSV format. Some buttons and a small AMOLED provide a simple user interface wrapped in a 3D printed case.

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What Happens When A Bug Rears Its Head At Mach Two?

January 15, 2026 by 25 Comments

While some may see amateur rocketry as little more than attaching fins to a motor and letting it fly, it is, in fact, rocket science. This fact became very clear to [BPS.space] when a parachute deployed on a rocket traveling at approximately Mach 1.8. 

The rocket design is rather simple — essentially just 3D printed fins glued onto a motor with a nose-cone for avionics. A single servo and trim tab provide a modicum of roll control, and a parachute is mounted in the nose along with a homing beacon for faster recovery. Seemingly, the only thing different about this flight is properly validated telemetry and GPS antennae.

After a final ground check of the telemetry and GPS signal quality, everything is ready for what seems like a routine launch. However, somewhere around Mach 1.8, the parachute prematurely deploys, ripping apart the Kevlar rope holding together the three rocket sections. Fortunately, the booster and avionics sections could be recovered from the desert.

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