Building A Neatly Framed Word Clock

March 14, 2026 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

Reading analog clocks is a pretty straightforward skill to learn. However, if you’ve already learned to read and don’t want to pick up the extra skill, a word clock is a perfect solution for telling time. [povey_tech] found some nice examples in the wild but didn’t appreciate the price, so he set about building his own.

The build is based around an ESP32 microcontroller. While many projects in this vein would use the onboard wireless connectivity to query network time servers, in this case, the board relies on the user manually setting the time and a DS1307 real-time-clock module to keep a steady tick. Also onboard is a VEML7700 ambient light sensor, which the microcontroller uses to control the brightness of the WS2812 LEDs inside the board.

The words themselves are laser cut out of acrylic panels, with everything set inside a tidy oak picture frame. A layer of anti-reflective glass in front helps cut down on glare, while [povey_tech] was so kind as to implement two LEDs per letter to allow for lovely color gradients to be displayed. Configuring the clock is easy thanks to a webpage hosted on the ESP32 that allows for control of dimming modes, colors, and setting the time. Home Assistant integration is something planned for the future.

We’ve seen many great word clocks over the years. Perhaps the biggest leap forward in this world was the development of the addressable LED strip which made constructing these clocks much easier.

Continue reading “Building A Neatly Framed Word Clock” →

GNU Radio Gets A Makeover With PimpMyGRC

March 14, 2026 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

[idealdealy] had a problem. GNU Radio Companion was proving to be a powerful tool, but it just didn’t look… cool enough. The solution? A custom bit of software called PimpMyGRC, designed to jazz things up a bit in everyone’s favorite open-source SDR package.

In the creator’s own words, PimpMyGRC solves the problem nobody had with GNU Radio. It stemmed from [idealdealy]’s desire to have a plain black background in the software to ease eye strain during late night debug sessions. From there, it developed into a full theming package coded in Python, complete with all kinds of fun color schemes.

You can go with “arctic” if you’re somewhere cold, “bubblegum” if you’re feeling young and fun, or “neon hacker” if you’re still obsessed with early 90s movies with terrible plot holes around computers.

None of these themes will help you work faster, but they’ll probably make your friends jealous that your setup looks a little bit cooler than theirs. Plus, there are some really fun animated effects to catch your eye if your attention is fading. You might get flames dancing on the bottom of the screen, or binary digits falling through the display in a manner vaguely akin to terminals from The Matrix.

If you’re new to this world, you might like to check out this primer on getting started with GNU Radio. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own SDR hacks of value, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline!

Nintendo’s Family BASIC Keyboard Gets USB Upgrade

March 12, 2026 by Lewin Day No comments

America knew it as the Nintendo Entertainment System, but in Japan, it was the Family Computer (Famicom). It was more than just a home console—it was intended to actually do a whole lot more. All you had to do was plug in the keyboard and chuck in the right Family BASIC cartridge, and you had a computer hooked up to your TV! [Lucas Leadbetter] came across an old Family BASIC keyboard recently, and set about making it more useful in our modern age with a simple USB upgrade.

[Lucas] started with research, and soon found plenty of schematics and details on the keyboard on the NESdev wiki page. Hunting further turned up a video from [Circuit Rewind], who demonstrated how to hook up the keyboard to a Raspberry Pi Pico, including how to interface with the onboard chips to scan the keys. These resources told [Lucas] enough to get going—and that it should be as simple as wiring some custom hardware up to the internal keyboard matrix connector to get it speaking to USB.

[Lucas] went a slightly different path to [Circuit Rewind], implementing the popular QMK firmware to suit the Family Basic keyboard on an Adafruit KB2040. The Adafruit part is basically an RP2040 microcontroller slapped onto a tiny PCB in a form factor that’s ideal for making custom keyboards. [Lucas] was able to reimplement the scanning logic that [Circuit Rewind] had reverse engineered previously, and had the keyboard up and running in short order with all the usability benefits of the QMK firmware. Files are on Github for those eager to recreate the work.

As far as usability goes, [Lucas] notes that the Family BASIC keyboard is more of a conversation piece than a daily driver, thanks to its rather poor feel. Duly noted. We’ve explored how software development is done in Family BASIC before, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Nintendo’s Family BASIC Keyboard Gets USB Upgrade” →

Mapping The Sound Field Of An Acoustic Levitator

March 12, 2026 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

Sound! It’s a thing you hear, moreso than something you see with your eyes. And yet, it is possible to visualize sound with various techniques. [PlasmatronX] demonstrates this well, using a special scanning technique to visually capture the sound field inside an acoustic levitation device.

If you’re unfamiliar, acoustic levitation devices like this use ultrasound to create standing waves that can hold small, lightweight particles in mid-air. The various nodes of the standing wave are where particles will end up hovering. [PlasmatronX] was trying to calibrate such a device, but it proved difficult without being able to see what was going on with the sound field. Hence, the desire to image it!

Imaging the sound field was achieved with a Schlieren optical setup, which can capture variations in air density as changes in brightness in an image. Normally, Schlieren imaging only works in a two-dimensional slice. However, [PlasmatronX] was able to lean on computed tomography techniques to create a volumetric representation of the sound field in 3D. He refers to this as “computerized acoustical tomography.” Images were captured of the acoustic levitation rig from different angles using the Schlieren optics rig, and then the images were processed in Python to recreate a 3D image of the sound field.

We’ve seen some other entertaining applications of computed tomography techniques before, like inspecting packets of Pokemon cards. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Mapping The Sound Field Of An Acoustic Levitator” →

Controlling Vintage Mac OS With AI

March 12, 2026 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

Classic Mac OS was prized for its clean, accessible GUI when it first hit the scene in the 1980s. Back then, developers hadn’t even conceived of all the weird gewgaws that would eventually be shoehorned into modern operating systems, least of all AI agents that seem to be permeating everything these days. And yet! [SeanFDZ] found a way to cram Claude or other AI agents into the vintage Mac world.

The result of [Sean]’s work is AgentBridge, a tool for interfacing modern AI agents with vintage Mac OS (7-9). AgentBridge itself runs as an application within Mac OS. It works by reading and writing text files in a shared folder which can also be accessed by Claude or whichever AI agent is in use. AgentBridge takes commands from its “inbox”, executes them via the Mac Toolbox, and then writes outputs to its “outbox” where they can be picked up and processed by the AI agent. The specifics of how the shared folder work are up to you—you can use a network share, a shared folder in an emulation environment, or just about any other setup that lets the AI agent and AgentBridge access the same folder.

It’s hard to imagine any mainstream use cases for having a fleet of AI-controlled Macintosh SE/30s. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t find the concept hilarious. Meanwhile, have you considered the prospect of artificial intelligence running on the Commodore 64?

Open Source Radar Has Up To 20 KM Range

March 12, 2026 by Lewin Day 48 Comments

Phased-array radars are great for all sorts of things, whether you’re doing advanced radio research or piloting a fifth-generation combat aircraft. They’re also typically very expensive. [Nawfal] hopes to make the technology more affordable with an open-source radar design of their own.

The design is called the AERIS-10, and is available in two versions. Operating at 10.5 GHz, it can be built to operate at ranges between 3 or 20 kilometers depending on the desired spec. The former uses an 8 x 16 patch antenna array, while the latter extends this to a 32 x 16 array. Either way, each design is capable of fully-electronic beam steering in azimuth and can be hacked to enable elevation too—one of the most attractive features of phased array radars. The hardware is based around an STM32 microcontroller, an FPGA, and a bunch of specialist clock generators, frequency synthesizers, phase shifters, and ADCs to do all the heavy lifting involved in radar.

Radar is something you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about unless you’re involved in maritime, air defence, or weather fields. All of which seem to be very much in the news lately! Still, we feature a good few projects on the topic around these parts. If you’ve got your own radar hacks brewing up in the lab, don’t hesitate to let us know.

Blood Tests Could Provide Early Warning Of Alzheimers Disease

March 10, 2026 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

Alzheimer’s disease remains a frustratingly difficult condition to manage for the millions of patients affected worldwide and their families. The cause of the disease is still not properly understood, and by the time memory loss and cognitive decline become apparent, the underlying brain pathology has often been quietly building for decades.

Soon, though it may be possible to diagnose impending Alzheimer’s disease ahead of time, before symptoms have taken hold. New research suggests this could be achieved through a simple blood draw, providing clinicians and patients precious time to manage the condition and plan ahead. Continue reading “Blood Tests Could Provide Early Warning Of Alzheimers Disease” →