2023 Cyberdeck Challenge: A Ham Radio Cyberdeck

August 15, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 27 Comments

Cyberdecks rock because their homebrewed nature lets them feature all kinds of nifty additional functionality. [Kaushlesh] has built his deck with an eye to ham radio use, and it’s a rugged and impressive thing.

The deck is built into a weatherproof enclosure, with various 3D-printed parts helping to integrate the components into the clamshell enclosure. It runs on a Raspberry Pi 4, with [Kaushlesh] springing for the hefty model with 8GB of RAM. It has a 10-inch LCD screen and a rechargable battery pack with an impressive 20 hour battery life, and is intended for use when [Kaushlesh] is out camping or participating in ham radio field days. To that end, it’s equipped with a USB software-defined radio module and a BNC connector for hooking up an external antenna. It also has a game controller that mounts inside, just in case he desires playing a few games on Retropie while he’s out and about. It’s even got storage for a mouse and rocks a decent-sized keyboard inside.

We’d love to tote this to a hamfest for a bit of hacking on the side. It’s not the first ham-themed cyberdeck we’ve seen, either. Now we just need one built for prosciutto. Video after the break.

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The State Of High Speed Rail, And A Look To Tomorrow

August 3, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 73 Comments

In the 21st century, the global transportation landscape is in shift. Politicians, engineers, and planners all want to move more people, more quickly, more cleanly. Amid the frenzy of innovative harebrained ideas, high-speed rail travel has surged to the forefront. It’s a quiet achiever, and a reliable solution for efficient, sustainable, and swift intercity and intercountry transit.

From the thriving economies of Europe and Asia to the burgeoning markets of the Middle East and America, high-speed rail networks are being planned, expanded, and upgraded whichever way you look. A combination of traditional and magnetic levitation (maglev) trains are being utilized, reaching speeds that were once the stuff of science fiction. As we set our sights towards the future, it’s worth taking a snapshot of the current state of high-speed rail, a field where technology, engineering brilliance, and visions of a greener tomorrow converge.

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Truss-Braced Wings Could Bring New Look To Runways Worldwide

August 2, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 75 Comments

Airliners have looked largely the same for a long time now. The ongoing hunt for efficiency gains has seen the development of winglets, drag reducing films, and all manner of little aerodynamic tricks to save fuel, and hence money.

Boeing now has its eye on bigger, tastier goals. It believes by switching to a truss-braced wing design, it could net double-digit efficiency gains. It’s working together with NASA to see if this concept could change the face of commercial aviation in decades to come.

Aspect Ratio Matters

The ASH 31 glider features wings with an aspect ratio of 33.5, and a lift-to-drag ratio of 56. *Credit: Manfred Munch, CC-BY-SA 3.0*

The key goal of using a truss-braced wing is to enable an airliner to use a wing much thinner and narrower than usual. These “high aspect ratio” wings are far more efficient than the stubbier, wider wings currently common on modern airliners. But why is aspect ratio so important, and how does it help

If you’ve ever looked at a glider, you will have noticed its incredibly long and narrow wings, which stand it apart from the shorter, wider wings used on airliners and conventional small aircraft. These wings are said to have a high aspect ratio, the ratio between the square of the wingspan and the projected area of the wing itself.

These wings are highly desirable for certain types of aircraft, as lift-to-drag ratio increases with aspect ratio. Any wing that generates lift also generates some drag, but this can be minimized through careful wing design. By making the wings longer and narrower, and thus higher in aspect ratio, the wing tip vortices generated by the wing are weakened. This reduces drag on the plane, and quite significantly so. Continue reading “Truss-Braced Wings Could Bring New Look To Runways Worldwide” →

Ask Hackaday: What’s The Deal With Humanoid Robots?

July 31, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 44 Comments

When the term ‘robot’ gets tossed around, our minds usually race to the image of a humanoid machine. These robots are a fixture in pop culture, and often held up as some sort of ideal form.

Yet, one might ask, why the fixation? While we are naturally obsessed with recreating robots in our own image, are these bipedal machines the perfect solution we imagine them to be?

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Pizza Elevator Is The Most Vital Pandemic Technology Of All

July 28, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 14 Comments

Remember the darkest days of lockdown and the pandemic? We were trying to distance ourselves from strangers wherever possible. [scealux]’s pizza elevator was spawned at this time to make apartment pizza deliveries as contactless as possible, and it’s charmingly branded to boot.

The build was intended to loft a pizza from street level to a third-floor balcony (by the American convention, ground floor is numbered one). Built with CNC-cut wooden parts, the elevator frame snap-fits on to the balcony railing. From there, a single spool runs out wire to four corners of the elevator platform.

As the crank is turned, the platform lowers under its own weight. The pizza can then be placed on the platform, and dinner can be lifted back up to the apartment. It’s a simple design, and one that manages to lift the pizza in a stable and flat fashion. With that said, we’d still like to see some anti-tip railings on a potential revision two.

Mock the branding all you will, it’s actually a smart design choice. The recognizable logo made the device’s purpose super obvious to the pizza delivery person, easing the introduction of the technology to a new user base.

If you want to make your own pizza instead of ordering out, you can automate that too.

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Denim Epoxy Table Is A Work Of Art

July 27, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 34 Comments

Epoxy has become a hugely popular material in the woodworking and furniture worlds. Who doesn’t love glossy, translucent finishes, after all? [Cam] recently spotted some neat combinations of epoxy with denim, and decided to see if he could replicate the technique to create a very unique desk. We’d say he succeeded.

A significant amount of material was involved, with [Cam] claiming he used 1,000 square feet of denim and 20 gallons of epoxy. The denim was sourced as a bulk roll, making it easy to cut to the proper size to make the desk. Liquid Glass epoxy was used for its visual qualities and its hard-wearing nature.

Combining the two materials was a challenging task. The 50 layers of denim had to be squeegeed one at a time to remove excess epoxy, a process made harder by the thickness of the material. Once all laid up, the stack of denim was compressed between sheets of wood, leading to an epoxy spill of monumental proportions.

Regardless, when the final desk was cleaned up and polished, the results were well worth the trouble. It looks like some kind of crazy denim gem thanks to the rich shine and perfect grain. It’s a material we’d like to play with ourselves.

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A Wigglegram Lens With Variable Aperture

July 27, 2023 by Zoe Skyforest 6 Comments

Wigglegrams are those weird animated pictures you’ve seen that seem to generate a 3D-like effect. [scealux] had built lenses to take such pictures before, but wanted to take things to the next level. Enter the Wigglegram Lens, version 2.

In building a new lens for the Open Sauce ’23 event, [scealux] wanted to get variable aperture working, while also improving focus speed. The lens was also intended for use with a Sony A7R3. Unlike his previous effort, this lens would only work on the full-frame Sony FE mount cameras.

The lens uses a bevy of 3D printed parts, along with plastic lenses salvaged from old disposable cameras. When assembled, it takes three photos simultaneously on one single frame. They can then be reassembled into a Wigglegram by post-processing on a computer. The results are grainy and rough, but yet somehow compelling.

If you want to see [scealux]’s original build for Sony E-mount cameras, we covered it here. Video after the break.

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