Electric cars, as a concept, were once not dissimilar from the flying car. Promised to be a big thing in the future, but hopelessly impractical in the here and now. However, in the last ten years, they’ve become a very real thing, with market share growing year on year as new models bring greater range and faster charging times.
With their lower emissions output and ever-improving performance, one could be forgiven for thinking that traditional combustion engines are all but dead. Mazda would beg to differ – investing heavily in new technology to take the gasoline engine into the next decade and beyond. Continue reading “Mazda Investing Big In Advanced Gasoline Tech With Skyactiv-X”→
We’ve all heard it a thousand times – they don’t make ’em like they used to. Sometimes, that’s for good reason, but there is a certain build quality to electronics of the mid-20th century that is hard to find in hardware today. This inspires great nostalgia and dedication in some, like [Michael Park], who set out to build a calculator reminiscent of the best HP designs from yesteryear.
The scissor mechanism allows the touch screen to move linearly and activate the tactile switch without twisting, no matter where along its surface it is pressed.
One of the major factors for [Michael] was the great feel of the keys on these classic units. Wanting to experiment with different layouts without a lot of rewiring, the idea of keys with individual displays became attractive. Existing parts on the market were prohibitively expensive, however. Instead, [Michael] used a single touchscreen with a switch mounted underneath to provide tactile feedback with a nifty scissor-arm guide mechanism. Combined with individual see-through plastic overlays, the MP-29 has a fully reconfigurable pad of 30 keys with dynamically updatable labels.
It’s a creative choice, and one that looks highly satisfying to use. It has all the tactile benefits of individual keys, both in the keypresses and being able to navigate the keypad without looking. Combined with the benefit of reconfigurable keys thanks to the touch screen underneath, it’s a great way to build a user-interface.
The rest of the calculator design closely mimics the HP-29, though [Michael] is also experimenting with alternative layouts too. There are plenty of religious wars in the calculator community over usability, after all – mostly over which side of the pad has the arithmetic functions.
We’ve lamented the demise of the standalone calculator recently; with so many smart devices around, it’s hard to see it making a major comeback anytime soon. Of course, if you’re opinionated on the topic, sound off in the comments below. Video after the break.
Robot locomotion is a broad topic, and there are a multitude of choices for the budding designer. Often, nature is an inspiration, and many ‘bots have been built to explore the motion regimes of various insects and animals. Inspired himself by the common inch worm, [jegatheesan.soundarapandian] decided to build a robot that moved in a similar way.
The build consists of a series of 3D printed linkages, with servos fitted in between. This allows the robot’s body to articulate and flex in much the same way as a real inch worm. By flexing the body up, shifting along, and flexing back down, the robot can slowly make its way along a surface. An Arduino Pro Mini is the brains of the operation, being compact enough to fit on the small robot while still having enough outputs to command the multiple servos required. Control is via a smartphone app, using MIT’s AppInventor platform and the venerable HC-05 Bluetooth module.
It’s a fun build, and we’d love to see it go further with batteries replacing the tether and perhaps some sensors to enable it to further interact with its environment. We’ve seen other creative 3D-printed designs before, too – like this spherical quadruped ‘bot. Video after the break.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen great strides made in the area of AI and neural networks. When trained appropriately, they can be coaxed into generating impressive output, whether it be in text, images, or simply in classifying objects. There’s also much fun to be had in pushing them outside their prescribed operating region, as [Jon Warlick] attempted recently.
[Jon]’s work began using NVIDIA’s GauGAN tool. It’s capable of generating pseudo-photorealistic images of landscapes from segmentation maps, where different colors of a 2D image represent things such as trees, dirt, or mountains, or water. After spending much time toying with the software, [Jon] decided to see if it could be pressed into service to generate video instead.
The GauGAN tool is only capable of taking in a single segmentation map, and outputting a single image, so [Jon] had to get creative. Experiments were undertaken wherein a video was generated and exported as individual frames, with these frames fed to GauGAN as individual segmentation maps. The output frames from GauGAN were then reassembled into a video again.
The results are somewhat psychedelic, as one would expect. GauGAN’s single image workflow means there is only coincidental relevance between consecutive frames, creating a wild, shifting visage. While it’s not a technique we expect to see used for serious purposes anytime soon, it’s a great experiment at seeing how far the technology can be pushed. It’s not the first time we’ve seen such technology used to create full motion video, either. Video after the break.
The ISA bus is a relic of the distant past, and no longer supported by the PC mainstream. Outside of retro fanatics and likely some long-term industrial users, it’s all but forgotten. That hasn’t stopped [Manawyrm] from hacking away, however, and she’s developed a nifty adapter for the modern era.
Still in its early stages of development, the ISASTM is a ISA-over-USB adapter that allows a modern computer to work with older expansion cards. Running on an STM32H743, and using the microcontroller’s native USB1 interface, the ISASTM card is able to be slotted into a backplane in order to address multiple cards with one adapter. [Manawyrm] demonstrates the hardware by running Monkey Island 1 in the PCem emulator, with sound provided by an AdLib ISA soundcard.
There are some throughput issues, which [Manawyrm] aims to solve by switching to USB2 and making some tweaks and improvements to the code. Regardless, it’s an impressive tool that we imagine could have some use in keeping some legacy hardware alive, too. Incidentally, it’s been a long while since we’ve seen a solid ISA hack around these parts. Video after the break.
Whether you’re into fruit smoothies or icy blended cocktails, a blender comes in handy when preparing these beverages in the kitchen. But, if a small electric motor can do the job well, a noisy combustion engine can certainly do it louder. This is demonstrated ably by this project from [JT Makes It].
The build is a steel-framed contraption, mounting a small gas engine of the type you’d typically find in a weed trimmer or other garden tool. It’s attached to a shaft allowing it to spin a blender blade at up to 41,000 rpm when unloaded. A stout metal container is mounted on top, along with a plexiglass lid to ensure the contents of the bowl don’t escape when the blender is in action.
It’s a fun build, and one that has no trouble turning a bucket of apples into mush in under 60 seconds. More realistically, [JT] is able to whip up several litres of blended cocktail without major effort, which would be great for parties. Though, we do imagine the burning oil and gas fumes does somewhat spoil the taste sensation. We’ve seen similar hacks before, like this nitro-fuelled pencil sharpener. Video after the break.
When we think injection molding, the first thing that comes to mind is highly automated production lines pumping out thousands of parts an hour. However, the very same techniques are able to be scaled down to a level accessible by the DIYer, as [The CrafsMan] demonstrates.
Using a compact, hand-actuated injection moulder, [The Crafsman] demonstrates the basic techniques behind small-scale injection molding. The PIM-Shooter Model 150A in question is designed to work with low melting point plastics like polypropylene and low density polyethylene, and can use aluminium molds which are much cheaper to make than the typical steel molds used in industry.
However, the real game changer is when [The Crafsman] busts out his silicone mold making techniques, and applies them to injection molding. By making molds out of silicone, they can be created far more cheaply and easily without the requirement of heavy CNC machinery to produce the required geometry. With the right attention to detail, it’s possible to get good results without having to invest in a custom aluminium mold at all.
