Author: Zoe Skyforest

3740 Articles

Smart Clock Helps With Medication Management

August 12, 2026 by 3 Comments

There are all kinds of smart devices on the market these days, but if you want one to solve a particular personal problem, sometimes it’s easiest to just build your own. That’s precisely what [hvermaak.projects] did when it came to the Ouma Ria Smart Clock.

The clock was primarily intended to act as a useful tool for providing medication reminders, before some extra useful home functionality was folded in. The heart of the build is an ESP32-WROOM-32 hooked up to four 8×8 WS2812B addressable LED panels acting as a display. A further 30 WS2812Bs in a strip act as a status indicator. A DS3231 real-time-clock module ensures the clock keeps accurate time, while a BH1750 ambient light sensor makes sure the clock is responsive to current lighting conditions. There’s also a DFPlayer Mini audio module for spoken announcements and chimes, while there are inputs for AM312 passive infrared motion sensors that allow the clock to act as a rudimentary security monitor. There’s even a web interface for control and scheduling.

The device ultimately evolved into something that helped with daily live, handling everything from medication management to remembering birthdays, and even helping out with kitchen timing tasks.  We’ve featured some other innovative builds in this space in recent years, too, like this explosively loud alarm clock.

Cell Broadcast: The Modern Emergency Alert System

August 5, 2026 by 35 Comments

Once upon a time, telephones were primarily point-to-point communications systems. There were options for three-way and conference calls out there, but by and large the plain old telephone system was about connecting one handset to another for a direct conversation. For this reason, the telephone was seldom used for mass emergency communications, because it was simply not fit for broadcasting a message to a wide number of people.

However, technology has since changed. Our modern phones are all connected to a big digital over-the-air network, and large swathes of them can be addressed all at once if so needed. This has led to the development of emergency warning systems that use the cellular network, with Cell Broadcast being the most notable iteration.

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Tearing Down Aircraft Weather Radar Avionics

August 4, 2026 by 1 Comment

If you’re flying high in the sky, it’s useful to know if there’s turbulence, heavy rain, or other nasty weather ahead. Onboard weather radar is a useful tool that pilots use to scope out conditions ahead. [Thomas Scherrer] came into possession of a weather radar display from a vintage aircraft, and decided to tear it apart for our viewing pleasure. 

The unit in question is a Bendix PPI-1 plan position indicator. This particular 1971 example was scored from a McDonnell-Douglas DC9. [Thomas] only has the display itself, not the radar that would feed it or the power supply to turn it on. Still, even just the readout unit is super interesting to look inside. Right off the bat, there’s a neat dimming filter on the front, and the case itself is really beautifully designed for service. The design is very much of its time, full of neat wire harnesses and chunky through-hole components.  There are some neat surprises inside, too, like an interesting device shaped like a triangular prism whose purpose we won’t spoil here.

If you’re wondering what one of these units looks like in action, you can see such an example on YouTube. The display basically lights up in areas where there were stronger radar returns indicating weather to be avoided.

We love radars around these parts, and we feature them all the time. Video after the break.

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Road Trains Roam The Backroads Of Australia

August 4, 2026 by 34 Comments

Trains and the railways they run on are a great way to move lots of stuff, or lots of people, a long way. Steel wheels on steel rail can shift great loads at good speeds and railways remain a backbone of logistics for this very reason. The only problem is that they require a great deal of initial investment to build and plenty of maintenance to keep them functional over time.

These concerns can make a railway a difficult proposition when it comes to getting large amounts of goods in and out of remote areas. It’s a problem that Australia faces, with settlements far off the beaten track that are nevertheless in need of high-throughput freight connections. And if you can’t go rail, you go road… in a big way.

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A Versatile PDP-11/70 Emulator

August 3, 2026 by 8 Comments

The PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer that was very influential in its time. That’s what inspired [vanheusden] to start working on an emulator for the machine in 2018, which has since been developed to run on a wide variety of platforms. 

The emulator, named “Kek,” is quite capable, able to run Unix 5 up to an d including Unix 7 in multi-user mode, along with BSD 2.11 Unix depending on what it’s running on. It also supports classic hardware like RK05, RL02, RP06, and RP07 disks, the KW11-L line time clock, and the DC-11 serial line interface. The emulator can also run on a wide variety of platforms. It’s possible to run it on a standard Linux machine if so desired, or you can run it on BSD, MacOS, or Windows if so desired. Beyond that, you can even get it going on a Teensy 4.1 or an ESP32 if that’s more your jam. Modern microcontrollers are just that powerful that emulating a PDP-11/70 just isn’t a challenge anymore.

We love seeing old machines emulated and brought back to life. It’s funny to see how often it’s done on microcontrollers instead of full-scale PCs these days, too. Video after the break.

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Circuit Bending, But Make It MIDI

August 3, 2026 by 2 Comments

Circuit bending is a chaotic art. At its simplest, it can just involve making connections between random points on a circuit board to create weird sounds in musical hardware. Or, you can complicate things, get really specific with your hookups, and twist them with various sorts of modulation. [Simon the Magpie] has been working on something closer to the latter category, with his neat project to add MIDI to the circuit bending world. 

The concept is straightforward enough. [Simon] has created a device that you place in line with your circuit bent connections, particularly those that create pitch bends with pots thanks to their variable resistance. You can then play your MIDI keyboard, and the device will vary the resistance in the circuit and bend the pitch at your command. [Simon] simply calls the device MIDI TO RESISTANCE, because that’s… precisely what it does, with the aid of a digital potentiometer. He then demonstrates it doing its thing on pitchbent toys, and it sounds pretty radical in use.

If you’re trying to make your circuit bent toys and instruments more musical, this build should serve as a great inspiration. We’ve featured other oddball musical hacks in a similarly creative vein before, too—such as using mixers as a synthesizer in their own right. Have fun out there.

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Child-Friendly Music Player Uses RFID

August 3, 2026 by 10 Comments

[David] has a young child who is clever enough to use a computer to play music, but he doesn’t quite want to hand over the mouse just yet. Thus, he set about building an electronic music player that could be operated in an altogether simpler fashion. 

The build is based around an Arduino Nano — its job is to read RFID tags via an RC522 reader, with the tags themselves embedded in a series of small dolls belonging to [David]’s daughter. Upon reading the tag, the Arduino Nano chats over serial with a DFPlayer Mini module, which reads a playlist of MP3 files off of an SD card and plays them over a small 4 ohm speaker that [David] had laying around. It’s a simple build, with the components all neatly wrapped up in a handsome wooden case with a volume control and a skip button for if any one song becomes too annoying for a repeat listen.

We’ve featured other builds in this vein before, too. There’s something satisfying about a music player with such a simple interface—no delicate media to fiddle with, just pop the toy on top and get the playlist you were looking for. If you’re creating your own little musical builds at home, we’d love to see them on the tipsline.