Today At Remoticon: Saturday Live Events

November 7, 2020 by 1 Comment

Hackaday Remoticon is a worldwide virtual conference happening now!

Public Livestreams (all times are PST, UTC-8):

Hackaday YouTube and Facebook Live:

Hackaday Twitch:

  • 6am SMD Challenge: Badge.team
  • 8:15am Solder Techniques Demonstration
  • 12pm SMD Challenge: Hackaday Writers
  • 2pm SMD Challenge: Remoticon Attendees (Heat 1)
  • 4pm SMD Challenge: Queercon Badge Team

Hackaday Twitch Two:

  • 12:00-2pm Demos
  • 5:30pm World Tour Robot

Training A Neural Network To Play A Driving Game

November 7, 2020 by 12 Comments

Often, when we think of getting a computer to complete a task, we contemplate creating complex algorithms that take in the relevant inputs and produce the desired behaviour. For some tasks, like navigating a car down a road, the sheer multitude of input data and its relationship to the desired output is so complex that it becomes near-impossible to code a solution. In these cases, it can make more sense to create a neural network and train the computer to do the job, as one would a human. On a more basic level, [Gigante] did just that, teaching a neural network to play a basic driving game with a genetic algorithm.

The game consists of a basic top-down 2D driving game. The AI is given the distance to the edge of the track along five lines at different angles projected from the front of the vehicle. The AI also knows its speed and direction. Given these 7 numbers, it calculates the outputs for steering, braking and acceleration to drive the car.

To train the AI, [Gigante] started with 650 AIs, and picked the best performer, which just barely managed to navigate the first two corners. Marking this AI as the parent of the next generation, the AIs were iterated with random mutations. Each generation showed some improvement, with [Gigante] picking the best performers each time to parent the next generation. Within just four iterations, some of the cars are able to complete a full lap. With enough training, the cars are able to complete the course at great speed without hitting the walls at all.

It’s a great example of machine learning and the use of genetic algorithms to improve fitness over time. [Gigante] points out that there’s no need for a human in the loop either, if the software is coded to self-measure the fitness of each generation. We’ve seen similar techniques used to play Mario, too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Training A Neural Network To Play A Driving Game” →

Wearable Sensors On Your Skin

November 7, 2020 by 10 Comments

An international team at Penn State led by [Larry Cheng] made a breakthrough in printing sensors directly on skin without heat. The breakthrough here is the development of a room-temperature sintering technique. Typical sintering of copper happens at 300 C, and can be further lowered to 100 C by adding nanoparticles. But even 100 C is too hot, since skin starts to burn at around 40 C.

You can obtain their journal article if you want the details, but basically their technique combines the ingredients in peelable face masks and eggshells. With this printed circuit is applied to the skin, the sintering process only requires a hair dryer on the cool setting, and results can bend and fold without breaking the connections. A hot shower will remove the circuit without damaging the circuit or your skin. [Larry] says the circuits can be recycled.

They are using these sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, blood oxygen levels, and heart performance indicators. They’ve even linked these various on-body sensors with a WiFi network for ease of monitoring. After reading this report, we’re left wondering, if the sensor is directly on your skin, can it be really called wearable?

We’ve written about printable inks before, but for printed circuit board applications.  We can’t help but wonder if this technology would help solve some problems inherent in that technology, as well. Thanks to [Qes] for the tip.

Procedurally Generated Retrocomputer Emulators

November 6, 2020 by 4 Comments

[Marquis de Geek] has a profound love of old systems. Tired of writing new emulators from scratch for each project, his newest project EMF generates the emulator for him. An XML document describes the layout of the memory, CPU description, and screen handler. The output is currently a single-page Javascript emulator application with an assembly and a dissembler. However, but that backend can easily be swapped to another language such as Rust or C++.

Since EMF is a framework that provides a common way to describe the emulated machine, you get a common emulator user interface for free. There’s a lot of flexibility offered here as well. Opcodes can be implemented as a large switch statement or individual functions, depending on the target language’s performance. Self-modifying code can be detected and handled separately. Custom features or hardware can be injected easily by writing a module in the target language.

While the source code for the EMF hasn’t been released yet, several of the machines that [Marquis de Geek] has built with EMF are open-source on GitHub. So far the list includes Dragon32, Sinclair ZX80, Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Elliott 903, Chip8, Cosmac VIP, and the MegaProcessor. Each has a live emulator that runs in your browser.

While [Marquis de Geek] hopes to release a binary version of the EMF soon, we’re very much looking forward to the EMF source coming out once the code has been cleaned up. We love the trend towards creating easier and more accessible emulators, such as this Twitter bot that runs Atari programs.

Continue reading “Procedurally Generated Retrocomputer Emulators” →

Spider Silk, Spider Silk, Made Using A Strain Of Yeast

November 6, 2020 by 25 Comments

Companies spend thousands developing a project for the market, hoping their investment will return big. Investing like this happens every day and won’t shock anyone. What may surprise you is someone who spends more than a decade and thousands of their own dollars to make an open-source version of a highly-marketable product. In this case, we’re talking about genetically modified yeast that produces spider silk. If that sounds like a lead-in to some Spiderman jokes and sci-fi references, you are correct on both accounts. [Justin Atkin] had some geneticist work under his belt when he started, so he planned to follow familiar procedures like extracting black widow DNA, isolating and copying the silk genes, and pasting them into a yeast strain. Easy peasy, right? Naturally, good science doesn’t happen overnight.

There are a few contenders for the strongest spider silk among which the golden silk orb-weaver gets the most attention, but the black widow’s webbing is nearly as strong, and [Justin] is happy to wear black widow inspired bling, whereas the golden orb-weaver looks like it crawled out of Starship Troopers. His first attempt to extract DNA starts with a vial of preserved nightmare fuel spider specimens because that is a thing you can just go online and buy. Sadly, they were candied in alcohol, and that obliterates DNA, so he moved to dried specimens from breeders, which also failed to produce results, and those were just the landmark hangups.

Continue reading “Spider Silk, Spider Silk, Made Using A Strain Of Yeast” →

Gorgeous Perfboard Build Puts 1-Bit Controller Back To Work

November 6, 2020 by 16 Comments

Eight-bit computers are all the retro rage these days, with people rushing to build computers either from chips like the 6502 or the Z80, or even recreating these chips from a collection of TTL logic chips. And while we respect and covet those builds immensely, 8-bit computers aren’t the only game going on. To wit we present this lovely single-board computer sporting a 1-bit CPU.

The machine, which creator [Simon Boak] cheekily dubs “the world’s least-powerful computer,” is based on the Motorola MC14500B, a chip from the 1970s that was aimed at the industrial controls market. There, the chip’s limited instruction set and narrow bus width were not as limiting as they would be in a general-purpose computer. In fact, since the chip requires an external program counter, it offers a great degree of design flexibility. [Simon] chose a 4-bit address space, but with a little wizardry he was able to get eight bits of input in the form of DIP switches and eight bits of output LEDs. It’s not good for much past making lights blink, but it does that with nary an Arduino in view — although it does sport a couple of 555s.

[Simon]’s goal for the build was simply to build cool from an unusual chip, and we think he succeeded. In fact, we can’t recall seeing a neater perfboard build — it’s almost to the level of circuit sculpture. We especially like the hybrid solder and wirewrap construction. We’ve seen builds based on this chip before, but never one so neat and attractive.

[via r/electronics]

Mix It Up With A Multi-Volume Controller

November 6, 2020 by 2 Comments

What’s the use of waiting around for something to break in order to hack into something else? As long as it’s just sitting around not being used, who cares? [OmniSaiRen] had a  Behringer MIDI controller just taking up space. Instead of selling it, they decided to build it into something they would definitely use — a multi-volume controller with mute keys and other useful macros.

After gutting the case, [OmniSaiRen] gave it a couple coats of glossy white paint that looks really nice with the black keycaps and knobs. The plan was to use the original encoders, but [OmniSaiRen] replaced them with potentiometers when they couldn’t get the encoders working with the Arduino Nano. We are sad to report that Cherry Blues only made it to the build because they have all black housings and were also lying around taking up space, but maybe [OmniSaiRen] will grow to love them.

If you’re tired of all the mousing and clicking it takes to turn down this or that volume, you need to build one of these things. It runs on deej, an open source volume mixer that works with Linux and Windows, so what are you waiting for? If you only want a single hardware volume knob, you can’t go wrong dialing it in rotary style.

Via r/duino