Ask Hackaday: What Ever Happened To The Hero Nerd?

June 17, 2026 by 2 Comments

Knowing absolutely nothing about you other than the fact that you’re currently reading Hackaday, I can predict with a high degree of certainty that we’re both fond of at least a few of the same movies. That’s not to say they’re necessarily our favorite works of art. Indeed, in some cases they may even be objectively bad films. But the memory of them has stuck with us — and by extension nearly everyone else in the hacker and maker community — for decades.

Even if you don’t remember all the little details, you’ll never forget the names: movies like WarGames, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and Short Circuit. Stories that showed smart people using their intellect and a bit of cobbled together hardware to triumph over the bad guys. The tech wasn’t always believable, sometimes it was downright farcical. But they made it seem real, and by the end of the story when they won the day using brains and a soldering iron rather than fists or a gun, the minutia of how it all worked wasn’t really that important anyway.

It’s not a stretch to say that films such as these helped put many of us on a path towards science and technology. For those with an interest in more cerebral pursuits, seeing a scientist or an engineer save the day was hugely influential. How many engineers got their start watching Scotty frantically eke just a bit more power out of the Enterprise?

But as we recently discussed some of these classic movies behind the scenes here at Hackaday, it struck us that all of the best examples we could come up with were now 20, 30, or even 40 years old. That’s not to say there aren’t a few contemporary standouts, but they mostly seem to be biopics or other historical dramatizations which don’t quite scratch the same itch. Even so, none of them appear to have had the cultural impact necessary to stand the test of time in the same way their predecessors have.

So where have all of Hollywood’s heroic nerds gone, and what does it mean for future generations if these niche role models are no longer represented?

Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: What Ever Happened To The Hero Nerd?” →

Figure showing the simulated path of gas released in GEO to the magentosheath.

An Orbital StormWall Could Mitigate The Next Carrington Event

June 17, 2026 by 17 Comments

The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded. In September 1859, auroras were visible as close to the equator as Columbia and some telegraph stations were severely damaged by current induced in the lines. If a similar event occurred today, with a lot more more wiring to pick up current than just an embryonic telegraph network, the results would almost certainly be cataclysmic.

Various modifications to the grid have been proposed to avoid another storm of that magnitude bringing on a new dark age, but a recent paper in the journal Space Weather proposes a more radical solution: using the sun’s energy to create a massive barricade in space.

Time evolution of a simulated geomagnetic storm, with and without the StormWall.

While the authors of the paper refer to this concept by the compelling name StormWall, it’s not a physical wall. It’s actually just gas, likely of alkali metal atoms, to be deployed by solar-powered satellites.

To oversimplify, the proposal is to release lots and lots of neutral gas in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), in what the researchers call “artificial mass loading” — the neutral gas would of course be ionized by the storm, but in so doing could absorb up to 50% of the incoming energy of the geomagnetic storm, frustrating its coupling to Earth’s magnetosphere. As a bonus, it would protect not just terrestrial assets like the power grid, but everything in a lower orbit than the mass load: everything from communication satellites in GEO to the International Space Station. Assuming its hasn’t been reduced to debris laying at the bottom of Point Nemo by then, anyway.

In simulations, the StormWall required 384,048 kg of gas, which is not exactly trivial. But even accounting for tanking, the researchers estimate that would only take about six launches of SpaceX’s Starship. Though that does assume its GEO capabilities end up being roughly equivalent to the massive vehicle’s projected 100-tons-to-Mars payload capacity.

It’s certainly an interesting hack to solve a problem that has caused a lot of worry these past decades. If you’re interested in learning more about the record-setting geomagnetic storm, we have a piece about the 1859 Carrington Event that should give you plenty of anxiety about the frailty of our modern infrastructure.

Building An Organic Flow Battery Based On Green Tea

June 17, 2026 by 3 Comments

As simple of a concept flow batteries are, the used chemicals can still be somewhat problematic in the context of a school experiment. To this end [Markus Bindhammer] decided to implement a flow battery version that uses compounds from green tea for its electrolyte, based on a German research paper from 2016.

The flow battery construction from the paper by Rosenberg et al., 2016.

These organic flow batteries can use gallic acid, pyrogallol as well as the polyphenols in green tea, making them rather safe even in the hands of more careless students. The demonstrated flow battery uses a carbon electrode with activated carbon around it to increase surface area, a platinum wire electrode, and a graphite foil as third electrode.

In the paper a silver electrode is also used, along with the additional electrodes, and a terracotta flower pot as the barrier between the carbon and graphite electrodes, with [Markus] further explaining that there are fortunately cheaper options than what he is using, especially with the flower pot instead of a special ceramic vessel.

The electrolyte solution has epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) dissolved in it, which here comes in the form of finely ground green tea powder (commonly known as matcha), which so happens to be pretty rich in this substance. In the below graphic by [Markus] you can see the complete set of solutions and other relevant details.

Of course, the performance of this type of flow cell isn’t amazing, with a cell voltage of less than a volt and a few mA of current, but it’s enough to spin a small fan, and to light up a few LEDs. This would be more than enough to demonstrate the reaction and flow cells in general, as long as you don’t mind donating some tasty matcha to science.

Continue reading “Building An Organic Flow Battery Based On Green Tea” →

Security Camera Gets Several Defensive Upgrades

June 16, 2026 by 8 Comments

Ever since the early web, people have been streaming video with inexpensive webcams, and since the advent of the Raspberry Pi and its dedicated camera slot we’ve really seen how easy it can be to build security cameras or any other webcam and get it online quickly. But these cameras notably lack defensive capabilities if anyone tries to break into an area they shouldn’t be, and [John] added some features to this webcam to help defend his garage.

The webcam itself is a custom build, mounted on a custom-built tilt-and-pan mount that lets it freely rotate to view any location in the garage. Some custom software running on a Raspberry Pi lets it operate in autonomous mode or be controlled manually from an Android tablet. But for the defensive capabilities, it also carries a Nerf machine gun with a laser sight and spotlights which can all be controlled autonomously by the Raspberry Pi, including a computer vision system that lets it track various objects. While this is mostly a fun novelty for his security camera, the noise it makes might be enough to startle any would-be burglar.

[John] added a few other features to this build as well, including a speaker, which allows the system to be voice-controlled and to communicate back to the user. This lets him activate and deactivate the system using a verbal password. These types of Nerf guns are fairly popular for turrets as well, and some have practical uses as well like keeping cats from walking on the kitchen counters.

Continue reading “Security Camera Gets Several Defensive Upgrades” →

The Problem Of Making A Good Metal-To-Glass Seal

June 16, 2026 by 7 Comments

If you’ve ever taken a close look at a vacuum tube, you’ll have seen the seals around the pins that keep everything air-tight while providing the the device’s electrical contacts. As [maurycyz] finds out, it’s not an easy process to get right.

The problem is one of both chemistry and thermal expansion, as while a good seal can be made between glass and red copper oxide, it remains very difficult indeed to stop the glass cracking on cooldown due to differing thermal expansion properties. We’re led through a variety of experiments including surface treatments and flattening the metal to a sheet, with varying pros and cons. The most successful seal on the page comes from very thin tungsten wire, though hardly the most practical conductor for a vacuum tube.

It’s a fascinating investigation for the casual reader, taking them into the properties of metal-glass bonds and the difficulties involved in making them. We have even more respect for the people who make their own tubes after reading it.

Smart Bulb WiFi Server Hosts “Banned” Literature

June 16, 2026 by 15 Comments

Let’s stop for a moment and pause to consider the smart bulb. Imagine going back 20 years and telling yourself that people will be putting computers capable of acting as web servers into light bulbs just so they can control them from their telephone instead of hitting the switch. The whole thing seems crazy — but its great, because it enables hacks like this one where [RickOOOOOO] takes a commercially-available ESP32 smart bulb, and hacks it into a local file server and digital library for banned books.

The word “banned” gets bandied about a lot — but assured, there’s nothing getting served up by [RickOOOOOO]’s bulb that’s going to help somebody will ill-intent build an improvised explosive device.  No, at least as conceived here, it appears to be full of easily-available e-books that were pulled from school libraries in the USA, which may-or-may not meet your personal definition of ‘banned’. Whatever you want to call them, we appreciate the idea that a student could hypothetically replace one of the bulbs at school with a hacked version serving up that sort of content. a bulb in such a school with a bulb hacked to host that sort of content–in minecraft, naturally.

In any case, the hardest part of the hack was carving the ESP32C3 in the bulb out of the IoToreo bulb enough to access it. Unfortunately having done so, [Rick] wasn’t able to get an SDcard interface soldered on, so he’s stuck with just 4MB for books and webserver. That means only a few epubs can fit on the bulb, but it’s better than those books being unavailable.

Like the solarpunk message board we featured recently, which also ran on an ESP32, the bulb broadcasts a public network that uses a captive portal to take you to the web interface of the library. From there, users can browse books– including learning from where they were banned and why–and admins can access a password-protected control panel. One neat work-in-progress feature on the control panel is that the bulb can still be used as a smart bulb, so you can try and match the light to its surroundings. In Minecraft, because of course we would never encourage kids to change light bulbs. Perish the thought!

Speaking of Minecraft, you can run a server on a lightbulb, too. Or DOOM, because of course even the light bulbs run DOOM now. What a time to be alive!

An image of a miniature diorama of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. On the left is a more detailed 1/6 scale model with a tall, dark haired Snow White and dwarves with red caps and tan tunics. The image on the right is of a much smaller and less detailed set of miniatures. The figures's proportions are a little more uncanny and feel like a low budget Disney rip-off.

How Did They Make View-Master Slides?

June 16, 2026 by 13 Comments

The basics of producing a stereophotograph of real life places were well-established by the time the View-Master arrived, but producing images of imaginary scenes was a bit more involved. [View Master Travels and Peter Dibble] took a look at how the fairy tale and media tie-in reels may have been made.

Starting with simple dioramas, View-Master eventually developed an entire team to work on fairy tales. One of the most influential members was sculptor [Florence Thomas]. She was instrumental in updating many of the original fairy tale reels from small scale miniatures to 1/6 scale dioramas for the scenes. Unfortunately, the department was eventually cut and all the original miniatures thrown away.

Before VCRs, View-Master was the primary way people could interact with their favorite TV shows and movies when they weren’t being broadcast. TV shows could be photographed while in production in Hollywood with a stereo camera giving great visual detail. Some cartoon and movie reels were less engaging, having been made from promotional images, giving more of a paper cutout appearance rather than “real” 3D. In either case, many of these visual techniques have been lost with little documentation on how they were achieved.

We previously covered [View Master Travels and Peter Dibble]’s History of the View-Master and how you can digitize the disks for posterity.

Continue reading “How Did They Make View-Master Slides?” →