Rubber Band Behemoth Winds Its Way Toward World Record

October 6, 2022 by 25 Comments

Egged on by adoring fans who demanded more aircraft videos, [ProjectAir] has decided to break the world record for rubber band powered aircraft… despite having never built a rubber band powered aircraft. Why rubber band power?

Before little two stroke motors became affordable, and long before electric motors and batteries were remotely possible, there weren’t a lot of options for powering your model aircraft. One technology that really took off was that of rubber band power. By winding a rubber band, it could store enough energy to turn a propeller for a short duration. With a 10 foot model taking the current world record, as you can see in the video below the break [ProjectAir] decided to see if he could beat it.

Rubber Band Powered Free Flight c1915 By Unknown author –

Starting with a successful free flight aircraft made of foam board, [ProjectAir] simply scaled it up to an eleven foot wing- one foot larger than the ten foot world record holder. Since there were now eight rubber band motors, a mechanism was created to release the propellers in sync, but this was problematic. Eventually a slightly heavy but solid solution was found.

[ProjectAir] did more testing, more problem solving, and through rapid iterations, he eventually was able to have a successful flight under radio control. His personal goal of a 12 second flight was exceeded, and then Guinness called! They’re interested in certifying his attempt as long as his plane can fly for at least 30 seconds- almost double his current ability. What will he do? Check the video, too, for [ProjectAir]’s challenge to the community to join him in trying to beat the world record. Sounds like fun!

Aside from powering world record attempting radio controlled aircraft, did you know that you can build a rubber band powered refrigerator? It’s true!

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Exploring The Cutting Edge Of Desktop ARM Hardware

October 6, 2022 by 35 Comments

While the x86 architecture certainly isn’t going away anytime soon, it seems that each year more and more of our computing is done on ARM processors. It started with our smartphones, spread into low-cost Chromebooks, and now Apple’s gone all-in with their M1/M2 chips. But so far we haven’t seen too much movement in the desktop space, a fact which has arguably slowed the development of ARM-compatible software and operating systems.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t options out there, and no, we don’t mean using a Raspberry Pi. [Wooty-B] has been documenting their efforts to switch over to a ARM desktop, which makes for fascinating reading even if you’re currently comfortable with your architecture choices. The key is the HoneyComb LX2K, a Mini-ITX ARM development board that offers enough expansion and raw power to meet most daily computing needs…assuming you’re willing to put in the effort. Continue reading “Exploring The Cutting Edge Of Desktop ARM Hardware” →

Seven Segments, But Not As We Know Them

October 6, 2022 by 11 Comments

We’ve seen a lot of clever re-imagining of the classic 7-segment display, and proving there is still room for something new is [Jack]’s 7-segment “DigiTag” display.

This 3D printable device has a frame into which is slotted three sliders. These sliders can be adjusted individually, mixing and matching the visibility of colored and uncolored areas, to create digits 0-9. We’ve seen some unusual 7-segment-inspired displays before, using from one motor for the whole digit to ones that need one motor per segment, but nothing quite like this approach.

While this particular design relies on the user to manually “dial in” each digit, the resulting key-like assembly (and unique shape for each digit) seems like it could have some interesting applications — a puzzle box design comes to mind.

If you have any ideas of your own on how this could be used, don’t keep them to yourself! Let us know in the comments, below.

Git Your PCBs Online

October 6, 2022 by 16 Comments

Last time, I’ve shown you how to create a local Git repository around your PCB project. That alone provides you with local backups, helping you never lose the changes you make to your files, and always be able to review the history of your project as it developed.

However, an even more significant part of Git’s usefulness is the ability to upload our creations to one of the various online Git repository hosting services, and keep it up to date at all times with a single shell command. I’d like to show you how to upload your project to GitHub and GitLab, in particular!

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Robot Blade Runner Turns In World Record Time

October 6, 2022 by 23 Comments

While we wish colleges and universities competed more on academics, we can’t deny that more people are interested in their athletics programs. Oregon State, however, has done a little of both since their bipedal robot, Cassie, became the world’s fastest bipedal robot according to the Guinness Book of World Records. You can see a video of the 100 meter run below, but don’t blink. The robot turned in a time of around 25 seconds.

Impressive, but still not on par with Usan Bolt’s time of under 10 seconds for the same distance. If you want to see what that would be like, try running the long way across a football field and see how far you get in 25 seconds. There isn’t a lot of technical detail about the robot, but you can intuit some things from watching it go. You can also find a little more information on the robot and some of its siblings on the University’s website.

If you think robots won’t ever run as well as humans, we used to think the same thing about playing chess. This doesn’t look like we normally envision a bipedal robot. Then again, there isn’t any reason robots have to look, or move, like we do.

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Immersive Cursive: Growing Up Loopy

October 6, 2022 by 28 Comments

Growing up, ours was a family of handwritten notes for every occasion. The majority were left on the kitchen counter next to the sink, or in a particular spot on the all-purpose table in the breakfast nook. Whether one was professing their familial love and devotion on the back of a Valpak coupon, or simply communicating an intent to be home before dinnertime, the words were generally immortalized in BiC on whatever paper was available, and timestamped for the reader’s information. You may have learned cursive in school, but I was born in it — molded by it. The ascenders and descenders betray you because they belong to me.

Both of my parents always seemed to be incapable of printing in anything other than all caps, so I actually preferred to see their cursive most of the time. As a result, I could copy read it quite easily from an early age. Well, I don’t think I ever had any hope of imitating Dad’s signature. But Mom’s on the other hand — like I said in the first installment, it was important for my signature to be distinct from hers, given that we have the same name — first, middle, and last. But I could probably still bust out her signature if it came down to something going on my permanent record.

While my handwriting was sort of naturally headed towards Mom’s, I was more interested in Dad’s style and that of my older brother. He had small caps handwriting down to an art, and my attempts to copy it have always looked angry and stilted by comparison. In addition, my brother’s cursive is lovely and quick, while still being legible.

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close-up image of a philodendron houseplant with electrodes attached, connected to a robot arm holding a machete

(Mostly) Harmless Houseplant Wields Machete

October 6, 2022 by 27 Comments

In a straight fight between a houseplant and a human, you might expect the plant to be at a significant disadvantage. So [David Bowen] has decided to even the odds a little by arming this philodendron with a robot arm and a machete.

The build is a little short on details but, from the video, it appears that adhesive electrodes have been attached to the leaves of the recently-empowered plant and connected directly to analog inputs of an Arduino Uno.  From there, the text tells us that the signals are mapped to movements of the industrial robot arm that holds the blade.

It’s not clear if the choice of plant is significant, but an unarmed philodendron appears to be otherwise largely innocuous, unless you happen to be a hungry rodent. We hope that there is also a means of disconnecting the power remotely, else this art installation could defend itself indefinitely! (or until it gets thirsty, at least.) We at Hackaday welcome our new leafy overlords.

We have covered the capabilities of plants before, and they can represent a rich seam of research for the home hacker.  They can tell you when they’re thirsty, but can they bend light to their will?  We even held a Plant Communication Hack Chat in 2021.

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