Maiden Kansas City Keyboard Meetup Was A Clacking Good Time

August 30, 2022 by 10 Comments

Wow! I can’t believe it already came and went — but the first annual (semi-annual?) Kansas City Keyboard Meetup was, in my opinion, a rousing success. And I think organizer and Discord-nominated god among men [Ricardo] agrees with me. (He does; I checked before we left the venue.)

First of all, the attendance was off the charts, perhaps thanks in part to our announcement last week. We aim to get you the news sooner next time, in case you want to come in from surrounding states and municipalities. RSVPs sat around 20-something, and then shot up to 60 or so in the days leading up. Fortunately, there were enough tiny sandwiches, granola bars, and s t i c k e r s to go around. I already put mine on my keebin’ toolbox.

The Hive Was Buzzing

The event took place at Hive Co-Working thanks to [Nick], and overall, the space turned out to be a good layout. We were set up right inside the windows looking out to the street, and I like to think that we drew in a few passers-by, though I am probably more than a little bit biased. I wondered aloud on the way home how a sandwich board out on the sidewalk would have affected the influx of randos.

My husband pointed out that even though we were all the way downtown, this is Kansas City and not New York City, and most of the keyboard enthusiasts about town were already accounted for. Hmpf. I still say we should try a sandwich board next time. We could go meta and mention the tiny sandwiches inside. Don’t worry — there was plenty of sanitizer and napkins to go around, plus a box of gloves.

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Overwhelmed By Odd Inputs: The Contest Winners And More

July 13, 2022 by 1 Comment

The Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals Contest wrapped up last week, and our judges have been hard at work sifting through their favorite projects. And this was no easy task – we had 75 entries and so many of them were cool in their own right that all we can say is go check them all out. Really.

But we had to pick winners, not the least because Digi-Key put up three $150 gift certificates. So without further ado, here are the top three projects and as many honorable mentions as you have fingers and toes – if you don’t count your thumbs.

The Prize Winners

Keybon should be a mainstream commercial product. It’s a macro keypad with an OLED screen per key. It talks to an application on your desktop that detects the program that you currently have focused, and adapts the keypress action and the OLED labels to match. It’s a super-slick 3D-printed design to boot. It’s the dream of the Optimus Maximus, but made both DIY and significantly more reasonable as a macro pad. It’s the coolest thing to have on your desk, and it’s a big winner!

On the ridiculous side of keyboards, meet the Cree-board. [Matt] says he got the idea of using beefy COB LEDs as keycaps from the bad pun in the name, but we love the effect when you press down on the otherwise blinding light – they’re so bright that they use your entire meaty finger as a diffuser. Plus, it really does look like a keypad of sunny-side up eggs. It’s wacky, unique, and what’s not to love about that in a macropad?

Finally, [Josh EJ] turned an exercise bike into a wireless gamepad, obliterating the choice between getting fit and getting high scores by enabling both at the same time. An ESP32-turned-Bluetooth-gamepad is the brains, and he documents in detail how he hooked up a homebrew cadence sensor, used the heart-rate pads as buttons, and even added some extra controls on top. Watching clips of him pedaling his heart out in order to push the virtual pedal to the metal in GRID Autosport, we only wish he were screaming “vroooom”. Continue reading “Overwhelmed By Odd Inputs: The Contest Winners And More” →

Your Building’s RFID Access Tags Might Be Really Insecure

June 17, 2022 by 20 Comments

[Gabe Schuyler] had a frustrating problem when it came to getting into his building’s garage. The RFID access system meant he had to remove his gloves while sitting on his motorcycle to fish out the keytag for entry. He decided to whip up a better solution with less fuss.

His initial plan was to duplicate the keytag and to sew one into his gloves. Purchasing a 125 KHz RFID tag duplicator off eBay, he was able to quickly copy the tag, and create one that worked with his garage’s entry system. While the duplicate tags worked well, they were still too big to easily fit into a glove. Attempts to create a duplicate with a smaller tag failed, too. Eventually, [Gabe] turned up a ring complete with a compatible RFID chip, and was able to duplicate his entry tag onto that. Now, by wearing the ring, he can enter his garage and building with a simple wave of the hand, gloves on or off.

Of course, duplicating an RFID tag is no major hack. As per [Gabe]’s Shmoocon talk on the topic, however, it shows that many buildings are using completely insecure RFID access methods with little to no security whatsoever. Anyone that found an access tag lying on the ground could easily replicate as many as they wanted and enter the building unimpeded. It also bears noting that you can snoop RFID cards from further away than you might expect.

Art of 3D printer in the middle of printing a Hackaday Jolly Wrencher logo

3D Printering: Today’s Resins Can Meet Your Needs

June 13, 2022 by 27 Comments

Filament-based 3D printers spent a long time at the developmental forefront for hobbyists, but resin-based printers have absolutely done a lot of catching up, and so have the resins they use. It used to be broadly true that resin prints looked great but were brittle, but that’s really not the case anymore.

A bigger variety of resins and properties are available to hobbyists than ever before, so if that’s what’s been keeping you away, it’s maybe time for another look. There are tough resins, there are stiff resins, there are heat-resistant resins, and more. Some make casting easy, and some are even flexible. If your part or application needs a particular property, there is probably a resin for it out there.

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Better Robots Through Gallium

May 29, 2022 by 16 Comments

In the movie Terminator 2, the T-1000 robot was made of some kind of liquid metal that could change shape among other interesting things. According to a chemical engineer at North Carolina State University, there may be something to the idea. [Michael Dickey] has been experimenting with gallium, a liquid metal, that scientists think may unlock a new generation of flexible devices.

The most common liquid metal is mercury, of course, and it has its uses. However, its toxicity has led to a reduction in its use. Gallium has low toxicity and also doesn’t easily evaporate. What can you do with it? Check out the video below to see a very simple demonstration of the liquid metal lifting a small — very small — weight with an electrical impulse.

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Show Us Your Odd Inputs And Peculiar Peripherals!

May 24, 2022 by 17 Comments

Just as the Jedi youngling would have to build their light saber, so is it a rite of passage for a true geek to build their own computer interfaces. And nothing makes a personal computer more personal than a custom keyboard, a bespoke mouse, an omnipotent macropad, a snazzy jog wheel, or a fancy flight yoke.

In this contest, we encourage you to make your strangest, fanciest, flashiest, or most custom computer peripherals, and share that work with all the rest of us. Wired or wireless, weird or wonderful, we want to see it. And Digi-Key is sponsoring this contest to offer three winners an online shopping spree for $150 each at their warehouse! More parts, more projects.

Make It Yours

Anyone can just go out an buy a keyboard, but if you want a custom ergonomic keyboard that’s exactly fit to your own two hands, you probably have to make one with your own two hands. And if you an engraved brass mouse, well, you’ve got some engraving to do — Logitech ain’t gonna make one for you. Maybe you only type in binary, or maybe you need a keyboard for some alien language that has 450 individual letters. Or maybe the tiniest keyboard ever? You’ve got this. Continue reading “Show Us Your Odd Inputs And Peculiar Peripherals!” →

Learn Sign Language Using Machine Vision

April 30, 2022 by 9 Comments

Learning a new language is a great way to exercise the mind and learn about different cultures, and it’s great to have a native speaker around to improve the learning experience. Without one it’s still possible to learn via videos, books, and software though. The task does get much more complicated when trying to learn a language that isn’t spoken, though, like American Sign Language. This project allows users to learn the ASL alphabet with the help of computer vision and some machine learning algorithms.

The build uses a computer vision model in MobileNetV2 which is trained for each sign in the ASL alphabet. A sign is shown to the user on a screen, and the user needs to demonstrate the sign to the computer in order to progress. To do this, OpenCV running on a Raspberry Pi with a PiCamera is used to analyze the frames of the user in real-time. The user is shown pictures of the correct sign, and is rewarded when the correct sign is made.

While this only works for alphabet signs in ASL currently, the team at the University of Glasgow that built this project is planning on expanding it to include other signs as well. We have seen other machines built to teach ASL in the past, like this one which relies on a specialized glove rather than computer vision.

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