World Create Day: A Meetup Across The Americas

April 19, 2016 by 9 Comments

This Saturday, April 23, we’re hosting a worldwide Hackaday meetup called World Create Day, and we want you to be a part of it. The 2016 Hackaday Prize is all about solving technology problems, and if you’re looking for an excuse to meet up with a few fellow tinkerers, this is it.

wcd-na-saRight now, we have dozens of Hackaday meetup hosts planning their own get together. It’s six continents of awesome, and that’s only because winter is starting to set in on Antarctica. Today we’re taking a closer look at what’s lined up in North and South America. We have meetups from the shores of Venezuela to the birthplace of the worst president the United States has ever had. We have meetups in Baltimore and El Paso, and from Silicon Valley to New York City.

The goal for these meetups is to find fellow hackers and tinkerers, suss out a few ideas on what you’re working on, and start a project for The Hackaday Prize. We’re wrapping up the first stage of The Hackaday Prize, Design Your Concept this coming Monday, where all you need is an idea. Saturday’s World Create Day is the perfect time to brainstorm your tech solution with some friends and get it submitted ahead of the deadline. If you have an idea for the next great Internet of Things, an application for the RISC architecture that is gonna change everything, or just want to show off your flubber prototype, this is the event to go to.

This is the opportunity to find some like-minded hackers in your neck of the woods, and it’s not an event to miss. If you’re looking for a meetup in your area, check out the map here. If you’re interested in hosting one of these shindigs, fill out this form and we’ll set you up.

We’ll take a closer look at the meetups planned on other continents as the week progresses. If you’re still thinking of getting your own meetup on the map, now’s the time!

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Mike Harrison Exposes Hot Oil And High Voltage Of Ancient Live Projector

April 19, 2016 by 46 Comments

It’s amazing how quickly a technological pivot will erase the existence of what was previously a modern marvel. A great example of this is the live video projection technology known as the Eidophor. In the beginning there was film, and if you shined a light through it followed by a set of lenses you could project an image for all to enjoy. But what if you didn’t want to wait for film to be developed? What if you wanted to project live video, or real-time data for a room full of people who could not be served by even the biggest of the cathode-ray tubes of the time? This question led to the development of the Eidophor whose story has been all but lost.

Mike Harrison is trying to revive the details of this amazing engineering feat and presented his findings during his talk at the Hackaday | Belgrade conference. Mike is interested in technology that is “impractical, ridiculous, absurd, or stupidly expensive” and the Eidophor certainly ticks all of those boxes. Check it out below and join us after the break where we’ll touch on the myriad challenges of developing projection technology based on hot oil and high voltage.

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Super Thin Display Makes Your Skin Your Screen

April 19, 2016 by 28 Comments

Researchers in Japan have created a 3-micrometer display that looks like plastic wrap and can make any part of your skin into an electronic display. The idea isn’t new, but this display is far thinner and more durable than previous devices. It also lasts longer (several days) and has increased brightness.

The display uses polymer LEDs to form a seven-segment digit, so you aren’t going to stream Netflix to the back of your hand anytime soon.  However, the team wants to build more advanced displays that could one day replace smartwatch or smartphone screens.

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The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: Cloning Open-Source Hardware

April 19, 2016 by 79 Comments

We’re great proponents (and beneficiaries) of open-source hardware here at Hackaday. It’s impossible to overstate the impact that the free sharing of ideas has had on the hacker hardware scene. Plus, if you folks didn’t write up the cool projects that you’re making, we wouldn’t have nearly as much to write about.

We also love doing it ourselves. Whether this means actually etching the PCB or just designing it ourselves and sending it off to the fab, we’re not the types to pick up our electronics at the Buy More (except when we’re planning to tear them apart). And when we don’t DIY, we like our electrons artisanal because we like to support the little guy or girl out there doing cool design work.

So it’s with a moderately heavy heart that we’ll admit that when it comes to pre-built microcontroller and sensor boards, I buy a lot of cheap clones. Some of this is price sensitivity, to be sure. If I’m making many different one-off goofy projects, it just doesn’t make sense to pay the original-manufacturer premium over and over again for each one. A $2 microcontroller board just begs to be permanently incorporated into give-away projects in a way that a $20 board doesn’t. But I’m also positively impressed by some of the innovation coming out of some of the clone firms, to the point that I’m not sure that the “clone” moniker is fair any more.

This article is an attempt to come to grips with innovation, open source hardware, and the clones. I’m going to look at these issues from three different perspectives: the firm producing the hardware, the hacker hobbyist purchasing the hardware, and the innovative hobbyist who just wants to get a cool project out to as many people as possible. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but can cloning go too far? To some extent, it depends on where you’re sitting.

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Box ‘o Bangs, A 2,180J Capacitor Bank

April 19, 2016 by 35 Comments

What happens when you wire up 16 capacitors? Sixteen 2500V 40uF capacitors to be precise… [Lemming] calls it the Box ‘O Bangs. Theoretically it outputs 4000A at 2500V for a split second.

They bought the capacitors off of eBay, and they appear to be good quality BOSCH ones, straight from Germany. They were apparently used for large-scale industrial photo-flashes, but who knows since they’re from eBay.

Soldering it all together proved to be a challenge, as once they realized just how many amps this thing was going to put out, they needed some thick wire. It looks like about 2ga wire, which, spoiler alert, still isn’t enough for 4000A — but since it’s only for a split second it seems to do fine.

Once everything was built, it was time for some scientific tests — what can we put between the leads to explode? Stay tuned for some slow-motion glory.

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Morse Code Waterfall Is Cooler Than Your Fifth Grade Science Fair Project

April 19, 2016 by 36 Comments

For her science fair project, [David]’s daughter had thoughts about dipping eggs in coffee, or showing how dangerous soda is to the unsuspecting tooth. Boring. Instead she employed her father to help her build a Morse Code waterfall.

A more civilized wea-- tool from a more elegant age. Young Jed--engineer.
A more civilized wea– tool from a more elegant age. Young Jed–Engineer.

[David] worked with his daughter to give her the lego bricks of knowledge needed, but she did the coding, building, and, apparently, wire-wrapping herself. Impressive!

She did the trick with two Arduinos. One controls a relay that dumps a stream of water. The other watches with an optical interrupt made from an infrared emitter and detector pair to get the message.

To send a message, type it in the keyboard. The waterfall will drop spurts of water, and then show the message on the decoder display. Pretty cool. We also liked the pulse length dial. The solution behind the LEDs is pretty clever. Video after the break.

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Custom Media Player Helps Hacker’s Autistic Son

April 18, 2016 by 39 Comments

Getting to play with technology is often the only justification a hacker needs to work on a build. But when your build helps someone, especially your own special-needs kid, hacking becomes a lot more that playing. That’s what’s behind this media player customized for the builder’s autistic son.

People generally know that the symptoms of autism cover a broad range of behaviors and characteristics that center around socialization and communication. But a big component of autism spectrum disorders is that kids often show very restricted interests. While [Alain Mauer] doesn’t go into his son [Scott]’s symptoms, our guess is that this media player is a way to engage his interests. The build came about when [Alain] was unable to find a commercially available media player that was simple enough for his son to operate and sturdy enough to put up with some abuse. A Raspberry Pi came to the rescue, along with the help of some custom piezo control buttons, a colorful case, and Shin Chan. The interface allows [Scott] to scroll through a menu of cartoons and get a preview before the big show. [Scott] is all smiles in the video below, and we’ll bet [Alain] is too.

Pi-based media player builds are a dime a dozen on Hackaday, but one that helps kids with autism is pretty special. The fact that we’ve only featured a few projects aimed at autistics, like this 2015 Hackaday Prize entry, is surprising. Maybe you can come up with something like [Alain]’s build for the 2016 Hackaday Prize.

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