The French Built The Superconducting Hoverboard 4 Years Before Lexus

August 10, 2015 by James Hobson 27 Comments

The internet only just got over Lexus’ real working hover board, but as it turns out, a team of researchers from the University of Paris Diderot already built one, over 4 years ago (machine translation)!

Using the same principles as the hover board Lexus build, the researchers built a very expensive neodymium magnet track to test the board on. Only difference here is that they didn’t hide the magnets. The hover board itself was machined out of wood, and houses a large sealed metal tray which contains the superconducting bricks.

Pour in some liquid nitrogen through the funnel, and you’re ready to witness some of the quantum properties of superconductors! The board floats a few centimeters above the magnetic rails, and in their tests was able to lift people over 100 kg in weight (hint for most Americans… there are 2.2 pounds to one kilogram).

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DEF CON Vs IoT: On Hackability And Security

August 10, 2015 by Elliot Williams 16 Comments

Ahh DEF CON! One group of hackers shows off how they’ve broken into all sorts of cool devices and other hackers (ahem… “security professionals”) lament the fact that the first group were able to do so. For every joyous “we rooted the Nest thermostat, now we can have fun” there’s a doom-mongering “the security of network-connected IoT devices is totally broken!”.

And like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, these two sides of the hacker persona can coexist within the same individual. At Hackaday, we’re totally ~~paranoid~~ security conscious, but we also like to tinker with stuff. We believe that openness and security are best friends forever. If you can open it, you can see if it’s well-made inside, at least in principle. How do we reconcile this with the security professional’s demand for devices that only accept signed binary firmware updates so that they can’t be tampered with?

We’ve got no answers, but we’ve got plenty of questions. Read on, and let us know what you think.

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All The Unofficial Electronic Badges Of DEF CON

August 10, 2015 by Mike Szczys 26 Comments

2015 was the year of the unofficial hardware badge at DEF CON 23. There were a ton of different hardware badges designed for the love of custom electronics and I tried to catch up with the designer of each different badge. Here is the collection of images, video demos, and build details for each one I saw this weekend.

Whiskey Pirates

Gorgeous text treatment on back of this badge is indicative of [True’s] mastery

[TrueControl] did a great job with his badge design this year for the Whiskey Pirate Crew. This is a great update from the badge he designed last year, keeping the skull and bones outline. It uses a PSOC4 chip to control a ton of LEDs. The eyes are RGB pixels which are each on their own PCB that is soldered onto the back of the badge, with openings for the LED to show through. Two AA batteries power the board which has a surface-mount LED matrix. The user controls are all capacitive touch. There is a spinner around one eye, and pads for select and back. The NRF24L01 radio operates at 2.4GHz. This badge is slave to commands from last year’s badge. When the two are in the same area the 2015 badges will scroll the nickname of the 2014 badge it “sees”. The piezo element also chirps many different sounds based on the interactions with different badges.

[True] makes design an art form. The matte black solder mask looks fantastic, and he took great care in use of font, size, alignment, and things like letting copper show through for a really stunning piece of hardware art.

Keep reading for ten more great badges seen over the weekend.

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Hacking The Amazon Dash Button To Record Whatever You Want

August 10, 2015 by James Hobson 42 Comments

We’re still not too sure if the Amazon Dash button is a brilliant marketing and advertising ploy, or is just downright stupid. But what we do know, is for $5, it’s a lot of hackable tech that could be used for more… useful purposes. The big A sells these dash buttons for one purpose — you push the button and whichever product is assigned to it shows up on your doorstep in a few days. [Ted Benson] wanted them to do more than that so he turned a few dash buttons into a way of tracking his baby’s health!

Apparently, data acquisition of your baby’s wake-up times and poops is useful to identify health patterns. [Ted] tried using some phone apps to keep track of this stuff, but found it would be a lot easier if there was just a big button on the wall or something… which is where he got the idea to make use of the Amazon Dash button.

It’s actually really simple to do. Buy the dash button, do the setup with Amazon… but don’t do the final step: selecting the product you want to order. If you don’t select anything, you won’t order anything…

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Mechanical Pencil Hack Dispenses Wire

August 10, 2015 by James Hobson 29 Comments

Looking for an easy way to manage wire when prototyping PCBs? Ever consider using a mechanical pencil to dispense it? Turns out, it works pretty well — and all you need is a 3D printed attachment!

[Proto G] is using a Papermate 0.5mm mechanical pencil, which means if you get 0.5mm wire (or solder) you can use it to dispense the wire without tangling your spool. In the demonstration, he uses 0.5mm magnet wire which has a thin enamel coating on it and melts away easily when you solder it.

The 3D printed wire-spool and guide snap onto the back of the mechanical pencil allowing you to load it up with a considerable amount of wire for prototyping. He has all the .STL files available on his Instructable in case you want to add this tool to your workshop.

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Arduino Based Remote Shutter For Beme

August 10, 2015 by Richard Baguley 10 Comments

The well-dressed hacker [Sean Hodgins] has put together a neat little project: a battery powered remote shutter. He built it for use with Beme, the latest Snapchat clone that all of the cool kids are now using.

This service is designed to get away from the selfie culture by starting to record when you hold your phone against your chest, so you are looking at the thing being recorded, not your phone. [Sean] wanted a bit more control than that, so he built a remote control that starts the recording by moving the servo arm over the proximity sensor.

He built this neat little device from an Arduino Pro Mini, a battery, a small servo, a couple of power control boards and a cheap RF link from SeedStudio, all glued onto an iPhone case. It’s a bit rough around the edges (the servo makes some noise that is picked up on the recording, for one thing), but it is a great example of how to lash together a quick prototype to test a project out.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Vertical Aeroponics

August 9, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 32 Comments

For his Hackaday Prize entry, [MIPS ARMSTRONG] is working on an open-source terrarium that will be one of the fastest way to grow foodstuffs or other edible greens. He’s calling it Project EDEN, and it’s shaping up to be one of the most advanced homebrew horticultural devices ever made.

There are a few things that make this indoor greenhouse unique. The most obvious is the incredible number of LEDs used as grow lights. [MIPS] is using 900 Watts worth of Royal Blue and Deep Red LEDs. To water these plants, [MIPS] is taking a cue from NASA and building a High Pressure Aeroponics system – a device that shoots droplets of water only 50 microns in diameter directly onto the roots of the plants.

One of the more interesting aspects of EDEN is the CO2 system. The bulk of plant biomass – like humans – comes from carbon, and plants get their carbon from the atmosphere. Studies have shown that increasing the concentration of CO2 in a grow chamber can increase plant growth. There is a limit before CO2 becomes toxic to plants, so [MIPS] will have to keep a close eye on the CO2 levels with gas sensors.

With high-pressure watering, a CO2 system, and an amazing array of LEDs, this is one of the most advanced homebrew horticulture projects on the planet. It’s also a great fit for this year’s Hackaday prize theme of ‘build something that matters’, and we can’t wait to see [MIPS]’s future developments of his awesome aeroponic terrarium.