Popup Notification Dinosaur

October 18, 2018 by 1 Comment

There’s a lot going on our virtual spaces, and anyone with a smart phone can attest to this fact. There are pop-up notifications for everything you can imagine, and sometimes it’s possible for the one really important notification to get lost in a sea of minutiae. To really make sure you don’t miss that one important notification, you can offload that task to your own personal dinosaur.

The 3D-printed dinosaur has a rack-and-pinion gear set that allows it to extend upwards when commanded. It also has a set of LEDs for eyes that turn on when it pops up. The two servos and LEDs are controlled by a small Arduino in the base of the dinosaur. This Arduino can be programmed to activate the dinosaur whenver you like, for an email from a specific person, a reply to a comment on Reddit, or an incoming phone call to name a few examples. Be sure to check out the video below the break.

With this dinosaur on your desk, it’s not likely you’ll miss its activation. If you’d like something that has the same function but with less movement and more lights, there’s also a notification 3D cube made out of LEDs that’s sure to catch your eye as well. Continue reading “Popup Notification Dinosaur” →

The Science Of Landing On An Asteroid

October 16, 2018 by 17 Comments

Exploiting the resources of the rock-strewn expanse of space between Mars and the outer planets has been the stuff of science fiction for ages. There’s gold in them ‘thar space rocks, or diamonds, or platinum, or something that makes them attractive targets for capitalists and scientists alike. But before actually extracting the riches of the asteroid belt, stuck here as we are at the bottom of a very deep gravity well that’s very expensive to climb out of, we have to answer a few questions. Like, how does one rendezvous with an asteroid? What’s involved with maneuvering near a comparatively tiny celestial body? And most importantly, how exactly does one land on an asteroid and do any useful work?

Back in June, a spacecraft launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) finally caught up to an asteroid named Ryugu after having chased it for the better part of four years. The Hayabusa2 was equipped to answer all those questions and more, and as it settled in close to the asteroid with a small fleet of robotic rovers on board, it was about to make history. Here’s how they managed to not only land on an asteroid, but how the rovers move around on the surface, and how they’ll return samples of the asteroid to Earth for study.

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The Incredible Judges Of The Hackaday Prize

October 15, 2018 by 1 Comment

The last challenge of The Hackaday Prize has ended. Over the past few months, we’ve gotten a sneak peek at over a thousand amazing projects, from Open Hardware to Human Computer Interfaces. This is a contest, though, and to decide the winner, we’re tapping some of the greats in the hardware world to judge these astonishing projects.

Below are just a preview of the judges in this year’s Hackaday Prize. In the next few weeks, we’ll be sending the judging sheets out to them, tallying the results, and in just under a month we’ll be announcing the winners of the Hackaday Prize at the Hackaday Superconference in Pasadena. This is not an event to be missed — not only are we going to hear some fantastic technical talks from the hardware greats, but we’re also going to see who will walk away with the Grand Prize of $50,000.


Sherry Huss

Sherry Huss is the former vice president of Maker Media, and oversees the publishing of Make Magazine and Maker Faires across the globe. Sherry is a major advocate of ‘all things maker’ in the global community, and her vision and passion for the maker movement was instrumental in growing the Make: brand within the maker ecosystem. Under her guidance, the largest Maker Faires, the Bay Area and World Maker Faire in New York, have grown from just a few thousand people in 2006 to events with over 200,000 attendees each year. Sherry is a giant in the Maker world, and an unending advocate of maker, DIY, and everyone who makes, whether that’s through wood, code, metal, solder, or fabric.

Anool Mahidharia

Anool is an electrical engineer, and works in Test & Measurement at Lumetronics. He’s part of WyoLum, an international group of hardware nerds who are consistently pumping out projects that push the limits of how blinky, glowey, and interesting a thing can be. They’re behind some projects you may have caught at random hacker meetups, and the creators of an absurd RGB LED cube that’s also a die. Anool is, by every account, an extremely capable hardware engineer, a longtime writer for Hackaday, and is constantly travelling the world presenting the latest developments in electronics to the public.

Danielle Applestone

Before founding Other Machine Co., now Bantam Tools, makers of tiny desktop milling machines that make fantastic circuit boards, Danielle Applestone worked with DARPA to develop high-precision machines that were effectively made out of kitchen cutting boards. HDPE, it turns out, is extraordinarily mechanically stable, cuts and machines easily, and can make very rigid components. Danielle spun this research out into the Othermill, an actual successful hardware startup. Danielle talked about this experience at the Hackaday Superconference, and we’re thrilled to have her on board judging other makers in their efforts to create the next big hardware thing.

Kwabena Agyeman

Kwab is one of the leading experts in computer vision and machine learning applications, and specializes in FPGA and Chip design. His greatest contribution to Open Hardware is the OpenMV, a platform for Computer Vision, ‘at the edge’, or basically a very high performance microcontroller and camera module on a single board, that’s running computer vision algorithms. This project began as a Hackaday Prize project that was then bootstrapped into a successful business. Formerly of Planet Labs where he spent his time pulling off Apollo 13-level hacks on space assets, Kwab is among the most successful designers in the world of Open Hardware.

These are just a few of the amazingly accomplished judges we have lined up to determine the winner of this year’s Hackaday Prize. The winner will be announced on November 3rd at the Hackaday Superconference. There are still tickets available, but if you can’t make it, don’t worry. We’re going to be live streaming everything, including the prize ceremony, where one team will walk away with the grand prize of $50,000. It’s not an event to miss.

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R3-14, The Personal Assistant Two Years In The Making

October 14, 2018 by 1 Comment

One of the great things about hacking together projects these days is how many powerful subsystems are readily available to reuse. [Sanjeet] took full advantage of a whole slate of reusable pieces when he built R3-14 — a personal assistant robot that you can see in action in the video below.

Many people started out in electronics building something simple like a crystal radio or an LED cube. But how far could you get if your projects had to begin at the most basic level, by drawing out copper wire, fabricating coils, capacitors, semiconductor devices, and batteries? Even if you know how to do all those things, it would take a lot of time, so there is no shame in using off-the-shelf components. By the same token, [Sanjeet] uses Google Assistant, 433 MHz RF transmitters, and a Raspberry Pi as components in this build. Along the way, he also contributed some reusable pieces himself, including an LED library for the PI and a library to allow Siri to control a Raspberry Pi.

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World’s Smallest Wii Is Also World’s Worst

October 8, 2018 by 14 Comments

As far as game consoles go, the Nintendo Wii was relatively small. Probably owing at least somewhat to the fact that it wasn’t a whole lot more than a slightly improved GameCube in a new case, but that’s another story entirely. So it’s not much of a surprise that people have modded Nintendo’s infamous money printing machine into handheld versions. But this…this is just something else.

We’re going to go out on a limb and say that this absolutely preposterous build by [Shank] which puts a fully functional Nintendo Wii into an Altoids tin wins the title of “World’s Smallest Wii”. We’re also going to put money on the fact that this record doesn’t get beaten because…well, come on. There’s a reason he’s named his diminutive creation the “Kill Mii”.

You’re probably wondering how this is possible. That’s an excellent question. As it turns out, hackers have discovered that you can cut off the majority of the Wii’s motherboard and still have a functioning system, albeit missing non-essential functions like the GameCube controller ports and SD card slot. From there, you just need to install a new firmware on the now heavily trimmed down Wii that tells it to ignore the fact it has no disc drive and load games as ISOs from an attached USB flash drive. That’s the high level summary anyway, the reality is that this a mod of crushing difficulty and should only be attempted by true masochists.

As for this particular build, [Shank] went all in and even relocated the Wii’s NAND chip to make everything fit inside the tin. There’s also custom PCBs which interface the Wii’s motherboard with the Nintendo 3DS sliders he’s using for control sticks. Underneath everything there’s a battery that can run the whole device for a grand total of about 10 minutes, but given the general shape of the “Kill Mii” and the fact that most of the buttons are tactile switches, that’s probably about as long as you’d want to play the thing anyway.

Yes, this is the worst Wii ever made. But that was also the point. In the words of the creator himself “This portable is not logical, comfortable, or practical. But it must be done… for the memes.” Truly an inspiration to us all.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first “trimmed” Wii portable we’ve seen; though that one was considerably more forgiving internally, and just a bit more practical.

Continue reading “World’s Smallest Wii Is Also World’s Worst” →

That TRS Jack On Your Graphing Calculator Does More Than You Think

September 25, 2018 by 28 Comments

It’s not Apple IIs, and it’s not Raspberry Pis. The most important computing platform for teaching kids programming is the Texas Instruments graphing calculator. These things have been around in one form or another for almost three decades, and for a lot of budding hackers out there, this was the first computer they owned and had complete access to.

As hacking graphing calculators is a favorite for Maker Faires, we were pleased to see Cemetech make it out to this year’s World Maker Faire in New York last weekend. They’re the main driving force behind turning these pocket computers with truly terrible displays into usable computing platforms.

As you would expect from any booth, Cemetech brought out the goods demonstrating exactly what a graphing calculator can do. The most impressive, at least from a soldering standpoint, is their LED cube controlled by a graphing calculator. The electronics are simple, and just a few 595s and transistors, but this LED cube is taking serial data directly from the link cable on a graphing calculator. Of course, the PCB for the LED cube is designed as an Arduino shield for ease of prototyping, but make no mistake: this is an LED cube controlled by a calculator.

If you can send serial data to a shift register from a graphing calculator, that means you can send serial data to anything, bringing us to Cemetech’s next great build featured this year. It’s an N-gauge model train, with complete control over the locomotive.

There’s a lot more to controlling model trains these days than simply connecting a big ‘ol variac to the tracks. This setup uses Direct Cab Control (DCC), a system that modulates commands for locomotives while still providing 12-15V to the tracks. There’s a good Arduino library, and when you have that, you can easily port it to a graphing calculator.

Cemetech is one of the perennial favorites at Maker Faire, and over the years we’ve seen everything from the Ultimate TI-83+ sporting an RGB backlight and a PS/2 port to a game of graphing calculator Whac-A-Mole. It’s all a great example of what you can do with the programmable computer every 90s kid had, and an introduction to computer programming education, something Cemetech is really pushing out there with some hard work.

Box Forts For Adults: Best Practices And Design Strategies

September 24, 2018 by 33 Comments

Many a grown up can reminisce about building various architectural wonders in their youth. Forts, whether based on boxes or blankets, were the order of the day, and an excellent way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

It just so happens that there is no law against scaling up such activities once one has reached the age of majority. However, to build a structure at this level takes some careful planning and consideration, and that is the purpose of our article here today.

Location, Location, Location

To avoid an awkward conflict, be sure to warn your housemates of impending construction well ahead of time.

The first major consideration when starting your build should be the area in which you wish to do it. Building inside has the advantage of avoiding the weather, however hard floors can lead to sore knees when crawling around. Additionally, you’re a grown up now, so it’s less likely your peers will be impressed to hear you sat inside a box in your living room.

No, if you’re going to do this right, you’ll want to go outside. A nice flat lawn is best, providing soft ground and plenty of space. The challenges of the elements will guide your work – sitting inside your cardboard home feels all the more satisfying when you’re cosy and dry as you listen to the patter of rain on the roof. There’s a real sense of accomplishment when you’ve built something that can survive the harsh outdoors, and besides, the views are better, too. Continue reading “Box Forts For Adults: Best Practices And Design Strategies” →