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Pandemic Chip Shortages Are Shutting Down Automotive Production

January 18, 2021 by 66 Comments

Once upon a time, the automobile was a mostly mechanical beast, but no longer. Advanced electronics have weaved their way into the modern car, from engine to infotainment and climate control to the buttons now sprinkled throughout the passenger cabin. The gains in amenity and efficiency can’t be sniffed at, but it leaves manufacturers reliant on semiconductor suppliers to get cars out the door. Over the past year, it’s become much more complicated — with many automakers having to slow production in the face of integrated circuit shortages that can be traced back to Spring of 2020. Continue reading “Pandemic Chip Shortages Are Shutting Down Automotive Production” →

RISC-V Comes To The BeagleBoard Ecosystem With Upcoming Beagle V SBC

January 14, 2021 by 54 Comments

The Beagle V, a RISC-V-based single board computer from a collaboration between BeagleBoard and Seeed Studios aims to be “The First Affordable RISC-V Computer Designed to Run Linux”. RISC-V is the open-source processor architecture that everyone is interested in because it bypasses proprietary silicon of manufacturers such as Intel or AMD, allowing companies to roll their own silicon processors without licensing fees for the core.

BeagleBoard has long been one of the major players in the Single-Board Computer arena so far dominated by the Raspberry Pi. The board, slightly larger than the company’s previous offerings, features a StarFive dual-core 64-bit RISC-V processor running at a 1.0 GHz clock speed. The spec sheet on their GitHub repo indicates 4 and 8 GB RAM options, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, and hardware video support for decoding, two camera connectors, one DSI connector for an external display, as well as a full-sized HDMI port. Gigabit Ethernet, four USB-3 ports, an audio jack, and USB-C as the power supply are packed onto the edges of the board. GPIO is routed to a 2×20 pin header.

Seeed Studio pegs the cost of the board at $149 for the 8 GB RAM version, although currently you must apply and be selected to purchase a board in this early stage. It’s unclear if the price will remain unchanged after this first run; the product page notes a coupon code is necessary and the Seeed Studios article indicates this is an introductory price. However, the same article also lists the 4 GB RAM variant at $119. The BeagleBoard page shows a timeline of April 2021 for a “pilot run for community”.

It’s exciting to see RISC-V continue to make inroads. This is a powerful board based around the core, and if successful it will help further prove the viability of open source processing cores in increasingly mainstream products.

Reachy The Open Source Robot Says Bonjour

January 14, 2021 by 11 Comments

Humanoid robots always attract attention, but anyone who tries to build one quickly learns respect for a form factor we take for granted because we were born with it. Pollen Robotics wants to help move the field forward with Reachy: a robot platform available both as a product and as a wealth of information shared online.

This French team has released open source robots before. We’ve looked at their Poppy robot and see a strong family resemblance with Reachy. Poppy was a very ambitious design with both arms and legs, but it could only ever walk with assistance. In contrast Reachy focuses on just the upper body. One of the most interesting innovations is found in Reachy’s neck, a cleverly designed 3 DOF mechanism they called Orbita. Combined with two moving antennae at the top of the head, Reachy can emote a wide range of expressions despite not having much of a face. The remainder of Reachy’s joints are articulated with Dynamixel serial bus servos though we see an optional Orbita-based hand attachment in the demo video (embedded below).

Reachy’s € 19,990 price tag may be affordable relative to industrial robots, but it’s pretty steep for the home hacker. No need to fret, those of us with smaller bank accounts can still join the fun because Pollen Robotics has open sourced a lot of Reachy details. Digging into this information, we see Reachy has a Google Coral for accelerating TensorFlow and a Raspberry Pi 4 for general computation. Mechanical designs are released via web-based Onshape CAD. Reachy’s software suite on GitHub is primarily focused on Python, which allows us to experiment within a Jupyter notebook. Simulation can be done within Unity 3D game engine, which can be optionally compiled to run in a browser like the simulation playground. But academic robotics researchers are not excluded from the fun, as ROS1 integration is also available though ROS2 support is still on the to-do list.

Reachy might not be as sophisticated as some humanoid designs we’ve seen, and without a lower body there’s no way for it to dance. But we are very appreciative of a company willing to share knowledge with the world. May it spark new ideas for the future.

[via Engadget]

Continue reading “Reachy The Open Source Robot Says Bonjour” →

3D Printed Pi Laptop Honors The Iconic GRiD Compass

January 11, 2021 by 28 Comments

If you’re familiar with vintage portable computers, you know about the GRiD Compass. Even if you’re not into computers of yesteryear, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a Compass or two without realizing it. From battling xenomorphs in Aliens to making the trip to orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, the trendsetting clamshell computer seemed to be everywhere in the 1980s. While far too expensive for the average consumer to afford back then, its no-compromise design and sleek looks helped lay the groundwork for today’s ubiquitous laptops.

Getting your hands on a working GRiD Compass in 2021 isn’t a whole lot easier than it was in 1982, so [Mike] decided to do the next best thing and build his own. His GRIZ Sextant certainly isn’t a replica, but the family resemblance is strong enough to get the point across. The Raspberry Pi powered machine has a greatly reduced “trunk” section in the back as you might expect, but the overall layout is very similar. The Commodore 64 inspired color scheme is probably the biggest departure from the source material, but it’s hard to argue with the results.

It’s clear at a glance that a lot of thought was put into the external aesthetics of the Sextant, but a peek under the hood shows the internal details are equally impressive. [Mike] tells us he has a background in product design, and it shows. Rather than approaching this project as a one-off creation, he’s clearly taken great pains to ensure the design is as reproducible as possible.

All of the individual components of the 3D printed frame and enclosure have been carefully designed so they’ll fit within the build volume of the average desktop machine. Electronic components are screwed, not glued, to the internal framework; making future repairs and maintenance much easier. When combined with the ample internal volume available, this modular approach should make adding custom hardware a relatively painless process as well.

So when will you be able to build a GRIZ Sextant of your own? Hopefully, very soon. [Mike] says he still needs to work some kinks out of the power supply and finalize how the speakers will get mounted into the case. Once those last tweaks are locked in, he plans to release all the STL files and a complete Bill of Materials. For those who want to get a sneak peek before they start warming up the extruder, he’s also started documenting the assembly of the Sextant on his YouTube channel. Continue reading “3D Printed Pi Laptop Honors The Iconic GRiD Compass” →

Ask Hackaday: What’s In Your Fastener Bin?

January 11, 2021 by 143 Comments

A Saturday afternoon. The work week was done, the household chores were wrapped up, and with almost a week left until Christmas, there was just enough wiggle room to deny that there was still a ton of work left to prepare for that event. It seemed like the perfect time to escape into the shop and knock out a quick project, one that has been on the back burner since at least March. I’m nothing if not skilled in the ways of procrastination.

This was to be a simple project — adding an aluminum plate to a plastic enclosure that would serve as an antenna entry point into my shack. Easy as pie — cut out an rectangle of aluminum, cut and drill a few holes, call it a day. Almost all of my projects start out that way, and almost every time I forget that pretty much every one of those builds goes off the rails at exactly the same point: when I realize that I don’t have the fasteners needed. That’s what happened with this build, which had been going swimmingly up to that point — no major screw-ups, no blood drawn. And so it was off to the hardware store I trundled, looking for the right fasteners to finish the job.

Finding hardware has long been where my productivity goes to die. Even though I live a stone’s throw from at least half a dozen stores, each with a vast selection of hardware and most open weekends and nights, the loss of momentum that results from changing from build-mode to procure-mode has historically been deadly to my projects. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has run into this issue, so the question is: what can a hacker do to prevent having to run out for just the right fasteners?

Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: What’s In Your Fastener Bin?” →

Active Camouflage Material Shows Promise At Hiding From Infrared Or Visual Detection

January 7, 2021 by 21 Comments

An invisibility cloak may seem like science fiction, but despite that, many scientists and engineers have put much time into developing the concept, pushing it closer to reality. A device which detects the nature of its surroundings and changes its own properties to blend in may be complex, but a multitude of examples in the animal world show that it’s not impossible to achieve.

A team from Seoul National University recently developed a flexible material designed in part as a flexible “cloaking” material. We’ll take a look at the underlying concept behind such devices below, and look at how this work furthers the state of the art in the field.

Continue reading “Active Camouflage Material Shows Promise At Hiding From Infrared Or Visual Detection” →

The Day The Russians And Americans Met 135 Miles Up

January 7, 2021 by 30 Comments

If you watched the original Star Trek series, you’d assume there was no way the Federation would ever work with the Klingons. But eventually the two became great allies despite their cultural differences. There was a time when it seemed like the United States and Russia would never be friends — as much as nations can be friends. Yet today, the two powers cooperate on a number of fronts.

One notable area of cooperation is in spaceflight, and that also was one of the first areas where the two were able to get together in a cooperative fashion, meeting for the first time in orbit, 135 miles up.  The mission also marks the ultimate voyage of the Apollo spacecraft, a return to space for the USSR’s luckiest astronauts, and the maiden flight of NASA’s oldest astronaut. The ability to link US and Soviet capsules in space would pave the way for the International Space Station.  The Apollo-Soyuz mission was nothing if not historic, but also more relevant than ever as more nations become spacefaring. Continue reading “The Day The Russians And Americans Met 135 Miles Up” →