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1365 Articles

Two For The Price Of One: BornHack 2024 And 2025 Badges

August 1, 2025 by No comments

BornHack is a week-long summer hacker camp in a forest on the Danish island of Fyn, that consistently delivers a very pleasant experience for those prepared to make the journey. This year’s version was the tenth iteration of the camp and it finished a week ago, and having returned exhausted and dried my camping gear after a Biblical rainstorm on the last day, it’s time to take a look at the badges. In case you are surprised by the plural, indeed, this event had not one badge but two. Last year’s badge suffered some logistical issues and arrived too late for the camp, so as a special treat it was there alongside the 2025 badge for holders of BornHack 2024 tickets. So without further ado, it’s time to open the pack for Hackaday and see what fun awaits us. Continue reading “Two For The Price Of One: BornHack 2024 And 2025 Badges” →

Last Chance: 2025 Hackaday Supercon Still Wants You!

July 3, 2025 by 2 Comments

Good news, procrastinators! Today was going to be the last day to throw your hat in the ring for a slot to talk at Supercon in November, but we’re extending the deadline one more week, until July 10th. We have an almost full schedule, but we’re still missing your talk.

So if the thought of having missed the deadline fills you with regret, here’s your second chance. We have spots for both 40-minute and 20-minute talks still open. We love to have a mix of newcomers as well as longtime Hackaday friends, so don’t be shy.

Supercon is a super fun time, and the crowd is full of energy and excitement for projects of all kinds. There is no better audience to present your feats of hardware derring-do, stories of reverse engineering, or other plans for world domination. Where else will you find such a density of like-minded hackers?

Don’t delay, get your talk proposal in today.

Supercon 2024: Repurposing ESP32 Based Commercial Products

June 10, 2025 by 4 Comments

It’s easy to think of commercial products as black boxes, built with proprietary hardware that’s locked down from the factory. However, that’s not always the case. A great many companies are now turning out commercial products that rely on the very same microcontrollers that hackers and makers use on the regular, making them far more accessible for the end user to peek inside and poke around a bit.

Jim Scarletta has been doing just that with a wide variety of off-the-shelf gear. He came down to the 2024 Hackaday Superconference to tell us all about how you can repurpose ESP32-based commercial products.

Continue reading “Supercon 2024: Repurposing ESP32 Based Commercial Products” →

Supercon 2024: From Consultant To Prototyper On A Shoestring Budget

June 5, 2025 by 10 Comments

Many engineers graduate from their studies and head out into the workforce, seeking a paycheck and a project at some existing company or other. Often, it’s not long before an experienced engineer begins to contemplate striking out on their own, working as a skilled gun-for-hire that makes their own money and their own hours.

It’s a daunting leap, but with the promise of rich rewards for those that stick the landing. That very leap is one that our own Dave Rowntree made. He came to Supercon 2024 to tell us what the journey was like, and how he wound up working on some very special shoes.

Continue reading “Supercon 2024: From Consultant To Prototyper On A Shoestring Budget” →

Supercon 2024: How To Track Down Radio Transmissions

June 3, 2025 by 10 Comments

You turn the dial on your radio, and hear a powerful source of interference crackle in over the baseline noise. You’re interested as to where it might be coming from. You’re receiving it well, and the signal strength is strong, but is that because it’s close or just particularly powerful? What could it be? How would you even go about tracking it down?

When it comes to hunting down radio transmissions, Justin McAllister and Nick Foster have a great deal of experience in this regard. They came down to the 2024 Hackaday Superconference to show us how it’s done.

Continue reading “Supercon 2024: How To Track Down Radio Transmissions” →

Plenty Of LEDs And Useful Too: The 2025 DORS/CLUC Badge

June 1, 2025 by 2 Comments

It’s always nice to see new developments in the world of electronic badges, and while there are events and badge teams pushing the technological envelope there’s still plenty of scope for innovation without too many exotic parts. This year’s DORS/CLUC open source conference in Croatia has just such a badge, with a large alphanumeric LED display as well as USB and an NFC reader. During the conference it displayed the user’s name and could be used in an NFC-based game, but it’s also designed to be used as a general purpose notification device afterwards.

The write-up is familiar to anyone who has been involved with badge production, a tale of long soldering sessions as missing components had to be added later, and of last minute firmware flashing. The heart of the machine is an STM32L073, with an IS31FL3731 LED matrix driver chip and an ST25R3916 for the NFC. All the files can be found in a GitLab repo, and there’s a video below the break showing it all in action.

Continue reading “Plenty Of LEDs And Useful Too: The 2025 DORS/CLUC Badge” →

Today In Edinburgh: The Open Hardware Summit

May 30, 2025 by 9 Comments

Just a quickie for anyone who is in the neighborhood, today the Open Source Hardware Association’s annual Open Hardware Summit conference starts in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you’re able to make it, it’s a microcosm of the open-source hardware world, and full of great talks and great hackers.

If you’re not in Scotland, they have a livestream on YouTube that you should check out, as well as a Discord server for discussions during the event.  It’s going on right now!