Featured

3137 Articles

Longform articles, the best of what the Hackaday writing crew has to offer.

Hacking The Ionosphere, For Science

May 10, 2019 by 14 Comments

Imagine what it must have been like for the first human to witness an aurora. It took a while for our species to migrate from its equatorial birthplace to latitudes where auroras are common, so it was a fairly recent event geologically speaking. Still, that first time seeing the shimmers and ribbons playing across a sky yet to be marred by light pollution must have been terrifying and thrilling, and like other displays of nature’s power, it probably fueled stories of gods and demons. The myths and legends born from ignorance of what an aurora actually represents seem quaint to most of us, but it was as good a model as our ancestors needed to explain the world around them.

Our understanding of auroras needs to be a lot deeper, though, because we now know that they are not only a beautiful atmospheric phenomenon but also a critical component in the colossal electromagnetic system formed by our planet and our star. Understanding how it works is key to everything from long-distance communication to keeping satellites in orbit to long-term weather predictions.

But how exactly does one study an aurora? Something that’s so out of reach and so evanescent seems like it would be hard to study. While it’s not exactly easy science to do, it is possible to directly study auroras, and it involves some interesting technology that actually changes them, somehow making the nocturnal light show even more beautiful.

Continue reading “Hacking The Ionosphere, For Science” →

Building A Raspberry Pi Rover: My Big Fat Linux Weekend

May 9, 2019 by 46 Comments

Linux! Such a wonderful, rich, capable operating system has blessed us, and all for the low, low cost of absolutely free. It’s under the hood of countless servers, computers, phones, and embedded devices, and is the go-to solution for when you want to get the job done right. Why, then, does it curse me so?

Prologue

The penguin giveth, and the penguin taketh away.

My experience with the almighty penguin stretches back to the late 90s. Facebook hadn’t been invented yet, so most weekends were spent installing whatever came on the front of the latest computer mags. I wish I was kidding, but I’m really not.

Way back when, us kids would load the latest Red Hat or Fedora distribution onto our hand-me-down Pentium IIs, trying not to accidentally wipe our hard drive in the process. Limited to dial-up internet and very few help resources, it was pretty common that you’d spend hours watching progress bars tick over, only to wind up with no working mouse, or an X server that simply refused to start for man or God. Did I mention we did all this for fun?

Trying To Get Some Work Done

Of course, after growing up, real life and real responsibilities take over. Now, if I’m using Linux, it’s because I’ve got a job to do, not just because there’s nothing good to watch on Cartoon Network this weekend. I consider myself to be a fairly intermediate user. I’ve compiled a few things successfully, understood how to work with a variety of package managers, and once, just once, even managed to connect to a wireless network from the command line. There’s not a whole lot that phases me in this realm anymore.

For the past few years, I’ve been slowly working on a little rover by the name of TKIRV, powered by a Raspberry Pi. It was overdue for a camera upgrade, as I’d been using an old Microsoft webcam for far too long. I ordered a nice 1080p Raspberry Pi camera, and naturally the parts marinated in their boxes for a good couple of years. Finally, after much procrastination, I was eager to get my wheely boi back out on the road.

This was but the beginning my weekend slaying embedded Linux dragons.

Continue reading “Building A Raspberry Pi Rover: My Big Fat Linux Weekend” →

Get To Know The Physics Behind Soldering And The Packaging Of ICs

May 3, 2019 by 22 Comments

Often it feels as if soldering is deemed to be more of an art form than something that’s underpinned by the cold, hard reality of physics and chemistry. From organic chemistry with rosin, to the material properties of fragile gold bond wires and silicon dies inside IC packages and the effects of thermal stress on the different parts of an IC package, it’s a complicated topic that deserves a lot more attention than it usually gets.

A casual inquiry around one’s friends, acquaintances, colleagues and perfect strangers on the internet usually reveals the same pattern: people have picked up a soldering iron at some point, and either figured out what seemed to work through trial and error, or learned from someone else who has learned what seemed to work through trial and error. Can we say something scientific about soldering?

Continue reading “Get To Know The Physics Behind Soldering And The Packaging Of ICs” →

Twenty Five Years Since The End Of Commodore

May 2, 2019 by 81 Comments

This week marks the twenty-five year anniversary of the demise of Commodore International. This weekend, pour one out for our lost homies.

Commodore began life as a corporate entity in 1954 headed by Jack Tramiel. Tramiel, a Holocaust survivor, moved to New York after the war where he became a taxi driver. This job led him to create a typewriter repair shop in Bronx. Wanting a ‘military-style’ name for his business, and the names ‘Admiral’ and ‘General’ already taken, and ‘Lieutenant’ simply being a bad name, Tramiel chose the rank of Commodore.

Later, a deal was inked with a Czechoslovakian typewriter manufacture to assemble typewriters for the North American market, and Commodore Business Machines was born. Of course, no one cares about this pre-history of Commodore, for the same reason that very few people care about a company that makes filing cabinets. On the electronics side of the business, Commodore made digital calculators. In 1975, Commodore bought MOS, Inc., manufacturers of those calculator chips. This purchase of MOS brought Chuck Peddle to Commodore as the Head of Engineering. The calculators turned into computers, and the Commodore we know and love was born.

Continue reading “Twenty Five Years Since The End Of Commodore” →

The Stratolaunch Is Flying, But Can It Do Cargo?

May 1, 2019 by 32 Comments

The world’s largest aircraft is flying. Stratolaunch took to the skies in test flights leading up to its main mission to take rockets up to 20,000 feet on the first stage of their flight to space. But the Stratolaunch is a remarkable aircraft, a one-of-a-kind, and unlike anything ever built before. It can lift a massive 250 tons into the air, and it can bring it back down again.

By most measures that matter, the Stratolaunch is the largest aircraft ever flown. It has the largest wingspan of any aircraft, and it has the largest cargo capacity of any aircraft. In an industry that is grasping at interesting and novel approaches to spaceflight like rockoons and a small satellite launcher from a company whose CTO is still a junior in college, the Stratolaunch makes unexpected sense; this is a launch platform above the clouds, that can deliver a rocket to orbit, on time.

But the Stratolaunch is much more than that. This is an aircraft whose simple existence deserves respect. And, like others of its kind, the Antonov AN-225, the Spruce Goose, there is only one. Even if it never launches a rocket, the Stratolaunch will live on by the simple nature of its unique capabilities. But what are those capabilities? Is it possible for the Stratolaunch to serve as a cargo plane? The answer is more interesting than you think.

Continue reading “The Stratolaunch Is Flying, But Can It Do Cargo?” →