Al Williams wrote up a neat thought piece on why we are so fascinated with robots that come in the shape of people, rather than robots that come in the shape of whatever it is that they’re supposed to be doing. Al is partly convinced that sci-fi is partly responsible, and that it shapes people’s expectations of what robots look like.
What sparked the whole thought train was the ROAR (robot-on-a-rail) style robot arms that have been popping up, at least in the press, as robot fry cooks. As the name suggests, it’s a robot arm on a rail that moves back and forth across a frying surface and uses CV algorithms to sense and flip burgers. Yes, a burger-flipping robot arm. Al asks why they didn’t just design the flipper into the stovetop, like you would expect with any other assembly line.
In this particular case, I think it’s a matter of economics. The burger chains already have an environment that’s designed around human operators flipping the burgers. A robot arm on a rail is simply the cheapest way of automating the task that fits in with the current ergonomics. The robot arm works like a human arm because it has to work in an environment designed for the human arm.
Could you redesign a new automatic burger-flipping system to be more space efficient or more reliable? Probably. If you did, would you end up with a humanoid arm? Not necessarily. But this is about patching robotics into a non-robotic flow, and that means they’re going to have to play by our rules. I’m not going to deny the cool factor of having a robot arm flip burgers, but my guess is that it’s actually the path of least resistance.
It feels kind of strange to think of a sci-fi timeline where the human-looking robots come first, and eventually get replaced by purpose-built intelligent machines that look nothing like us as the environments get entire overhauls, but that may be the way it’s going to play out. Life doesn’t always imitate art.
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When we last checked in with the Philadelphia Maker Faire in 2019, one couldn’t help but be impressed with what the organizers had pulled off with just a fraction of the budget and resources it took to put on the defunct World Maker Faire in New York. We came away absolutely certain the event was on the verge of explosive growth, and that next year would be even bigger and better.
But of course, that didn’t happen. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that by the time the 2020 Faire should have kicked off, the logistics of holding a gathering much larger than a family dinner had become a serious hurdle. Philadelphia implemented strict rules on indoor and outdoor events to try and contain the spread of the virus, to the point that even when they were relaxed in 2021, it still didn’t make sense to try and put on a Faire under those conditions.
Thankfully things are largely back to normal-ish now, and as such the Philadelphia Maker Faire had something of a rebirth this year. Organizers decided to move the event to the Independence Seaport Museum, with vendor and exhibitor tables distributed throughout the museum’s three floors. This made the ticket price a great two-for-one value, especially if you had enough time left over to head out to the docks so you could explore the 130-year-old cruiser USS Olympia, and the USS Becuna, one of the last surviving WWII Balao-class submarines.
As you’d expect, the event was packed with fascinating projects and demonstrations, to the point that trying to list them all here would be impossible. But for those who couldn’t make the trip out to see what the 2022 Philadelphia Maker Faire had to offer, let’s take a look at a handful of the standout exhibits.
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos rendezvoused in yet another secret, throwaway location to rap about the hottest hacks from the previous week. We start off by gushing about the winners of the Cyberdeck Contest, and go wild over the Wildcard round winners from the Hackaday Prize.
It’s the What’s That Sound? results show, and Kristina was ultimately stumped by the sound of the Kansas City Standard, though she should have at least ventured a guess after shooting down both modem and fax machine noises.
Then it’s on to the hacks, which feature an analog tank-driving simulator from the 1970s, much ado about resin printing, and one cool thing you can do with the serial output from your digital calipers, (assuming you’re not a purist). And of course, stay tuned for the Can’t-Miss Article discussion, because we both picked one of resident philosopher Al Williams’ pieces.
Up first this week is a quintet of vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel’s wireless code. It started with [Soenke Huster] from TU Darmstadt, who found a buffer overwrite in mac80211 code. The private disclosure to SUSE kernel engineers led to a security once-over of this wireless framework in the kernel, and some other nasty bugs were found. A couple result in Denial-of-Service (DOS), but CVE-2022-41674, CVE-2022-42719, and CVE-2022-42720 are Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities. The unfortunate bit is that these vulnerabilities are triggered on processing beacon frames — the wireless packets that announce the presence of a wireless network. A machine doesn’t have to be connected or trying to connect to a network, but simply scanning for networks can lead to compromise.
The flaws were announced on the 13th, and were officially fixed in the mainline kernel on the 15th. Many distros shipped updates on the 14th, so the turnaround was quite quick on this one. The flaws were all memory-management problems, which has prompted a few calls for the newly-merged Rust framework to get some real-world use sooner rather than later.
Fortinet
Much of Fortinet’s lineup, most notable their Fortigate firewalls, has a pre-auth authentication bypass on the administrative HTTP/S interface. Or plainly, if you can get to the login page, you can break in without a password. That’s bad, but at this point, you *really* shouldn’t have any administrative interfaces world-accessible on any hardware. Updated firmware is available.
The Weather Channel has decided to pull the plug on its automated weather display, a favorite experience for weather geeks everywhere. However, it wasn’t the original weather nerd TV station. Early cable TV networks had their own low-tech versions of this much longer ago than you might expect. For example, check out the video below which shows one of these weather stations back in 1975.
The audio was from a local FM station and you can enjoy handwritten public service announcements, as well.
Seasoned Hackaday readers may have noticed over the years, that some of us who toil under the sign of the Jolly Wrencher have a penchant for older tech. After all, what’s not to like in a dirt cheap piece of consumer electronics from decades past that’s just begging for a bit of hardware hacking? For me at the moment this is manifesting itself in a selection of 8mm movie cameras, as I pursue a project that will eventually deliver a decent quality digital film cartridge.
When A Cell Is From West Germany, You Know It’s Old
“Made in West Germany”
The trouble with scouring junk shops for a technology superseded four decades ago is that the cameras I find have in most cases been sitting in a drawer since the early 1980s. They were a valuable item back in the day so of course they were hung on to, then they were forgotten about until one day the grown-ups who were once the kids featured in the home movies are clearing the house, and they start their journey to my bench.
The problem is that very few owners of 8mm cameras had the good sense to remove their batteries before putting them away, so I inevitably end up with a battery compartment full of crusty 1980s Duracells and rusted contacts. This has left me curious, just what has happened here and how can I fix it?
What’s The Leaky Stuff?
Construction of a zinc-manganese “alkaline” cell. Tympanus, Public domain.
Non-rechargeable cells come in a variety of chemistries, but the commercial ones we’re most familiar with are zinc-carbon “dry cells”, and “Alkaline” zinc-manganese dioxide cells. The zinc-carbon variety are becoming less common here in 2022 and have an acidic zinc chloride or ammonium chloride electrolyte, while the alkaline cells have a higher capacity and a basic potassium hydroxide electrolyte. They both have different failure modes that result in the leaky cells, so it’s worth taking a look at each one.
The failure mode of a zinc-carbon cell is a chemical one, the acidic electrolyte reacts with the zinc can anode, and eventually eats through it. The leaking electrolyte then attacks the surrounding circuitry and battery clips. It’s hardly a concentrated acid, but it’s enough to do plenty of damage over the years.
Meanwhile an alkaline cell has a build-up of hydrogen as it degrades. It incorporates a vent which allows the hydrogen to escape, however the hydrogen pressure can instead force the electrolyte out through this vent. The electrolyte will then corrode the battery terminals and any other electronics it touches. A feature of alkaline cell leakage is a white crust, this is potassium carbonate formed from the reaction between the potassium hydroxide electrolyte and carbon dioxide in the air.
The Global Parts Bin To The Rescue
Fresh and new battery clips for AA holders
How much damage has been done is usually a function of how long the leaking batteries have been in the device. Sometimes one is lucky and the battery contacts are salvageable, otherwise they are too far gone and a replacement has to be found. A past me tried all sorts of home-made solutions using stiff copper wire and other materials, but today thanks to the miracle of international commerce it’s usually possible to find a contact the same as or very similar to the old one. A quick AliExpress search on terms such as “AA battery spring” will return numerous options, and it’s simply a case then of paging through to find the one you need on the terms you like.
So those of you who like retro tech will find something familiar in the last few paragraphs, but there’s a lesson to be found in dealing with ancient batteries. Here in 2022 we’re more likely to have lithium polymer cells in our consumer devices and so the need to keep a pile of Duracells at hand is reduced. But the thought of today’s equivalent of a Super 8 camera lying forgotten in a drawer for decades with a cheap li-po pouch cell inside it is far more frightening than something with some crusty manganese cells. Have we just found the root cause of house fires in the 2040s?
The Wildcard Round is the wildest round, and the 2022 Hackaday Prize had a slew of great entries. We’ve winnowed the wildcards down to a large handful, and we’re happy to announce the finalists. Every winner receives a $500 award, and is automatically entered for the final round of the Hackaday Prize. The grand prize winners will be announced during Supercon on Nov. 5th, and we’ll be streaming so you can root for your favorites whether you’re with us in Pasadena or not.
What sparked the whole thought train was the ROAR (robot-on-a-rail) style robot arms that have been popping up, at least in the press, as robot fry cooks. As the name suggests, it’s a robot arm on a rail that moves back and forth across a frying surface and uses CV algorithms to sense and flip burgers. Yes, a burger-flipping robot arm. Al asks why they didn’t just design the flipper into the stovetop, like you would expect with any other assembly line.
