Kilobuck Open Kinect Project Prize

November 4, 2010 by Devlin Thyne 83 Comments

Full of video and audio sensors, the newly released Kinect is Microsoft’s answer to Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus and Sony’s PlayStation Move. Now there is money up for grabs to hack it. Adafruit is offering up a one thousand dollar prize to open source the driver for the Kinect. What do they want this driver to do? They want RGB and distance values. We’re excited to see the hacks that will come around because of this product, and now that prize money is involved, everything has been turned up a notch.

Update: The bounty has been raised to $2000 after a Microsoft response to CNET:

But Microsoft isn’t taking kindly to the bounty offer. “Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,” a company spokesperson told CNET. “With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.”

Update: Progress toward a driver
Update: Winner of the Open Source Kinect contest

Buy Break Build: A Hackaday Contest Series

October 28, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 31 Comments

We are proud to introduce a new contest here at Hackaday. Buy Break Build will be regular event where we challenge you to make something from something else. We want to work out your hacker brains to come up with inventive ways to use limited parts. We may have a specific product or genre in mind, and a specific out come we would like to get, then we let you guys loose to make it happen. The contests will usually be judged for winners in 3 categories; best presentation, best use of only the existing parts, and most massive overkill. You don’t have to be an electronics engineer, or even know how to program a microcontroller. You simply document your entire hack with pictures and notes, then submit it to BBB@hackaday.com and we’ll choose the winners. Those winners will be awarded fabulous prizes and Internet fame as we’ll publish your writeup for everyone to enjoy.

Here’s an example to make things a little more clear. Don’t actually go do this one, it is just an example.

Contest: Radio controlled faces. Everyone has an old R/C car lying around right? Can you use those parts to make an animatronic face? It doesn’t have to be humanoid, but at least recognizable as a face. There would be 3 winners, the one that made the best use of only the included parts, the one that had the best presentation, and the one that went absolutely the furthest overboard.

Remember, this one is just an example, so please don’t run out and get started just yet. We’ll be announcing our first Buy Break Build very soon.

Hacker Housing – Rally To Restore Sanity

October 25, 2010 by James Munns 44 Comments

HacDC, Washington DC’s own hackerspace has been kind enough to open their doors (and floors) to fellow hackers planning on visiting DC this weekend for the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity. They are taking registrations now, and space is limited, so act fast. They have a suggested donation of $20 a night, which will get you floor space and breakfast each morning, as well as the warm feeling of supporting a community based Hackerspace. Details can be found on their registration page, and please make sure you read the rules before registering. Thanks again to HacDC for supporting the Hacker community!

In other news, Hack a Day will be at the Rally, so keep an eye out for the writers wearing the Hack a Day shirts, as well as the HackaDay Twitter. If you get seen with one of us, you might just make it to the fan gallery. We will also be handing out some HackaDay Swag if you catch us soon enough on Saturday.

Adafruit Industries Opens A Job Board

October 15, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

Adafruit industries is doing their part to help the hacker community with their latest addition, a job board. It just went live today so there aren’t many jobs posted, but we expect that to change in the immediate future. you can also post your services offered there, if you’re looking for work. We really appreciate when companies support the hacker community, so we tip our hats to you Adafruit.

Cadsoft Eagle Migrating To XML

October 14, 2010 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

[PT] posted about an exciting development from Cadsoft, the migration to XML based parts, schematics, and board layouts. The adoption of this open standard goes hand-in-hand with the open hardware initiatives people like [PT] have been pushing for.

Cadsoft Eagle is our go-to schematic and PCB software. We even have a tutorial which guides you through preparing your files for PCB manufacture. But the files containing parts libraries, schematics, and board layouts have always been binaries. A transition to XML means a lot of things. They will be easier to edit, and much friendlier for tracking changes using version control systems like SVN, CVS, Mercurial SCM, Git, etc. But immediately on our minds is the accessibility for hacking. Think of how easy XML parsing is in programs like Python. It should be snap to write scripts on a whim that will manipulate the XML files in any way imaginable. This doesn’t discount the value of Eagle, it extends the usability far beyond what any team of engineers at Cadsoft could produce by themselves. And for that, we say Bravo.

C Sharp Development 101 – Part 1: Hello World

September 30, 2010 by Greg R. Jacobs 50 Comments

In this tutorial we are going to get up close with the Visual Studio 2010 environment. We will learn how to make a console application as well as a form to display our hello world applications. This will give us an opportunity to view 2 types of solutions of the many available in Visual Studio. We will start making the console application first then progress to the forms application.

First we must understand the development environment we are going to use. On the far left side is the toolbox panel. This panel gives us access to a lot of controls that can be used by the Windows Forms. Next is the Solution Explorer that will allow us to navigate the projects and files we are going to create in this Solution. The Properties panel is directly under my Solution Explorer and will allow us to change properties of controls and of the form we will create later on. If any of these are not being displayed they can be retrieved from the View menu at the top under Other Windows. For more information on the Visual Studio IDE visit MSDN and search for the specific questions you are having.

Continue reading “C Sharp Development 101 – Part 1: Hello World” →

Work For Hack A Day

September 27, 2010 by Caleb Kraft 48 Comments

HackADay.com, a well-known and respected blog dedicated to all things hardware and hacking related, is looking for knowledgeable and passionate writers to join their team of specialized and dedicated freelance writers. This is a paid, freelance position that requires professionalism, consistency, and reliability in both writing style and deliverables. We’re eager to track down and bring in some of the most passionate folks out there in the software/hardware/tech & hacking world. We pay our writers a solid per-post rate and we’re ready to take HackADay to the next level with more content across a wider array of interests and expertise. If you’re a good writer that loves the kind of stuff we talk about, then we want you to be behind the growth and dominance of this household name in hacks.

All hardware/hack/tech junkies encouraged to apply, but folks with experience in the following fields will get bonus points:

–circuitry design
–robot building
–mobile device programming
–full desktop application programming
–computer security
–gritty hardware fabrication
–modifying existing systems

If you’re ready to join HackADays’ team of top-notch freelance writers, apply through our ONLINE JOB BOARD. Formal resumes are welcome, but cover letters with links to blogs, writing samples or any portfolio work is really what we’d like to see. Here’s an idea of what to include:

A short bio about yourself
3 example daily posts written in the style of Hack a Day
3 software or hardware how-tos you’d like to see on the web. For examples of work we’ve done in the past, look at some of our project summaries, How-tos, and software tutorials.
A couple sentences on how you would improve the site either through features or content
Any additional reasons why you would make a good fit for Hack a Day

Thanks for your interest!