TAKTO, Open Source Hand-Tracking Built Like LEGO

October 16, 2026 by 8 Comments

Hand tracking in VR/AR can add a substantial amount of immersion and added interactivity. Unfortunately, most camera based tracking suffers when fingers get covered, intertwined, or simply out of view of the headset’s camera. What’s even less common are methods of giving feedback to the user’s hands. [Sebastian Molano] saw these issues and decided if anyone was going to make an open-source solution, it was going to be him with his thesis on TAKTO.

Clear visuals show step-by-step assembly.

TAKTO aims to remove the prior issues mentioned with visual tracking by using magnetic encoders to tell where the device is and the finger’s position inside it. Actuators are able to pull on the fingers themselves to add even further information to the user. Of course, none of this is too crazy, as we have seen similar projects before. Where TAKTO stands out is the extent of the support outside of a one-off hand tracker.

TAKTO.one not only holds general information about the project itself, but also an entire digital twin of the live device. This console can give you a visual of using the glove and general status information. Documentation on how to assemble one for yourself is presented in clean visuals, which should make the build process painless.

Everything else about how to make the hand for yourself can be found on the project’s GitHub. The price tag is steep for the actuated version, though there is a sensing-only version for hand tracking, and most of the cost comes from the quality actuators used. If you want to look into implementing some usability into existing VR hardware, make sure to look at what Valve has released publicly!

The Trials And Tribulations Of Your First Badge

October 16, 2026 by 4 Comments

On the face of it, making an event badge should be an easy process. After all, most of us can hand-assemble a microcontroller, some buttons, a battery, and a screen. But anyone who has been involved in producing one will tell you, the difference between producing one or two, and making sure hundreds or even thousands appear on day one of the event fully working is enormous. [Nicholas Ficara] produced 1750 of his first badge for Canada’s Hack The North hackathon, and he’s shared the full story.

We’ve been involved with the gestation of more than one badge here at Hackaday, so we recognise some of his learning moments only too well. He approached it with a well-planned series of prototype and release candidate steps to catch the problems, which came in handy as there certainly were a few. Wrong footprints, misplaced components, power supply issues, and rotated parts were fixed, and eventually they were delivered in time. It’s good to see that they were well received and well used at the event.

If you’re thinking of doing a badge we can certainly recommend that you give this a read. A few years ago we wrote up the story of another badge whose creators put in some hard work to save it from a more serious part error.

Simplifying Slide Rule Calculations With Trig

October 16, 2026 by 12 Comments

[Bob the Science Guy] remembers how to use a slide rule. Even after all these years, it is pretty easy to remember how to multiply and divide. If you can’t remember, you can usually work it out, as long as you understand how slide rules work. But what about sine, cosine, and quadratics? [Bob’s] been making videos about topics like this, and if you’ve wanted to put your slide rule collection to practical use, you’ll enjoy these videos. You can see one below.

The trick to the slide rule is that it is deceptively simple. You are in effect adding logarithms and then taking an antilog. The issue is that you still have to have some intuition about the scale of the answer since 2×3 works out the same as 2×3000 or 200×300.

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The 10€ Gamepad

October 16, 2026 by 10 Comments

We aren’t sure what [Lazy_Duck] is doing with video games, but it must require a lot of controllers. Dismayed at the cost and complexity of commercial gamepads, they started soldering and 3D printing to get a cheaper basic controller.

The emphasis is on throwing things together, so there’s no dedicated PCB. Just a protoboard with an RP2040-Zero, a joystick, a few buttons, and a microswitch. A 3D-printed case rounds out the project.

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Fairbuds 2 Teardown Shows Little Glue, Easy Battery Swap

October 16, 2026 by 12 Comments

In a world where wireless earbuds are increasingly seen as devices that you toss into the e-waste bin as soon as they stop working, it’s heartening to see companies take the opposite approach with their designs. In a recent teardown of the new Fairbuds 2 by [iFixit] we get a blow-by-blow report of disassembling one of these devices, getting to its rechargeable LIR1054 coin cell, as well as the very accessible PCB should you have to replace a shorted capacitor or similar issue.

Much like with the first version, the 3.6 V lithium-ion coin cell can be extracted simply by pulling on the battery door, which leverages it out of the enclosure. Despite this easy access method and no glue these earbuds are still IP54 rated, so they’re safe to wear when you’re dashing for shelter in a sudden downpour.

To get further into the device, you have to overcome the plastic clips that hold the enclosure together, along with what appears to be a few dabs of glue. Inside it you find the PCB containing the guts, including the Airoha AB1577S, Cortex-M4F-based IC that provides the Bluetooth Low Energy capabilities as well as enabling the touch control and other features.

Below the PCB is the coin cell holder, followed by the only part that saw real glue usage, namely the driver section. Presumably this is the compromise to keep things like sweat out of the device. Even so, after disassembly [iFixit] managed to reassemble the device and the earbud remained in working condition.

The case for the earbuds is even easier to disassemble, using just some bolts to unfasten. The USB-C port is soldered to the PCB which [iFixit] dinged them on, but still gave it a 10/10 on their repairability score.

Compared to Apple’s AirPods this is obviously a whole different world, although recently [iFixit] was somewhat pleased with the most recent AirPods generation being slightly more repairable, with non-destructive entry for a battery swap at least somewhat feasible.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 391: Tuned In To ESP32 SDR, New Old Pagers, And Bugs On Mars

October 16, 2026 by 1 Comment

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this episode off with a discussion about Philadelphia’s budding hacker conference and the imminent retirement of the EZ80. After considering the parallels between the wide world of aviation headsets and our personal projects, talk moves on to the exciting developments in the world of software-defined radio on the ESP32, a Meshtastic pager from a bygone era, and how all the wild flying machines entered into DARPA’s Lift Challenge ended up losing to a simple helicopter.

You’ll also hear about turning plastic bottles into printer filament, pushing e-ink screens to their limits, and browsing the web on the PSP in 2026. To wrap things up they’ll marvel at all the modern abstraction sitting between software and the memory it’s running on, and revisit some RF concepts that might be particularly useful now that everyone is playing with a new SDR device.

Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download in DRM-free MP3.

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Braino! Takes The Cheap Yellow Display To School

October 16, 2026 by 21 Comments

These days, it’s common to give even very young children a mobile device loaded up with educational software that aims to improve everything from basic motor skills to reading and arithmetic. But even the cheapest phone or tablet isn’t the kind of thing most parents would like to see get destroyed, and there’s always a concern about giving children a device that’s capable of connecting to the Internet.

Which is where Braino! from [Ankush Pandit] comes in. This suite of applications can be easily flashed to a common Cheap Yellow Display to turn it into a legitimate educational tool. Combined with a 3D printed case, the total cost of the build is low enough that you don’t have to feel bad about handing it off to even the roughest of youngsters.

[Ankush] makes it clear that this project isn’t trying to sell you anything. You’re responsible for picking up a compatible CYD and installing Braino via the web flashing application. The software is released under the GPLv3 license, and it contains no ads, user accounts, or cloud connectivity. We know not everyone is thrilled with how much time young kids spend staring at screens these days, but opinions on modern parenting aside, it’s hard to find fault with the way things have been implemented here.

When the parent sets up Braino they can pick which of the 40 games can be accessed, allowing the experience to be tailored to the individual child’s age and ability. Should you decide to enable Bluetooth, some of the games even support wireless multiplayer between devices.

The commonality of the Cheap Yellow Display is one of its best features, and Braino does an excellent job of showing why that’s so important. Trying to develop a project like this without a standardized platform of some type would be a non-starter, but when anyone can get a CYD sent to their house from Amazon and flash it right from the browser, it’s makes the whole thing far more accessible.

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