DesignLab

2 Articles

Supercon 2024: Last Call For Display Tech Exhibit

September 13, 2024 by 2 Comments

During this year’s Hackaday Supercon, the Supplyframe DesignLab will be playing host to a unique exhibit that catalogs the evolution of display technology. That means showcasing the best and most interesting examples they can find, from the vintage to the ultra-modern. Where are all these wonderful toys coming from, you might ask? Why, the Hackaday community, of course.

This is a rare chance to show off your prized gadgetry to a captive audience of hackers and makers. Whether it’s a custom display you’ve created or some gonzo piece of hardware you’ve been holding onto for years, now’s the time to haul it out. However, there are only a few days left to submit your display for potential inclusion, so if you’ve got something you want the Hackaday community to see, make sure you fill out the form before the September 16th deadline. That’s Monday, if you were wondering.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Augmented Reality Historical Reenactments

October 10, 2016 by 6 Comments

Go to a pier, boardwalk, the tip of Manhattan, or a battlefield, and you’ll see beautifully crafted coin operated binoculars. Drop a coin in, and you’ll see the Statue of Liberty, a container ship rolling coal, or a beautiful pasture that was once the site of terrific horrors. For just a quarter, these binoculars allow you to take in the sights, but simply by virtue of the location of where these machines are placed, you’re standing in the midsts of history. There’s so much more there. If only there was a way to experience that.

This is why [Ben Sax] is building the Perceptoscope. It’s a pair of augmented reality binoculars. Drop in a quarter, and you’ll be able to view the entirety of history for an area. Drop this in Battery Park, and you’ll be able to see the growth of Manhattan from New Amsterdam to the present day. Drop this in Gettysburg, and you’ll see a tiny town surrounded by farms become a horrorscape and turn back into a tiny town surrounded by a National Park.

This is a long term project, with any installations hopefully lasting for decades. That means these Perceptoscopes need to be tough, both in hardware and software. For the software, [Ben] is using WebVR, virtual reality rendering inside a browser. This means the electronics can just be a tablet that can be swapped in and out.

The hardware, though, isn’t as simple. This is going to be a device running in the rain, snow, and freezing weather for decades. Everything must be overbuilt, and already [Ben] has spent far too much time working on the bearing blocks.

Although this is an entry for The Hackaday Prize, it was ‘pulled out’, so to speak, to be a part of the Supplyframe DesignLab inaugural class. The DesignLab is a shop filled with the best tools you can imagine, and exists for only one goal: we’re getting the best designers in there to build cool stuff. The Perceptoscope has been the subject of a few videos coming out of the DesignLab, you can check those out below.

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