This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Contributor Emeritus Kristina Panos chewed the fat about the coolest hacks of the previous week. But first, a bit of news — our Low Power Challenge fizzled out this week, and boy did we have a lot of entries at the last minute. We love to see it though, and we’re going to get judging ASAP.

Don’t forget, this weekend is Hackaday Berlin! Livestreaming for this one may be iffy, but we’ll have the talks up for you eventually, so don’t fret too much if you can’t make it in the flesh this time.

Kristina definitely got What’s That Sound this week, but her answer will of course be bleeped out. Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with a 6-DoF controller that does everything in interesting ways and a printed shredder that eats like a goat. From there we cover bolt dispensers, coffee grinders with Bluetooth weighing, camera calibration, and a $50 pen plotter that’s definitely a hack. Finally, we discuss the virtues of physicality when it comes to SIM cards and recorded music.

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

And/or download it and listen offline.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 211: Pocket Sundial, Origami Llama, PCB Spacemouse” →

Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they explore the best and most interesting stories from the last week. The top story if of course the possibility that at least some of the unidentified flying objects the US Air Force valiantly shot down were in fact the work of amateur radio enthusiasts, but a quantitative comparison of NASA’s SLS mega-rocket to that of popular breakfast cereals is certainly worth a mention as well.

Afterwards the discussion will range from modular home furnishings to the possibility of using YouTube (or maybe VHS tapes) to backup your data and AI-generated Pong. Also up for debate are cheap CO2 monitors which may or may not be CO2 monitors, prosthetic limbs made from locally recycled plastic, and an answer to Jenny’s Linux audio challenge from earlier this month.

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

Download it your own bad self!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 207: Modular Furniture, Plastic Prosthetics, And Your Data On YouTube” →

Under the weather though they both were, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney got together to take a look under the covers of this week’s best and brightest hacks. It was a banner week, with a look at the changes that KiCad has in store, teaching a CNN how to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” and going deep into the weeds on JPEG.

We dipped a toe into history, too, with a look at one of the sexiest early hobbyist computers, seeing how citizen scientists are finding ancient burial mounds, and looking at the cryptography that cost a queen her head. Rather look to the future? We get it — which is why we talked about a greener, cleaner way of making hydrogen from methane, as well as a generatively designed five-axis 3D printer. From laser-precise knife sharpening to circuit simulation with Python to clear plastic TVs of the 1930s, there’s something for everyone!

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

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 206: Busted Crypto Killed The Queen, Kicad’s New Clothes, Peer Inside The Sol 20” →

Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week’s episode off with the announcement of Hackaday Berlin on March 25th. It’s been quite some time since we’ve been on the other side of the pond, because we had to cancel 2020’s Hackaday Belgrade due to COVID-19, so excitement is high for all three days of this “one-day” event.

After a new What’s that Sound, discussion moves on to an impressive collection of DIY sundials, the impact filament color has on the strength of 3D printed parts, the incredible retrocomputer replicas of Michael Gardi, and the Arduino FPGA that you’ve probably never heard of. We’ll wrap things up with the unexpected difficulties of mixing multiple cheap audio sources in Linux, and try to figure out why our kitchen appliances need to be connected to the Internet.

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

Download all the bits!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 205: Hackaday Berlin, So Many Sundials, And Ovens Pinging Google” →