Hackaday Podcast 122: Faster Than Wind Travel, Sisyphish, ALU Desktop Calculator, And Mice In Space

June 11, 2021 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys marvel at the awesome hacks from the past week. We had way too much fun debating whether a wind-powered car can travel faster than the wind, and whether or not you can call that sailing. Low-temperature desoldering was demystified: it’s the bismuth! And we saw a camera gimbal solve the problem of hand tremor during soldering. Ford just wants to become your PowerWall. And the results are in from NASA’s mission to spin mice up in a centrifuge on the ISS.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (around 55 MB)

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Hackaday Podcast 121: Crazy Bikes, DIY Flip Dots, EV Mountain Climbing, And Trippy Tripterons

June 4, 2021 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss a great week of hardware hacks. Two delightful mechanical hacks focus on bicycles: one that puts a differential on the front fork, and the other a flywheel between the knees. Elliot was finally impressed by something involving AI — a machine-learning guitar pedal. You’ve heard of a delta bot? The tripteron is similar but with a single rail for the three arms. After a look at flip dots, tiny robots, and solar air planes we close the show geeking out about racing electric vehicles up a hill and stories of the hardware that has made closed captions possible.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (55 MB or so.)

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Hackaday Podcast 120: Chip Shortage, VGA Glitching, Truly Owning Roku, And Omniballs

May 28, 2021 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys recount a week of awesome hacks. One you might have missed involves a Roku-based smart TV that was rooted and all secrets laid bare for the sole purpose of making an Ambilight setup work with it. We take a look at a creative blade-tracking system for a scrollsaw CNC project, and a robot arm that brings non-flat layers to 3D printing and envisions composite material printing. There’s a great template for video glitching using inexpensive VGA to CGA converter boards, cleanly squeezed into a nice enclosure. We are a bit giddy for the omniwheel robot designs [James Bruton] has been showing off. And we finish out the show with a great conversation happening this week on Hackaday: people from throughout the community share how the chip shortage is affecting their projects.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (Weighing in around 55 MB.)

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Hackaday Podcast 119: Random Robot Writing, Slithering Snake Shenanigans, And Phased Array Phenomena

May 21, 2021 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams pick up on the neatest hacks you may have missed. We start off with another “What’s that Sound?” so put your geeky-ears to the test and win a Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. Here are a couple of classic hacks to bring you joy: music based on Markov chains, and a squiggly take on the classic Nokia game of snake. For the more hardcore science geeks we dive into the B Meson news coming out of CERN’s physics experiments. And after taking a detour in bristle-bot-based pen plotting, we unpack the hidden system of pipes that carry oil, gas, diesel, and more from the refinery to your region.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (The best 57 MB you’ll download all day!)

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Hackaday Podcast 118: Apple AirTag Hacked, Infill Without Perimeters, Hair-Pulling Robots, And Unpacking The 555

May 14, 2021 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys gather to ooh and aah over a week of interesting hacks. This week we’re delighted to welcome special guest Kristina Panos to talk about the Inputs of Interest series she has been working on over the last couple of years. In the news is the effort to pwn the new Apple AirTags, with much success over the past week. We look at turning a screenless Wacom tablet into something more using a donor iPad, stare right into the heart of a dozen 555 die shots, and watch what happens when you only 3D print the infill and leave the perimeters out.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~55 MB)

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Hackaday Podcast 117: Chiptunes In An RCA Plug, An Arduino Floppy Drive, $50 CNC, And Wireless Switches

May 7, 2021 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss the latest hacks from around the Internet. 3D-Printed linear rails don’t sound like a recipe for a functional CNC machine but there was one this week that really surprised us. We were delighted by the procedurally generated music from a $0.03 microcontroller inside of an RCA plug (the clever flexible PCB may be the coolest part of that one). There’s an interesting trick to reverse engineering Bluetooth comms of Android apps by running in a VM and echoing to WireShark. And we look at what the buzz is all about with genetically engineered mosquito experiments taking place down in the Florida Keys.

New this week is a game of “What’s that sound?”. Use the form link on the show notes below to send in your answer, one winner will receive a podcast T-shirt.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~55 MB)

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Hackaday Podcast 116: Three DIY Lab Instruments, Two Tickers, And A MicroCar

April 30, 2021 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys select our favorite hardware hacks of the past week. This episode is packed with DIY lab instruments, including a laser microscope, a Raspberry Pi spectrometer, and a stepper motor tester that can tell you what’s going on all the way down to the microsteps. We wax poetic about what modular hardware really means, fall in love with a couple of stock-ticker robots, and chat with special guest Tom Nardi about his experience at the VCF Swap Meet.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (~55 MB)