Hackaday Podcast

357 Articles

Hackaday Podcast 104: Delicous AI, DVD Scanning Microscope, And Battery-Friendly Microcontroller Designs

February 5, 2021 by 5 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys spin the wheel of hardware hacking brilliance. We’re enamored with the quest for a root shell on a Nissan Xterra infotainment system, and smitten with a scanning microscope that uses a laser beam and precision positioning from DVD drives. We speculate on the future of artificial intelligence in the culinary arts. And this week turned up a clever way to monitor utility usage while only changing the battery on your sensor once per year.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 103: Antennas For Everyone, A Clock Made Of Chains, Magic Eye Tubes, And A Little Google Bashing

January 29, 2021 by 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and  Elliot Williams discuss the greatest hacks of the week that was. Antennas aren’t rocket science, so this week we really enjoyed a video that demystifies antenna designs and a project that tunes up the antennas on cheap wireless modules in the simplest of ways. Google’s in the news this week with the end to project Loon, and a dust-up with the volunteer package maintainers who have spent years making sure Chromium browser is in the Linux repos. Elliot is gaga for magic eye tubes and crazy musical instruments, while Mike is over the moon for a chain-based clock display. We close up the episode talking about the Concorde, and the math behind cable mechanisms.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 102: Raspberry Pi Microcontroller, Microphone Killswitch, And A 45-Degree 3D-Printer

January 22, 2021 by 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys sift through a week of excellent hacks. Big news is of course the Raspberry Pi microcontroller which Elliot had a few weeks to play around with on the bench before the announcement — it has some fascinating programmable modules (PIO) built in! Philips designed an LED light bulb that under-drives the LEDs for efficiency and long life. And Amazon added a nice little hardware disable circuit for the microphone in the Echo Flex — a rather extreme teardown shows how they did it. Plus we talk about an open source long-range RC protocol, wall-sized pen plotter art, and a 3D printer that angles the nozzle to avoid needing support.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 101: Lasering And Milling Absolutely Everything

January 15, 2021 by 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams discuss our favorite hacks of the past week. We accidentally chose a theme, as most of the projects use lasers and are about machining work. We lead off with a really powerful laser that can directly etch circuit boards, only to be later outdone by an even more powerful laser using a chemistry trick to etch glass. We look at how to mix up your own rocket motors, bootstrap your own laser tag, and go down the rabbit hole of building tools for embedded development. The episode wraps up as we discuss what exactly NVMe is and where hardware hacking might take it.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 100: Arduino Plays CDs, Virtual Reality In The 60s, And Magical Linear Actuators

January 8, 2021 by 16 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys kick off the first episode of the new year with the best hacks the internet has to offer. There’s a deep dive into water-level sensing using a Christmas tree as an excuse. We ooh and ah over turning a CD-ROM drive into a CD player (miraculous tech of the previous century?). Do you have any use cases for ATtiny oscillator calibration registers? We look in on a hack that makes it dead simple to measure and set their values. The episode finishes up with a discussion of the constantly moving goal posts of virtual reality.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 099: Our Hundredth Episode! Denture Synth, OLED Keycaps, And SNES Raytracing

December 24, 2020 by 5 Comments

Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams celebrate the 100th episode! It’s been a pleasure to marvel each week at the achievements of awesome people and this is no different. This week there’s a spinning POV display that solves pixel density and clock speed in very interesting ways. A macro keyboard made of OLED screens gives us a “do want” moment. And you can run a Raspberry Pi photo frame by sipping power from ambient light if you use the right power-tending setup. We wrap up the last episode of 2020 with a dive into ballpoint pens and solar racers.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 098: China’s Moon Rocks, Antikythera Revelations, Creality Vs Octoprint, And RC Starship

December 18, 2020 by No comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi contemplate a few of the most interesting stories that made their way through the tubes this week. We’ll learn how old VHS tapes can be turned into a unique filament for your 3D printer, and realize that the best way to learn about a 2,000 year old computer is to break out the hand drill and make one yourself. Hobby grade RC gear and a some foam board stand in for SpaceX’s next-generation Mars spacecraft, and a manufacturer of cheap 3D printers attempts to undercut a popular open source project with hilarious results. Finally, we’ll take a close look at some hidden aluminum boogers and discuss how China’s history making trek to the Moon might be a prelude to the country making a giant leap of their own.

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!

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