Hackaday Prize Mentor Session: Beau Ambur

July 19, 2019 by Gerrit Coetzee 4 Comments

Beau Ambur can often be found hosting hardware events and offering help all around the Bay Area. Now he’s turned it into a career and travels the west coast helping hackers and creators effectively leverage Kickstarter’s platform. Beau’s mentor session covers everything from, “is this project a good fit for venture capital?” to, “is open source a good fit for my project?”.

For this year’s Hackaday Prize we’ve found experts in a wide range of fields so you can take your entries to the next level regardless of the stage the project is in. The sessions are on a first come basis so sign up now for a chance to get some valuable feedback on your entry.

Your Robot Language Coach

The first project is a Personal English Trainer by the lonely programmer. As a student he noticed a need for a more interactive and portable language learning aid. Solutions do exist on the market but they are along the lines of a pocket dictionary, instructional phone app, or a full on translator. These break the flow of thought and conversation. The lonely programmer envisioned something that you can conversationally ask for help as you’re using a new language.

As many have discovered, the best way to see if there’s a need for something is to build a minimum viable product (MVP). The snips.ai platform offered the perfect foundation to quickly test out the idea. It’s working on a few words and he wants to get it ready for more people to play with the idea. The majority of the lonely programmer’s questions centered around making the project interesting for other hackers so that it could one day turn into a product.

Bolt-On Bike Assist

Rob and Shushanik are developing a project called BikeOn. It bolts to any bicycle and converts it to an electric assist bike without tools or replacing any components. BikeOn has already won some accolades such as Editors Choice at the last 2019 Makerfaire Bay Area. Rob had a few questions on how to transition a project from the proof of concept stage to the product stage. The discussion went over using open source as a tool for product promotion as well as getting funding for taking a hardware product to market.

He also wanted to know if there was anything the team could do to have a better shot at winning the prize. There were a few good tips such as directly focusing on the five categories the judges would be looking at: Concept, Design, Production, Benchmark, and Communication. It is also important to cover the development journey. Why did you make the choices you made when designing the project?

No-Spill Trash Can Concept

Rounding out this mentor session, Jeannie and her team of highschool students demonstrate SEAL. In the area around the Granada Hills Charter High School there are winds mighty enough to blow over full trashcans. This trash travels to the ocean and disrupts local ecosystems. The team is working on a device which can detect a tipping trashcan and keep the lid from opening.

Prototyping started with Arduinos, but they’ve already escalated to designing their own PCBs. Their hope is to produce a run of fifty devices and try them out with a local commercial partner. Beau recommended they look into the Micropython ecosystem. Not only would the students get the advantage of using the STM32 chips in their board layouts (reducing the number of support components they would need), micropython would make it easier for students to jump in and help rather than having to learn the nuances of C first.

The Hackaday Prize mentoring sessions continue through the summer so don’t forget to sign up and check out the list of mentors who are here to share their knowledge and experience.

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3D Printed Prosthesis Reads Your Mind, Sees With Its Hand

July 17, 2019 by Erin Pinheiro 4 Comments

Hobbyist electronics and robotics are getting cheaper and easier to build as time moves on, and one advantage of that is the possibility of affordable prosthetics. A great example is this transhumeral prosthesis from [Duy], his entry for this year’s Hackaday Prize.

With ten degrees of freedom, including individual fingers, two axes for the thumb and enough wrist movement for the hand to wave with, this is already a pretty impressive robotics build in and of itself. The features don’t stop there however. The entire prosthesis is modular and can be used in different configurations, and it’s all 3D printed for ease of customization and manufacturing. Along with the myoelectric sensor which is how these prostheses are usually controlled, [Duy] also designed the hand to be controlled with computer vision and brain-controlled interfaces.

The palm of the hand has a camera embedded in it, and by passing that feed through CV software the hand can recognize and track objects the user moves it close to. This makes it easier to grab onto them, since the different gripping patterns required for each object can be programmed into the Raspberry Pi controlling the actuators. Because the alpha-wave BCI may not offer enough discernment for a full range of movement of each finger, this is where computer aid can help the prosthesis feel more natural to the user.

We’ve seen a fair amount of creative custom prostheses here, like this one which uses AI to allow the user to play music with it, and this one which gives its user a tattoo machine for an appendage.

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Arduboy In A Dreamcast VMU

July 15, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

The Arduboy is a tiny, credit-card sized sized video game console that you can build yourself. The Dreamcast VMU was also a tiny, pocketable video game system, but really that’s just where we stored our saves for Crazy Taxi. What do you get when you combine the two? [sjm] did just that, giving us an Arduboy tucked into a Dreamcast VMU.

The guts of the Arduboy is simply an ATMega32u4, the same chip found in many Arduinos, an I2C OLED, and a few other various electronics for USB, power, and battery protection. In short, it’s an easy circuit, and something just about anyone with the skills can build themselves. Since just anyone can get a PCB fabbed, and the Dreamcast already has nice silicone buttons built into the enclosure, it was a simple matter for [sjm] to create a Dreamcast VMU-shaped PCB with all the guts of an Arduboy. The only real difference is the size of the OLED — this one uses a 0.96″ 128×64 OLED, where the original used one with the same resolution but with a significantly larger size.

Yes, we’ve seen this same project before, but now thanks to the magic of the Hackaday Prize, it’s now in the running for the greatest hardware competition on the planet. You can check out the entire build video and a short demo after the break. Of course, this isn’t the first repurposing of the Arduboy circuit, we’ve seen a flex circuit version, and a version with a crank like the Playdate developed by Teenage Engineering and Panic.

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Mitch Altman Mentors Manufacturing With Hackaday Prize Expert Session

June 28, 2019 by Brian Benchoff 7 Comments

For whatever you have built, there is someone who has done it longer, and knows more about it. That is the basic premise of expertise, and for this year’s Hackaday Prize we’re rolling out with a series of mentor sessions. These are master classes that match up experts in product development with the people behind the projects in the Hackaday Prize. We’ve been recording all of these so everyone can benefit from the advice, guidance, and mentorship presented in these fantastic recordings.

Mitch Altman is someone who should be very familiar to all Hackaday readers. He’s the inventor of the TV-B-Gone, that wonderful device that simultaneously turns you into a hero and a villain in any sports bar. He’s the President and CEO of Cornfield Electronics and co-founder of the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco. Mitch is an author and teacher, and seems to be at just about every conference and workshop around the world promoting hackerspaces, Open Source hardware, and mentorship where ever he goes.

The first hardware creator to meet Mitch is Matt Bradshaw, creator of the DrumKid. This is a pocket-sized drum machine that is heavily inspired by Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators. Years ago, Matt built a web app that generated drum tracks, and this project is simply taking that idea into the physical realm. For Mitch, this is well-tread territory; years ago, Mitch also built an Arduino-based synth, and for the most part, both Mitch and Matt’s projects are remarkably similar. There were, however, some improvements to be made with Matt’s circuit. The power supply was two AAA batteries and a switching regulator that introduced noise and added cost. Mitch suggested that the ATMega328 could be run directly from three AA batteries reducing the cost and the noise.

eAgrar, a system for monitoring conditions of plants and weather conditions at agricultural fields

The next project up for review is eAgrar, a system for monitoring conditions of plants and the weather in fields. This project comes from Slaven Damjanovic and Marko Čalić. They’ve been developing this device for almost two years building the entire system around the ATMega328. Slaven ran into a problem with this chip in that he didn’t have enough inputs and outputs. The firmware is already written, but thanks to the Arduino IDE, there’s no reason to keep using that ATMega. Mitch suggested using an STM32 or another ARM core. That’s what he’s using for one of his synthesizer projects, and you get more than enough inputs and outputs for the same price as an ATMega.

Finally, we come to Joseph, with his project, the Pilates Reformer. A Pilates Reformer is a bit of exercise equipment that’s only made by three companies and everything costs thousands of dollars. Joseph is bringing that cost down, but there’s a problem: how do you build a hundred or two hundred of these? Mitch suggested simply finding another manufacturer that could build this design, and not necessarily one that builds Pilates machines. This makes sense — if all you’re doing is cutting and connecting structural beams, any manufacturer can do this, that’s what manufacturers do.

This is the third in our series of Hackaday Prize mentor sessions this year, and we have far more we need to edit, and many more we need to record. That doesn’t mean you can’t get help from experts from your prize entry; we’re looking for people who need help with their project and we have a lot of mentors willing to dispense advice. If you’re interested in having someone look over your shoulder, sign up your entry.

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Bunnie Huang Talks Manufacturing And Component Choices During Hackaday Prize Mentoring Session

June 21, 2019 by Jenny List 4 Comments

Andrew “Bunnie” Huang’s mentor session for the Hackaday Prize shows off the kind of experience and knowledge hard to come by unless you have been through the hardware development gauntlet countless times. These master-classes match up experts in product development with Prize entrants working to turn their projects into products. We’ve been recording them so that all may benefit from the advice and guidance shared in each session.

The appealing little FunKey pocket gaming platform.

Bunnie is someone who is already familiar to most Hackaday readers. His notoriety in our community began nearly two decades ago with his work reverse engineering the original Microsoft X-box, and he quickly went on to design (and hack) the Chumby Internet appliance, he created the Novena open-source laptop, and through his writing and teaching, he provides insight into sourcing electronic manufacture in Shenzhen. He’s the mentor you want to have in your corner for a Hackaday Prize entry, and that’s just what a lucky group had in the video we’ve placed below the break.

While this session with Bunnie is in the bag it’s worth reminding you all that we are still running mentor sessions for Hackaday Prize entrants, so sign up your entry for a chance to get some great feedback about your project.

The first team to meet with Bunnie are FunKey, whose keychain Nintendo-like handheld gaming platform was inspired by a Sprite_tm project featuring a converted novelty toy. The FunKey team have produced a really well-thought-out design that is ready to be a product, but like so many of us who have reached that point they face the impossible hurdle of turning it into a product. Their session focuses on advice for finding a manufacturing partner and scaling up to production.

A prototype HotorNot Coffee Stirrer, showing their problem of having to maintain food-safe components.

HotorNot Coffee Stirrer is trying to overcome a problem unique to their food-related project. A hot drink sensor that has to go in the drink itself needs to be food safe, as well as easy enough to clean between uses. A variety of components are discussed including a thermopile on a chip that has the advantage of not requiring contact with the liquid, but sometimes the simplest ideas can be the most effective as Bunnie reminds us that a cheap medical thermometer teardown can tell us a lot about appropriate parts for this application.

The idea behing PhalangePad is an attractive one, but making those sensors reliable is no trivial eercise.

It’s another component choice problem that vexes PhalangePad, an input device that relies on the user tapping the inside of their fingers with their thumb. It’s a great idea, but how should these “keypresses” be detected? Would you use a capacitive or magnetic sensor, a force sensitive resistors, or maybe even machine vision? Here Bunnie’s encyclopaedic knowledge of component supply comes to the fore, and the result is a fascinating insight into the available technologies.

We all amass a huge repository of knowledge as we pass through life, some of the most valuable of which is difficult to pass on in a structured form and instead comes out as incidental insights. An engineer with exceptional experience such as Bunnie can write the book on manufacturing electronics in China but still those mere pages can only scratch the surface of what he knows about the subject. There lies the value of these mentor sessions, because among them the gems of knowledge slip out almost accidentally, and if you’re not watching, you’ll miss them.

This is the second in our series of Hackaday Prize mentoring sessions this year, but we have more already in the can and further sessions to record. We’re constantly looking for more participants though, so make sure if you haven’t already that you put your entry in for Hackaday Prize and check out the list of mentors who are here to share their knowledge and experience. Continue reading “Bunnie Huang Talks Manufacturing And Component Choices During Hackaday Prize Mentoring Session” →

Hackaday Superconference: Rob Ryan Silva On Designing For Developing Environments

June 13, 2019 by Jenny List 2 Comments

Throughout the six years of the Hackaday Prize we have seen a stream of projects tackling all manner of applications and challenges. Many of them have a goal of addressing issues faced by people in developing countries, and this was the topic upon which Rob Ryan Silva spoke at the Hackaday Superconference.

Rob’s perspective is an interesting one: he runs the maker lab at Development Alternatives Incorporated, or DAI, who are best described as a specialist contractor in the international development sector. Thus while many of the Prize entrants are hardware hackers who have become involved in development related projects, he is a development specialist who has made the opposite journey to becoming a hardware hacker.

Join me below for the video of Rob’s talk and a deep dive into it. Also of note, tickets for the 2019 Hackaday Superconference are now available, the Call for Proposals is now open, and of course, the 2019 Hackaday Prize is ready for your entry! Okay, now onto Rob’s talk.

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Hackaday Prize Mentor Session: Product Engineering With Giovanni Salinas

May 23, 2019 by Jenny List No comments

This year we’ve added something new and exciting to the Hackaday Prize mix. Mentor sessions link up hardware teams with experts from backgrounds useful in moving their product development forward. We’ve assembled a dream team of mentors, and today we’re excited to publish video of the first mentor session which you’ll find embedded below. It’s a great chance to hear about the engineering going into each entry, and to learn from these back and forth conversations that help move the effort forward. We encourage you to sign up for an upcoming session!

Giovanni Salinas, the Product Development Engineer at Supplyframe’s DesignLab, is the mentor for this session. He has a huge breadth of experience in product development, and in today’s installment he’s working with four different product teams.

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