In Chicago? Bring A Hack!

February 23, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 3 Comments

It’s been far too long since we’ve had a Hackaday presence at a hackerspace. This, of course, is a terrible oversight and something must be done to correct it. If you’re in Chicago, you’re in luck. We’re going to be at Pumping Station: One this Wednesday for a Bring-A-Hack meetup.

If you have a cool build to show off, a bunch of blinky things, wearables, or just some cool tech, the mythical Hackaday Prize guru [Sophi Kravitz] will be at PS:1 Wednesday evening. I’m pretty sure there will be stickers, but sadly no t-shirt cannon just yet.

The event is free, open to everyone, and there’s pizza. RSVPing would be a good idea, and you can do that over on the meetup.com page for the event.

Omnibus Seen In The Wild

February 11, 2015 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

February 9th has come and gone and the Hackaday Omnibus 2014 is now shipping. If you were one of the early adopters who pre-ordered, thank you very much it should be in your hands shortly! If you missed out on the Pre-Order, don’t worry you can still get a copy of your very own but we only ordered a small over-run so don’t wait too long.

The Omnibus celebrates the best our writers and illustrators published in 2014 with an 80-page full color volume printed on premium paper. From tales of technology past, to current events, the Omnibus tells the story of what the high points in hardware were last year. We have fallen in love with having a physical version of this content since the proof copies hit our hands a month ago. We believe that this is a conversation waiting to happen — set it out and watch your friends gravitate toward it.

We’ve already seen them popping up on Twitter and we’d love to see more. Make sure to Tweet a picture of your copy to @Hackaday with hashtag #hadOmnibus. We’re happy to see any pictures shared, but if you’re one of the lucky souls who works with awesome hardware make sure to take some ‘extreme’ shots. For instance, reading while you wait for the cyclotron to warm up, the nuclear sub to surface, or your ride to pick you up from Amundsen-Scott.

This is our first ever print edition and we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure it’s something you’ll be proud to have on your coffee table, bookshelf, or anywhere for years to come.

[Photos via @jbdatko, @JeremySCook, @rdcampbell13, @ToddTerrazas]

Hackaday.io Reaches 50,000 Registered Users

February 9, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 20 Comments

Hackaday.io, our neat project hosting site, has been around for a little more than a year. It’s been public for juuussst over 11 months, and today we’ve hit a milestone: we have over 50,000 hackers on board, documenting their builds and giving skulls for the cool projects they find. The lucky 50,000th hacker? This guy.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a ton of cool projects that have included a $300 pick and place machine, a very inexpensive machine vision camera system that’s also a very successful Kickstarter, the closest Hackaday ever get to a MOOC from a Cornell professor, and something that would be called the decapitron if it weren’t built by a NASA engineer.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without those 50,000 people on Hackaday.io. This one is for everybody out there who’s already registered. We have to give a shoutout to [Dave Darko], by far the most helpful guy on the entire site. He has been a thorn in the side of the devs, giving us an amazing amount of feedback.

Speaking of devs, we’re going to be giving out a t-shirt and a few goodies for the 65,536th hacker to sign on (yes, an off-by-one error), for being the person who forced us to refactor everything. Considering the backroom planning, that shouldn’t be long. If you’re one of the nearly 200,000 unregistered users who visited over the last 30 days, there’s a tiny incentive to sign up.

Hacklet 33 – Minecraft Projects

February 6, 2015 by Adam Fabio 6 Comments

Minecraft hit the PC gaming scene as an alpha release on May 17, 2009. Something about the open world, the crafting system, and the various modes of gameplay made it an instant hit. Since then Minecraft become one of the best selling video games of all time, inspiring thousands of hacks, mods, and projects. This week’s Hacklet highlights some of the best Minecraft projects on Hackaday.io!

We start with [Toulon] and his MineCraft Sidecar Keypad. The Mystify Claw was originally designed as an alternative input device for First Person Shooter (FPS) games. It may look like a mouse, but the claw has no balls or lasers. It provides a 10 button “cradle” for the left hand. Some folks liked the claw, but for many it quickly became a dust collector. [Toulon] resurrected this old input device as an awesome Minecraft controller. He started by yanking all the old electronics, replacing the claw’s brain with the Teensy 2.0, a favorite of keyboard hackers everywhere. New buttons and a slew of new Teensy code made things perfect for mining.

Next up is [Thomas] and his Raspberry Minecraft Server. The Raspberry Pi has long been a hacking platform for Minecraft. The official Raspberry Pi edition of Minecraft is easy to get running, and great for hours of fun. You can also run a Minecraft server on the Pi, which is exactly what [Thomas] is doing. He’s set his Raspberry Pi up with a WiFi dongle and a battery pack. With a bit of configuration, this allows the Pi to become the center of a wireless Lan party. On batteries, the Pi will run for about five hours of continuous gaming. Details for [Thomas’] project are a bit light right now, but that’s only because he just literally started documenting and uploading his project as we’re going to press. Give him a few days and he’ll have everything filled in!

[GPPK] brings a bit of Minecraft into the real world with Full Size Wireless Redstone Lamp. Inspired by smaller models of the Minecraft redstone lamp, [GPPK] decided to build a life-sized version. “Life-sized” in this case is about 1 cubic meter. That’s a BIG lamp! [GPPK] designed the shell of the lamp in Sketchup, and cut the sides out using a gantry style CNC machine. The structure will be held together with 3D printed connectors, while a Raspberry Pi will provide the brains. Turning the lamp on will be as simple as turning on a switch in-game in Minecraft. [GPPK] has been a bit slow lately with updates on the project. If you know [GPPK] let ’em know that we’re anxiously awaiting some info!

Finally, we have [Simon] and Raspberry Pi Python Controller. One of the best ways to get kids hooked on hacking and electronics is to show them how simple circuits can lead to big changes. What better way to do that than wiring up a simple push button controller for Minecraft? [Simon] used an Arduino paired to a Raspberry Pi with a serial over USB connection. Buttons wired to the Arduino are sent through the serial link to the Pi, where a python script fires off actions based on the serial data. [Simon] has tested his script with Mincraft Pi Edition, and is happy to report back that it works great.

Do you know what’s missing from this Hacklet? Your Minecraft project! It’s not too late though – upload your info to Hackaday.io, and we might just add it to our brand new Minecraft Projects List!

Well, it’s just about quitting time here in the Hackaday Mine. As long as the creepers don’t get us, we’ll be back next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

Universal Active Filters: Part 2

January 28, 2015 by Bil Herd 23 Comments

An easy way to conceptualize active filters is thinking about audio speakers. A speaker crossover has a low-pass, high-pass and band-pass effect breaking a signal into three components based upon frequency. In the previous part of this series I took that idea and applied it to a Universal Active Filter built with a single chip opamp based chip known as the UAF-42. By the way, it’s pretty much an older expensive chip, just one I picked out for demonstration.

Using a dual-ganged potentiometer, I was able to adjust the point at which frequencies are allowed to pass or be rejected. We could display this behavior by sweeping the circuit with my sweep frequency function generator which rapidly changes the frequency from low to high while we watch what can get through the filter.

In this installment I’ll test the theory that filtering out the harmonics which make up a square wave results in a predictable degradation of the waveform until at last it is a sine wave. This sine wave occurs at the fundamental frequency of the original square wave. Here’s the video but stick with me after the break to walk through each concept covered.

Continue reading “Universal Active Filters: Part 2” →

Hackaday Omnibus 2014 — Our First Ever Print Edition

January 19, 2015 by Mike Szczys 101 Comments

Here’s your chance to grab a tangible piece of Hackaday. This morning we are starting pre-orders for the Hackaday Omnibus 2014. This is our first-ever print edition. It collects some of the best original content published on Hackaday in 2014.

We’re proud of what the Hackaday crew accomplished last year. From stories of old and new to articles that encouraged you to stretch your hacking universe, we are thrilled with the original content articles we saw published last year. To go along with this top-tier content, we added amazing art and illustrations from [Joe Kim]. The product is something that demands commemoration in print and thus the Omnibus was born.

This full-color, 80 page, perfect binding volume is just what your coffee table has been crying out for. Of course it will look spectacular covered in solder and clipped resistor leads on the bench. And if your company is serious about hardware you need to send that message with a copy of the Omnibus in the reception area (or comically in the commode).

We are pricing the Hackaday Omnibus 2014 at $15 but we will sweeten the deal if you get in on the preorder. Use this coupon code to get $5 off: OMNIBUS2014. The coupon will work for the first 500 copies pre-ordered with an estimated shipping date of 2/9/15.

Trinket EDC Contest Winners

January 7, 2015 by Adam Fabio 20 Comments

It’s time to announce the winners of the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest! We’ve had a great 5 weeks watching the projects come together. A team of Hackaday staffers spent their weekend watching videos and selecting their top entries based on the contest rules. We had a really hard time picking the top three – the competition was tight, and there were quite a few awesome projects.

Without further ado, here are the winners!

First Prize: 1337 3310 tool. [Mastro Gippo] really knocked this one out of the park. He built a swiss army knife of a tool out of the iconic Nokia 3310 candybar phone. 1337 3310 tool is a graphing voltage and current meter, an ohmmeter, a continuity tester that plays the original Nokia ringtone, and a gaming machine which can play Tetris. [Mastro Gippo] is 99% there with TV-B-Gone functionality as well. Amazingly, [Mastro Gippo] kept the Nokia look and feel in his user interface. He spent quite a bit of time grabbing data and bitmaps from the 3310’s original ROM. [Mastro Gippo] is getting a Rigol DS1054Z scope to help iron out the bugs in his future projects!

Second Prize: Pavapro – portable AVR programmer. [Jaromir] built an incredible pocket-sized microcontroller programming tool. Pavapro can read and edit text files, handle serial I/O at 9600 baud, and burn AVR microcontrollers. If that’s not enough, it can actually assemble AVR binaries from source. That’s right, [Jaromir] managed to fit an entire assembler on the Pro Trinket’s ATmega328 processor. Pavapro’s 16 button keypad won’t allow for much in the way of touch typing, but it does get the job done with T9 style text entry. The device is also extensible, we’re hoping [Jaromir] adds a few other architectures! PIC and MSP430 modes would be awesome! [Jaromir] will be receiving a Fluke 179 multimeter with a 6 piece industrial electronics tip kit! We’re sure he’ll put it to good use.

Third Prize: Robotic 3rd Hand. Let’s face it. We can’t all be Tony Stark. But [Tim] gets us a little bit closer with his awesome wearable entry. Need a tool? Just press the button, and Robotic 3rd Hand will give you a … hand. [Tim’s] creation utilizes the Pro Trinket to drive a servo which moves an incredibly well designed and 3D printed mechanism that lifts a screwdriver off the wearer’s wrist and places it into their hand. [Tim] originally was going to go with Electromyography (EMG) sensors to drive the hand, however he switched to a simple button when they proved problematic. We absolutely think this was the right decision for the contest – it’s always better to have a simpler but working project rather than a complex yet unreliable one. That said, we’d love to see him circle back and give EMG another try! [Tim’s] next project will be soldered up with the help of a Hakko FX888D with a tip kit. If things get a bit wobbly, he can use his new Panavise 324 Electronic Work center to keep everything steady.

If you didn’t make the top three in this contest, don’t give up! We’re going to be having quite a few contests this year. The top 50 entrants will receive custom Hackaday EDC Contest T-shirts. Check out the full list of 50 on Hackday.io!