Ep 153:A 555 Teardown to Die For, Tetrabyte is Not a Typo, DIY Injection Molding, and Using All the Parts of the Trash Printer

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi meet up virtually to talk about all the hacks that are fit to print. This week's episode starts off with a discussion about the recently unveiled 2023 Hackaday.io Low-Power Challenge, and how hackers more often than not thrive when forced to work within these sort of narrow parameters. Discussion then continues to adding a virtual core to the RP2040, crowd-sourced device reliability information, and mechanical Soviet space computers. We'll wrap things up by wondering what could have been had Mattel's ill-fated ThingMaker 3D printer actually hit the market, and then engage in some wild speculation about the issues plaguing NASA's latest Moon mission. Check out the links over at Hackaday!

27 Jan 20231h 12min

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos stood around and marveled at machinery in its many forms, from a stone-cutting CNC to an acrobatic robot to an AI-controlled Twitch v-tuber. But before all of that, we took a look at the winners of our FPV Vehicle Contest, poured one out for Google Stadia, and Elliot managed to stump Kristina once again with this week's What's That Sound. Will you fare better? Later, we drooled over an open-source smart watch, argued screen printing versus stenciling when it comes to bootleg Hackaday merch, and got into the finer points of punycodes. Check out the links and join in the conversation over at Hackaday.

20 Jan 202339min

Even for those with paraskevidekatriaphobia, today is your lucky day as Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney sit under ladders with umbrellas while holding black cats to talk about the week in awesome hacks. And what a week it was, with a Scooby Doo code review, mushrooms in your PCBs, and the clickiest automatic transmission that never was. Have you ever flashed the firmware on a $4 wireless sensor? Maybe you should try. Wondering how to make a rotary Hall sensor detect linear motion? We'll answer that too. Will AI muscle the dungeon master out of your D&D group? That's a hard no. We'll talk about a new RISC-V ESP32, making old video new again, nuclear reactor kibble, and you're least satisfying repair jobs. And yes, everyone can relax -- I'm buying her a new stove. Check out the links in the show notes over on Hackaday.

13 Jan 20231h

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi ring in the New Year with...well, pretty much the same stuff they do every other week. After taking some time to talk about the nuts and bolts of the podcast in honor of Episode 200, discussion moves on to favorite stories of the week including an impeccably cloned Dyson lamp, one hacker's years-long quest to build the ultimate Game Boy, developing hardware in Python, building a breadboard computer with the 6502's simplified sibling, and the latest developments surrounding the NABU set-top box turned retrocomputer. The episode wraps up with a review of some of the biggest themes we saw in 2022, and how they're likely to shape the tech world in the coming years. Check out the links over on Hackaday.

6 Jan 20231h 5min

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos decided against using one of Kristina's tin can microphones to record the podcast, though that might be a cool optional thing to do once (and then probably never again). After a brief foray into the news that the Chaos Communications Congress will be decentralized once again this year, as COVID restrictions make planning this huge event a complete headache (among other notable symptoms), we discuss the news that the EU is demanding replaceable batteries in phones going forward. After that, it's time for another What's That Sound results show, and despite repeated listens, Kristina fails to guess the thing. Even if she'd had an inkling as to what it was, she probably would have said 'split-flap display' instead of the proper answer, which is 'flip-dot display', as a few people responded. Finally, it's on to the hacks, where we talk about uses for ferrofluid and decide that it's one of those things that's just for fun and should not be applied to the world as some sort of all-purpose whacking device. 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!

30 Dec 202244min

As we slide into the Christmas, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney look at the best and brightest of this week's hacks. It wasn't an easy task -- so much good stuff to choose from! But they figured it out, and talked about everything from impossible (and semi-fractal) 3D printing overhangs and the unfortunate fishies of Berlin's ex-aquarium, to rolling your own FM radio station and how a spinning Dorito of doom is a confusing way to make an electric vehicle better. Think it's no fun when your friend forgets to pick you up at the airport? Wait until you hear about what it's like to get stuck on the ISS, and the incredibly risky way you might have to get home. Interested in the anatomy and physiology of a cloned robo-dog? Then let the master do a teardown and give you his insight. We'll make some time for tea, cross our eyes for stereo photos, and dive into the mechanics of the USB-C. Check out the links over on Hackaday!

23 Dec 20221h 6min

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos delighted in the aural qualities of Kristina's brand new, real (read: XLR) microphone before embarking on creating a podcast highlighting the best of the previous week's hacks. This week in the news, NASA returned to the Moon with Artemis I, and this time, there are CubeSats involved. After that, it's on to the What's That Sound results show, marred by Kristina's cheating scandal (listening ahead of time) and Elliot's reading the filename aloud before we started recording. Finally, we move on to the hacks -- they start with a trip to the 90s both sonically and visually, and end with a really nice alarm clock that's decidedly 70s, and definitely Hackaday. Check out the links over on Hackaday!

16 Dec 202243min

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start the Hackaday Podcast by talking about another podcast that's talking about...Hackaday. Or more accurately, the recent Hackaday Supercon. After confirming the public's adoration, conversation moves on to designing flexible PCBs with code, adding a rotary dial to your mechanical keyboard, and a simulator that lets you visualize an extinction-level event. We'll wrap things up by playing the world's smallest violin for mildly inconvenienced closed source software developers, and wonder how the world might have been different if the lady of the house had learned to read binary back in 1969. Check out the links and comment over on Hackaday!

9 Dec 202258min