Ep 264: Cheap Minimills, 65-in-1 Electronics, and Time on Moon

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for their take on the hottest hacks in a hot, hot week. We found a bunch of unusual mechanisms this week, like an omnidirectional robot that's not quite wheeled but not quite a walker either. Or, if you'd rather fly, there's a UAV that's basically a flying propeller. There's danger afoot too, with news of a chess-playing robot with a nasty streak, a laser engraver that'll probably blind you, and a high-voltage corona motor that actually does useful work. We'll use our X-ray vision to take a deep dive into a 60-GHz phased array antenna, let a baby teach a machine what it means to be hungry, and build a couple of toy cameras just for funsies. Ballons as a UI? Maybe someday, thanks to ultrasonic levitation. And we'll wrap things up by snooping in on the Webb telescope's communications, as we find out how many people it takes to make wire harnesses. Spoiler alert: it's a lot. Check out the links in the show notes!

29 Juli 20221h 13min

Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week's podcast off with an announcement the community has been waiting years for: the return of the Hackaday Supercon! While there's still some logistical details to hammer out, we're all extremely excited to return to a live con and can't wait to share more as we get closer to November. Of course you can't have Supercon without the Hackaday Prize, which just so happens to be wrapping up its Hack it Back challenge this weekend. In other news, we'll talk about the developing situation regarding the GPLv3 firmware running on Ortur's laser engravers (don't worry, it's good news for a change), and a particularly impressive fix that kept a high-end industrial 3D printer out of the scrapheap. We'll also fawn over a pair of fantastically documented projects, learn about the fascinating origins of the lowly fire hydrant, and speculate wildly about the tidal wave of dead solar panels looming menacingly in the distance. Check out the show notes!

22 Juli 20221h 11min

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos stood around talking like they weren't thousands of miles apart. And we mean that literally: Kristina just got an up/down desk, and it turns out that Elliot's had the exact same one for years. In between the hammerings on Kristina's house (she's getting new siding), we kick things off by drooling over the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and compare a few of them to the same shots from Hubble. We managed to save a bit of saliva for all the seriously swell keyboards and not-keyboards we saw throughout the Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals contest, all of which are winners in our book. This week, we ask the tough questions, like why would someone who has never played guitar want to build one from scratch? We can only guess that the answer is simply, 'because l can'. As lazy as that reasoning may sound, this build is anything but. Later on, we'll ogle an ocean of PS/2 keyboards and their new owner's portable testing rig, complain about ASMR, and laugh about a giant nose that sneezes out sanitizer.

15 Juli 202246min

It's podcast time again, and this week Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams sat down with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to review the best hacks on the planet, and a few from off. We'll find out how best to capture lightning, debate the merits of freezing water -- or ice cream -- when it's warm, and see if we can find out what R2D2 was really talking about with all those bleeps and bloops. Once we decode that, it'll be time to find out what Tom Nardi was up to while the boss was away with his hidden message in episode 174, and how analog-encoded digital data survives the podcast production and publication chain. But surely you can't watch a YouTube video on a Commodore PET, can you? As it turns out, that's not a problem, and neither apparently is 3D printing a new ear. Check out the show notes!

8 Juli 20221h 3min

Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we cuss and discuss all the gnarliest hacks from the past week. We kick off this episode with a gentle reminder that the Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals Contest ends this Monday, July 4th, at 8:30 AM PDT. We've seen a ton of cool entries so far, including a new version of [Peter Lyons]' Squeezebox keyboard that we're itching to write up for the blog. In other contest news, the Round 2 winners of the Reuse, Recycle, Revamp challenge of the 2022 Hackaday Prize have been announced. Elliot is super stoked about [Jason Knight]'s open-source recycled skateboard deck-making apparatus, and Kristina wishes she had the time and money to build some of the fundamental Precious Plastic machines. Elliot managed to stump Kristina with this week's What's That Sound, though she probably should have reached further into the annals of her memory and made a semi-educated guess. From there, it's on to missing moon rocks and the word of the day before we get into a handful of contest entries, including a mechanical keyboard to end all mechanical keyboards. This really just scratches the surface of this week's show, which includes some new hardware stuffed into old, as well as modern implementations of old technology. And in case you didn't get enough of Kristina's childhood memoirs, she goes a bit deeper into the teddy bears and telephones rooms of her memory palace. Check out the links over at Hackaday.

1 Juli 202249min

Fresh from vacation, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams makes his triumphant return to the Hackaday Podcast! He's joined this week by Managing Editor Tom Nardi, who's just happy he didn't have to do the whole thing by himself again. In this episode we'll talk about tackling BGA components in your custom PCBs, a particularly well executed hack against Google's Nest Hub, and why you probably don't really want the world's cheapest 3D printer. We'll also take a look at an incredible project to turn the Nokia 1680 into a Linux-powered handheld computer, a first of its kind HDMI firewall, and a robot that's pretty good at making tacos. Listeners who are into artificial intelligence will be in for quite a treat as well, as is anyone who dreams of elevating the lowly automotive alternator to a more prominent position in the hacker world. By the way, it seems nobody has figured out the hidden message in last week's podcast yet. What are you waiting for? One of you out there has to be bored enough to give it a shot. Check out the links, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

24 Juni 20221h 8min

With Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams enjoying some time off, Managing Editor Tom Nardi is flying solo for this special edition of the Hackaday Podcast. Thanks to our roving reporter Jenny List, we'll be treated to several interviews conducted live from EMF Camp -- a European outdoor hacker camp the likes of which those of us in the United States can only dream of. After this special segment, Hackaday contributors Al Williams and Ryan Flowers will stop by to talk about their favorite stories from the week during what may be the longest Quick Hacks on record. There's a few extra surprises hidden in this week's program...but if we told you everything, it would ruin the surprise. Listen closely, you never know what (or who) you might hear. Show notes and links available on Hackday.

17 Juni 202242min

Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos for a free-as-in-beer showcase of the week's most gnarly but palatable hacks. But first, a reminder! Round 2 of the 2022 Hackaday Prize comes to an end in the early hours of Sunday, June 12th, so there's still enough time to put a project together and get it entered. This week, we discuss the utility of those squishy foam balls in projects and issue the PSA that it is in fact pool noodle season, so go get 'em. We drool over if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it 3D printers with staircases and such, and wonder why breadboard game controls didn't already exist. Later on we laugh about lasers, shake the bottle of LTSpice tips from [fesz], and ponder under-door attacks. Finally, we're back to frickin' laser beams again, and we discover that there's a fruity demoscene in Kristina's backyard. Check out the show notes for all the sweet, sweet links.

10 Juni 202241min