Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Basic Toolkit for the Basement Biohacker
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/27/basic-toolkit-for-the-basement-biohacker/
Taking the form of an Arduino mega-shield that supports a pH meter, a spectrophotometer, and a PID-controlled hot plate, [M. Bindhammer]’s design has a nice cross-section of the instruments needed to start biohacking in your basement. Since the shield piggybacks on an Arduino, all the data can be logged, and decisions can be made based on the data as it is collected.
Low cost and open source bio-engineering kit
Arduino based kit to start bio-engineering
https://hackaday.io/project/8205-low-cost-and-open-source-bio-engineering-kit
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Koebler / Motherboard:
Profile of iFixit, the company helping us continue doing DIY repairs on modern electronics — How to Fix Everything — It happened suddenly, like most of these stories do. My alarm went off. I kicked my leg out as I jolted awake, making solid contact with my new laptop …
How to Fix Everything
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-to-fix-everything
Tomi Engdahl says:
Swallow the Doctor — The Present and Future of Robots Inside Us
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/30/swallow-the-doctor-the-present-and-future-of-robots-inside-us/
Shrinking pacemakers and tiny ingestible TV studios offer a glimpse of what future mobile endorobots might look like. After all, it’s not too hard to imagine a Micra-sized device piloting itself around inside the body with surgical rather than electrical actuators.
To accelerate development of capsule-sized endorobots, a team at Vanderbilt University has developed an open-source platform for capsule robots. A flexible circuit board that can be rolled up to fit within a capsule has space for multiple modules that can be mixed and matched for the job at hand. Current modules include power management and communications subsystems; a fleet of sensors including accelerometers, gyros, and magnetometers; and drivers for brushed and brushless DC motors for actuators and propulsion. They’ve even provided a web-based framework for designing systems using the module and simulating their functions. A stripped-down version of the system suitable for students and hobbyists will also be available.
Design Environment for Medical Capsule Robots
http://pillforge.github.io/
Tomi Engdahl says:
1Wamp, An Open Hardware Guitar Amplifier
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/30/1wamp-an-open-hardware-guitar-amplifier/
The folks at [ElectroSmash] recently released 1Wamp – a one watt, open hardware, Guitar amplifier packed with features. It consists of a JFET based pre-amplifier, a Big Muff Pi a.k.a BMP based Tone control and an LM386 power amplifier. The dual JFET pre-amp provides tube-like sound, the BMP provides a nice tonal range while the LM386 can drive various types of output’s ranging from headphones to speaker cabinets.
1Wamp had controls for Tone, Volume and Gain, a Speaker/Cabinet output, a headphone output with an integrated attenuator switch and an aux. input. The aux. input is handy as it adds any line level input signal to the guitar sound, allowing you to practice with metronome or MP3 backing tracks or drum bases. It runs off either a 9V battery or can be powered via an external power source.
1Wamp Electric Guitar Amplifier – Open Hardware
http://www.electrosmash.com/1wamp
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embrace the feeling, mate! That’s your brain getting smarter while simultaneously realising how little we all really understand.
See Dunning Kruger effect ;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Tomi Engdahl says:
Makers, Robots Drive STEM
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328377&
A combination of the maker movement and robotics is preparing children for a future in which innovation and creativity will be more important than ever.
Research from the DevTech group at Tufts University shows that robotics is an effective way for children as young as four years old to get experience in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics as well as programming and computer science. The maker movement is inspiring children to tinker-to-learn. It encourages them to be creators of technology rather than just consumers of it.
There are many robotics platforms that children can get started with for their inventions and playful learning of fundamental STEM concepts. Examples of robotics and DIY electronics platforms include Arduino, Lego Mindstorms, Raspberry Pi, Phiro and LittleBits.
For instance, we have helped students learn practical applications of physics by designing and building hovercraft, using child-friendly materials and cheap electronics. They test their creations in a small pool of water to visualize the working of a hovercraft in real-time.
By building miniature hydrogen fuel cell cars, older students learned about clean energy, physics, electrochemistry, electrical circuits and engineering. They learned about aerodynamics by designing and building cars using 3D design software, renewable materials and 3D printed models.
Students also worked on home-automation projects to learn about energy conservation. They worked with low-cost Bluetooth beacons connected to smartphones, developing programs that display personal energy use levels.
Such hands-on education programs have instilled in children a passion for STEM subjects and careers.
The maker movement is inspiring the creation of robotic platforms that are simple, open source and affordable. Such platforms can help millions of students globally express themselves and solve real-world problems. Simplified robotics learning tools will lower barriers for educators, allowing children to teach themselves.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Fireside Chat with Grant Imahara
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/01/a-fireside-chat-with-grant-imahara/
Grant Imahara was on hand at the Hackaday SuperConference for a fireside chat led by Sophi Kravitz and Chris Gammell. You know Grant from his work on the television show MythBusters. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, is known for his work on robots and special effects, he’s the engineer behind the Energizer Bunny, and has even competed on BattleBots. Over the past year he joined with Mouser Electronics to promote engineering through their Empowering Innovation Together campaign.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Future hardware is open
Open the program code is familiar to everyone, but open hardware? Altium Circuitmaker tool takes the evolution towards an open hardware.
When you consider the open source code, hardware, or “iron” does not come to mind first for most people. Dominated by an open source software in the world iron has not been able to get the same kind of attention. The open hardware community has always been there, but he has not found the tools to design that would meet the need for a centralized platform that could support and share voimen iron projects without having to suffer its functionality.
Altium seeks to change this. Circuitmaker made public beta version in May 2015, we have already seen how powerful open-source hardware can be. This printed circuit board, or PCB design tool is the heart of it, which is dependent on it either succeeds or crashes: the community. Community begins for each individual project, which is shared between the electronics designers all over the world.
Form meets function
Editing the project (forking) creates a copy of the original, which allows the designer to use the manufacturing technology of the new design starting point. Benin project is a good example of how planning and can be modified in practice. Circuitmaker will begin to see more and more of a variety of planning and when the new reference material is slowly added.
Circuitmaker initiated a new project to save valuable time, which would otherwise spend in research and Importing suunnitteluspeksien. The models can be divided into classes according to their role and their fulfillment of the requirements:
- Card Format Type (form factor): These allow custom-design is to join the existing standards, prototype cards, based on printed circuit boards or substrates. In addition, certain formal or shielding to meet the entire requirements they can be used.
- Connector Type: these allows it to connect to other devices connections. These include, for example, DDR memory interface or a USB connector.
- Planning Function Model (design function): These can be used to define the physical design of the device functions such as precise antennigeometriaan or the optimal placement of the micro-controller and peripheral devices in a new design.
Open-iron community grows, above all, the power of design re-use. Circuitmaker functional modules work just as appropriate as components that allow certain desired functions in end products. For example, the bluetooth module implementing separate projects would produce all the necessary building design element logical ha physical elements. Users can only edit the project and start planning additional activities around it.
Editing design itself is pretty straightforward. Circuitmaker community site to browse or search for the purpose of finding an interesting design. Then, just click the edit button (Fork) to create a copy. And the cherry on lov may be planning to follow as and when it progresses and develops.
Right now is the best time to get involved with open hardware design. Download Circuitmaker open beta today at http://www.circuitmaker.com.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3664:tulevaisuuden-rauta-on-avointa&catid=26&Itemid=140
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenBionics Fabs Prosthetics as Unique as Those Who Wear Them
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/02/openbionics-fabs-prosthetics-as-unique-as-those-who-wear-them/
Humans may all have the same overall form, but when we need to find a suitable replacement for a missing limb, it’s clear that between the variety of finger-lengths and hand-breadths, a one-size-fits-all prosthetic just wont cut it. OpenBionics puts a spin on today’s approach to prosthetics, putting forth a framework of tools that’s flexible enough to fit the spectrum of hand shapes and enables us to create our own prosthetic at home that can meet the challenge of most everyday tasks.
OpenBionics
An open-source initiative for the development of affordable, light-weight, modular robot and prosthetic hands.
https://github.com/OpenBionics
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open source intrinsic imaging
http://labrigger.com/blog/2015/11/30/open-source-intrinsic-imaging/
Leonardo Lupori and Raffaele Mazziotti are two fellows in lab of the excellent Tommaso Pizzorusso. They have developed an intrinsic signal optical imaging rig and are sharing all of the materials. Here’s their web site with the resources and links.
Intrinsic Optical Signal Imaging Chamber IOSIC
http://www.in.cnr.it/index.php/en/joomlaorg-2/2-non-categorizzato/392-mazziotti
Origin: The development of the IOS imaging techniques is based on the finding that, when the brain is illuminated by a red light, the presence of neuronal activity causes changes in the amount of light that is reflected back to the camera (i.e., the brain reflectance changes with activity). These stimulus-evoked optical changes are referred to as intrinsic signals to differentiate them from other optical signals obtained using extrinsic probes such as voltage sensitive dyes or calcium indicators.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
[Alvaro] started off with a disclaimer, but when [Alvaro] says he doesn’t know what he’s doing, what he means is that he hasn’t received formal training in building laser-wielding, autonomous turret robots. (How did we miss that class in school?)
He’s a true hacker, though; he didn’t know what he was doing when he started out but he started out anyway. [Alvaro]’s takes us from the first prototypes where he used servo motors with inadequate angular resolution mounted to balsa wood frames that he (obviously) cut with a knife by hand, through laser-cut frames with custom gearing and stepper motors, all the way to his DEFCONBOTS 2015 entry, based on OpenBeam aluminum extrusions and using professional laser-show galvos capable of swinging the beam around to thousands of points per second.
Since [Alvaro] is an electrical engineer who “writes code for a living”, he didn’t focus much on the code side at all. Instead, he shared a lot of what he’s learned through designing and building real, physical robots to target and illuminate moving ping-pong balls
Source: http://hackaday.com/2015/12/04/alvaro-prietos-laser-shooting-robots/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sudden Death: Wall Sign + Night Light
https://hackaday.io/project/8381-sudden-death-wall-sign-night-light
A wedding present for my friend: His last name burned on to wood slices, one of which illuminates the hallway at night. Built in 2 weeks.
The end result is a set of wood slices, each with a letter burned on it, spelling my friend’s last name.
The cool feature is a battery powered night light that provides just enough light to see the floor and turns itself off when it detects light. Calculations indicate the batteries should last over a year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Death of Surplus
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/07/the-death-of-surplus/
Back to my point of where surplus originated. While I wasn’t completely wrong (these companies certainly have helped contribute to the surplus electronics market) the beginnings of surplus storefronts date back to World War II.
US government would have had a large stock of “stuff” to get rid of at the end of the war.
Enter the sale of government surplus all over the nation, usually near air force bases. So this is how the more generalized concept of a surplus shop came to be in existence; mix in the domestic manufacturing of electronics in the 1970’s and we have electronics surplus shops aplenty.
Shopping Surplus
Walking into one of these shops is very different from ordering parts online, as we all have become accustomed to. They are surplus shops, they only have surplus items for sale. What does that mean? That means you can buy any number of items that may not be available next time you come in the shop. In fact you could buy a motor or motor assembly and never be able to find one of them again. There’s a chance you might not ever find data on the motor either, I know what you’re thinking: “My Google-Fu is strong. I find parts and data no one else can.” Yep, I thought the same thing but the fact of the matter is that some of these parts are custom made for specific designs and even calling the manufacturer yields no data.
However, this system creates an advantage of equal magnitude. Surplus shops get parts and assemblies for extremely reduced prices which means we can buy them from the shop for orders of magnitude less than others are asking for the same item.
Adapting to Survive
Obviously the domestic manufacturing of electronics has moved from continent to continent a few times since the ’70s. This puts shops that mainly dealt with surplus suppliers in grave danger of closing the doors. Things had to change as the surplus well dried up. Where you could previously only purchase values of resistors that had been sold to the shop as surplus, now you can buy any common value of resistor in a variety of power ratings as well as capacitors of common value in a variety of materials.
What started with filling in the resistor values to meet customer needs is now display cabinets and shelving dedicated to the hobbyists. Arduino and Raspberry Pi compatible bits and pieces can be found along with current issues of Makezine without looking too hard. However a keen eye will spot a row of boxes behind the microcontroller display marked “Z80A”, “Z80B”, “Z80 DMA”, “Z80 PIO”, “1 Meg D-RAM”. Which is but a few rows before original 7400 series can be found, not to be confused with 74LS, or 74HC, or 74HCT, or ALS or 4000 series CMOS which can all be found behind the counter in through hole packages and sold by the each.
Surplus stores are fading away. But the biggest loss isn’t the availability of inventory, it’s the loss of culture. If you don’t know already where to find them in your area, start by looking for the local ham radio or retro computing club. If you can stoke the local talent in you area, sit them down and explore their cache memory after asking them: “Hey, what’s a curve tracer?”. Believe me, you’re in for a conversation you won’t soon forget.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mudd Hacks: Piloting a College Hardware Hackathon to Success
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/07/mudd-hacks-piloting-a-college-hardware-hackathon-to-success/
Software hackathons are an old hat these days. They’re a great scouting opportunity for talented candidates looking for a job, and they provide the battleground for coding enthusiasts to prove themselves by developing a project from start to finish overnight, albeit, with a few kinks. Hardware hackathons are an entirely different beast. By trading APIs for components and Python libraries for soldering irons, they pull the excitement out of the text editor and onto the workbench for everyone to see.
While hardware hackathons might be “the next big thing” with you and your four best DIY-pals, the broad range of physical components, from Arduinos to CNC milling time, makes rule-establishment, safety enforcement, and winning criteria far more difficult to constrain within a single night. Enter Muddhacks. This past October, three students from Harvey Mudd College set out to deliver a hardware hackathon that would open their student community’s mind to the thought of tinkering-for-fun in their spare time outside the lab and beyond their homework.
To resolve their craving for after-hours engineering and to inspire a culture of collaborative tinkering, they set out to bootstrap a hardware hackathon; an event where many projects could be realized by many students in a single night.
Everyone Says Hardware is Hard
For the unitiated, hardware looks hard. Breadboards, LEDs, r`esistors? To those who have never put together a simple circuit before, taking that first leap is a challenge set by a box of components that almost seems to glare back menacingly. The three teammates took this first-timer roadblock as a challenge unto themselves to break down that barrier. Thus, HackWeek was born.
HackWeek was the MuddHacks teams’ answer to get students comfortable gluing modules together to produce a functional project in a short time. How do I make things move? How do I connect things to the internet? What parts do I choose? All of these questions-worth-answering became topics of the three-day event before the hackathon. The idea behind HackWeek was simple: give eager students enough theory and a functional demo that they could probe, tweak, and recompile so that they could feel more comfortable developing their own ideas into projects.
On day one, the MuddHacks team brought functional demos of various motors into the hands of eager students. By day two, the three teammates actually assembled a functional hack of their own before the eyes of their listeners: an internet-enabled microwave that could remotely start warming up that cup of ramen on your way back from class.
Unlike software hackathons, a successful hardware hackathon involves parts, and the MuddHacks team was well-prepared to bring the participants the parts that they wanted. With ten days to go before the event, [Ben] took orders from each team’s desired list of parts.
On this last day, teams opened their bags and explored the parts given to them and to other teams while taking advice from the mentors present to offer tips for using various components.
For [Ben], [Apoorva], and [Akhil], fostering a sense of community in tinkering became their top priority. As they wandered between teams, they encouraged stellar performers to take a brief break and help out another team through a bug.
For more information head over to muddhacks.com
How to Deliver a Hardware Hackathon
Charging participants an entrance fee may solve the problem of funding, but for the thrifty, starving student, entrance fees may also weed out people
The solution? Bring participants in for free and support the hackathon with external funding.
The Muddhacks team handled most of their administrative work online. Among the tools they chose were
Google Forms for parts orders and feedback
Slack and email lists for real-time updates during the event
Google Spreadsheets for keeping track of order requests
Bootstrap for deploying a website
The Muddhacks team mandated that students form teams to enter the hackathon, mostly to foster community and collaboration. They reasoned: “If you already build things for fun on your own, you don’t need a hackathon to get you excited about hardware for the first time.” Most teams self-assembled, but the Muddhacks team also suggests a submission form for stragglers to pair up.
Ten days before the hackathon, [Ben] put out a call to order parts in a $100 budget range.
Among points to consider for the setting are:
reliable Wi-Fi connectivity
power outlet access
Soldering irons and sleep-deprivation don’t mix well. Among the points to consider for safety are tools that will keep users safe (safetly glasses and ventilation in this case). The MuddHacks team also recommends a safety waiver.
Getting people excited is key. Logos, T-shirts, and Mugs all add to the authenticity of the one-night event.
Keeping the Night Moving
Feed the masses. The MuddHacks team reminds us that, as the hosts and organizers of the event, it’s your responsibility to make sure that attendees are both awake and enjoying their time.
The MuddHacks team brought in their favorite professors to judge teams’ projects. At this event, the MuddHacks team stresses that all participants deserve to see all projects.
From the MuddHacks Team: “Take pictures!” While the first website and facebook page were filled with images of the tools and the setting, next years website and advertisements could be filled with pictorial proof of the promise to participants of a genuine experience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
REM Detection Lets You Boss Around Your Dreams
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/07/rem-detection-makes-you-boss-of-your-dreams/
Michael] has been working on projects involving lucid dreaming for a long time. The recurring problem with most projects of this nature, though, is that they often rely on some sort of headgear or other wearable which can be cumbersome to actually sleep with. He seems to have made some headway on that problem by replacing some of the offending equipment with a small camera that can detect eye movements just as well as other methods.
The idea behind projects like this is that a piece of hardware detects when the user is in REM sleep, and activates some cue which alerts the sleeper to the fact that they’re dreaming (without waking them up).
http://lucidcode.com/2015/11/30/halovision-0-9-3/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Brown / Official Google Blog:
Google offers three interchangeable shells to customize TP-LINK OnHub routers, for $29-$39
Make your home Internet look like your home with OnHub
https://googleblog.blogspot.fi/2015/12/make-your-home-internet-look-like-your.html
Chances are, somewhere in your home, there‘s a tangled mess of wires and blinking lights that make your Wi-Fi work. Your router likely isn’t the most sightly thing, and you probably hide it behind a curtain or under a bookcase—out of sight. Turns out, that’s a bit of a problem, since routers work better when they’re out in the open. So a few months ago, we released the first OnHub router from TP-LINK. It replaces the unruly cords, blinking lights, and bulky antennas of a typical router with subtle lighting and internal wiring, so you’re more likely to put OnHub out where it works best. Today we’re introducing more ways to make your OnHub look great in your home with three new, interchangeable shells for the OnHub from TP-LINK, as well as OnHub Makers, a gallery of shells designed by artists, designers, and makers.
With OnHub Makers, we wanted to see what some of the world’s most creative minds would do to personalize their routers. We reached out to artists, makers and designers who poured resin, blew glass, and cut paper to make their own unique shells.
Feeling inspired? Then it’s time to get crafty. We’ve put together all of the information you need to customize an OnHub shell. Whether you’re using a laser cutter or simple finger paints, download the Maker Packet for 3D files, 2D patterns, and useful guidelines.
If DIY isn’t really your thing you can still add some style to your Wi-Fi with one of the three new shells from the OnHub team
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Best Badges Of The SuperCon
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/09/the-best-badges-of-the-supercon/
A few weeks ago, we took a look at the best badge hacks at the Hackaday Supercon. These were the best badge hacks anyone has ever seen – including what comes out of DEF CON and the SDR badge from the latest CCC. I’m ascribing this entirely to the free-form nature of the badge; give people a blank canvas and you’re sure to get a diverse field of builds. Now it’s time to take a look at the cream of the crop, hear what the jolly wrencher sounds like, and how to put 1000 Volts in a badge.
There were three categories for the badge hacking competition at the SuperCon – best deadbug, best blinky, and most over the top. A surprising number of people managed to solder, glue, and tape some components to a the piece of FR4 we used as a conference badge, but in the end, only three would win.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Noah Feehan and the Mind of the Maker
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/09/noah-feehan-and-the-mind-of-the-maker/
Too often we find ourselves featuring projects on these pages without giving much thought behind the people who made them. Nevertheless, behind the LED panels, github pages, and PCBs that make the hardware magic happen, there’s a person. And not just one person but an entire culture of people who let their conscious hours bleed late into the night over software bugs and bad solder joints. Noah Feehan is one of these veterans, and at this year’s Hackaday SuperConference, he reached out to this culture.
Armed with ten years of experience in art and engineering design, Noah delivers his best tips for fellow hackers.
Know Thine Inventory
bone_conductionTake a look at your workbench. What do you see? Do the scraps of yesteryear’s projects congest the progress on today’s? Not for Noah. He’s saved himself countless hours by localizing his projects to a single mess, and he’ll save himself even more time by loading that box with duplicate parts used in quantity. Noah also swears by keeping his project boxes about 30-percent open, ready to accommodate ideas that he’ll pick up later.
Gauging just how long it’ll take to knock out the next project is tricky, but Noah gives us a trick: audit your time. Be it a Google-Doc or text file, keeping a mission log of the bugs fixed, the components ordered, and the parts left to machine in the next weekend are key in helping us get a better sense of long it takes to finish off a project. What’s more, we can leap back into the project knowing exactly where we left off. Handy; especially if we’re juggling another project whilst waiting for more parts in the mail.
The What-am-I-getting-out-of-this before the What-did-I-get-myself-into?
Have another look at that workbench. Odds are pretty high that you’ve got not just one but maybe three or four half-completed projects along the way. How can we push hard enough to get through the last few miles of grit to finish them off? Noah tells us to start from the beginning and ask ourselves: “where’s the dopamine” in that project? Will our eyes light up when we blink that first LED
Noah confesses, it’s tough to actually convince ourselves that we’ll finish off a project if we’re not getting anything out of it along the way.
Noah is living in the space of making things
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Maritime Instrument Project
https://hackaday.io/project/5047-open-source-maritime-instrument-project
Open Source Instruments for Water Based Vehicles and Systems, Focused on Affordable Data Collection and Quantification.
We are building a community to source innovative hardware and software solutions to the problem of expensive and closed design maritime systems.
Our goal is to provide an inexpensive way for mariners to collect and quantify data in order to reduce expenses, increase income, and conserve resources from fish to petroleum. Other groups like scientists and researchers will also benefit from well known, transparent systems to advance their work on a limited budget.
Approximately two thousand super large cargo container ships move an estimated ninety percent of goods to consumer markets. They are heavy polluters who must rely on a shrinking profit margin. Large, well-capitalized ship owners can build ships like the Maersk Triple E. Excellent design and ongoing quantification of all aspects of the ship makes it a leader in naval architecture and efficiency.
Fewer resources can be leveraged by small owners and operators in developing regions or anywhere money is in short supply. Our project aims to design and assist operators of all sizes run their vessels with less expense, greater safety, fewer emissions, and more innovation gathered from the deep knowledge of related communities.
A modular system with a core unit is planned; AIS, SAR, GPS, RDF, sonars, radars, and automation as well as mobile and fixed location sensor packages are candidates for development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Social Innovation supporting Open Source Hardware
https://hackaday.io/project/6439-social-innovation-supporting-open-source-hardware
We have been given a mandate to test the feasibility of Open Source Networks to deliver living Hardware co created by communities Globally
On June 11 2015, Sensorica.co Montreal Lab. was invited to the White House to discuss collaborative crowdsourcing models and interfaces between open communities and traditional institutions.
This a paying gig, and most important we can prove that the Open Source and Peer2Peer movement can radically change the economic structure, lower barriers of entry for the design and commercialization of Open Source Hardware.
http://www.sensorica.co/home/working-space/recent-announcements/sensoricawasinvitedtopresenttheovnmodelatthewhitehouse
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modular Desktop Photolithography
https://hackaday.io/project/4621-modular-desktop-photolithography
A powerful, and flexible tool that will allow inexpensive access to a variety of processes, from 3d printing to semiconductor fabrication.
I would put a pretty chunk of change that the core hackaday audience REALLY likes the integrated circuit. Who could blame them. In the half century since its invention, billions of people have had drastic improvements in their standards of living since its invention.
This all being said, there is one aspect of the integrated circuit that has proved to be problematic throughout the life of this technology that will only amplify as we attempt to bridge the digital divide. Integrated Circuits rely upon very large scale integration (VLSI) techniques in their manufacture, and historically, such equipment has been extremely expensive, with standard foundries costing in the range of billions of dollars, and getting more and more expensive with each new technological leap in transistor technology. It puts politically connected, profit seeking corporations in charge of what sorts of devices can be made, and as we’ve seen in the past few years with threats of backdoors and blackout buttons that cause us to loose control of our devices, this is terrible for everyone, especially the maker community.
But is there a solution? Is there a way we can regain control of the way our devices are made?
I would hope so, which is why I hope to develop a modular desktop photolithography device. As people like Jeri Ellsworth have shown, the main obstacle when it comes to making integrated circuits, the most difficult aspect for a DIY process is patterning.
My goal is to design a device that can pattern silicon wafers with minimum feature sizes of 2 micrometers that has a form factor that makes it convenient for use in both the home and maker spaces. The first circuits to be made with this device will probably only have a few dozen transistors (maybe even 100 if I’m ambitious)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Texel: Art Tracks You, Tracks Time
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/09/texel-art-tracks-you-tracks-time/
French robot-artist [Lyes Hammadouche] tipped us off to one of his latest works: Texel. A “texel” is apparently a time-pixel, and the piece consists of eight servo-controlled hourglasses that can tip themselves over in response to viewers walking in front of them.
We get jealous when we see artists playing around with toys like these. Texel uses LIDAR scanners, Kalman-filtered naturally, to track the viewers. openFrameworks, OpenCV, and ROS. In short, everything you’d need to build a complex, human-interactive piece like this using completely open-source tools from beginning to end. Respect!
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Cody] Takes us From Rock To Ring
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/09/cody-takes-us-from-rock-to-ring/
he did pick up some ore his family had brought out a few years back. Getting from ore to silver is a long process though.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alfred P. Morgan: A Generation’s Radio Hacker
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/11/alfred-p-morgan-a-generations-radio-hacker/
I was surfing the web looking for interesting projects the other day when I ran into [SkyKing’s] exquisite transistor demodulator radio builds. He mentioned that they were “Alfred P. Morgan-style” and that brought back a flood of memories about a man who introduced a whole generation to electronics and radio.
http://theradioboard.com/rb/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6654
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Three Week Three Dollar Binary Watch
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/10/the-three-week-three-dollar-binary-watch/
There’s a Maker Faire in three weeks, and your group wants to design and build a binary watch to give to attendees. You don’t have much time, and your budget is $3 per watch. What do you do? If you are [Parker@Macrofab] you come up with a plan, buy some parts, and start prototyping.
[Parker] selected the PIC16F527 because it had enough I/O and was inexpensive.
Designing and Building the Macro Watch
https://macrofab.com/blog/designing-and-building-the-macrowatch/
Tomi Engdahl says:
OSWatch, an open source watch
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/13/oswatch-an-open-source-watch/
If you are a soldering ninja with a flair for working with tiny parts and modules, check out the Open Source Watch a.k.a. OSWatch built by [Jonathan Cook]. His goals when starting out the project were to make it Arduino compatible, have enough memory for future applications, last a full day on one charge, use BLE as Central or Peripheral and be small in size. With some ingenuity, 3d printing and hacker skills, he was able to accomplish all of that.
http://oswatch.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kay Igwe Explains Brain Gaming Through SSVEP
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/03/kay-igwe-explains-brain-gaming-through-ssvep/
[Kay Igwe] is exploring a very interesting phenomenon that uses flashing lights to elicit very specific, and easy to detect brain waves.
[Kay] is taking a slightly different approach from EEG based systems. She’s using Steady State Visually Evoked Potential (SSVEP). SSVEP is a long name for a simple concept. Visual data is processed in the occipital lobe, located at the back of the brain. It turns out that if a person looks at a flashing light at say, 50 Hz, their occipital lobe will have a strong electrical signal at 50 Hz, or a multiple thereof. Signals as high as 75 Hz, faster than is consciously recognizable as flashing, still generate electrical “flashes” in the brain.
[Kay’s] circuit is a classic setup for amplifying low power signals generated by the human body. She uses an AD620 instrumentation amplifier to bring the signals up to a reasonable level. After that, a couple of active filter stages clean things up. Finally, the brainwave signals are sent into the ADC of an Arduino.
The Arduino digitizes the data and sends it on to a computer. [Kay] used Processing to analyze the signal and display output. In this case, she’s performing a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), then analyzing the frequencies of the brain signal. Finally, the output is displayed in the form of a game.
[Kay] has a lot planned for Control iT, everything from controlling wheelchairs to drones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danielle Applestone and the Story of Every Othermill
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/14/danielle-applestone-and-the-story-of-every-othermill/
Many of us may qualify as “makers,” but how about a “maker of machines?” [Danielle Applestone] tells us what kinks to look for whilst embarking on your hardware startup adventure. Co-founder of Other Machine Co, the company that makes a PCB Mill that holds tolerances as tight as a thousandth of an inch
Danielle Applestone: Founding a hardware startup: what I wish I’d known!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNidIy7t0DQ
Hackaday Superconference // Nov 14-15 // Dogpatch Studios // San Francisco
Being a founder of a hardware startup is hard, and you will make mistakes. There are a few people out there that can show you the right way to do things, though. One of them is Danielle Applestone, CEO of the Other Machine Company, creators of the OtherMill.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Common parts library eases startup production woes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-insights/4440993/Common-parts-library-eases-startup-production-woes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_pcbdesigncenter_20151214&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_pcbdesigncenter_20151214&elq=44347227743c45eba368726bfcf91d10&elqCampaignId=26136&elqaid=29891&elqat=1&elqTrackId=2fab745667564547bec61c2f25f1c768
The difference between commercial hardware design and hobby electronics has blurred over the last few years. With open source hardware, the newer slate of very affordable and capable CAD tools, and the vast knowledge base available online, most of what can be done in a big corporate lab can also be done in a spare room at home. This has fostered a re-emergence of the hardware startup. It’s also brought to light a few problems that still need to be addressed.
By day, I work for a manufacturing company; on the weekends, I design and build small electronic devices. My design projects are typically microcontroller-based, with many having custom Arduino-compatible hardware at the core. Being based on pre-existing open source designs, these aren’t terribly difficult projects. That’s not to say that aren’t any hang ups, though. It’s not in the assembly. I’ve got that handled; either by hand building the simple boards or by sending the complex ones through the plant at my day job. No, it’s not design or assembly that gets me down. It’s the measly supply chain.
Smaller components, like passives, are easy to put into CAD, but not necessarily easy to keep on hand.
Corporate design organizations have purchasing and manufacturing specialists who make sure that the chosen parts are available and in good supply. The startup engineer or hobbyist doesn’t have the luxury of that help. The Common Parts Library (CPL) initiative has recently emerged with the purpose of solving many of these component supply problems.
The Common Parts Library (CPL) Initiative
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/say-what-/4440992/The-Common-Parts-Library–CPL–Initiative
I recently spoke with Octopart’s Sam Wurzel about the supply chain and what they’re doing to reduce availability problems. Octopart, if you don’t know, is a comprehensive parts search engine that is behind the Common Parts Library. The Octopart engine allows you to search for a part from most of the available distributors, all in one spot with the same search action. So, if the QFN version of your MCU keeps disappearing from one place, and randomly reappearing in some other place, then Octopart will lead you right to it.
Octopart is now owned by Alitum
That’s only three parts on a bill of materials comprising about 35 different parts, but multiply that out for a dozen different boards.
Also consider that, if I don’t want my job stopped, I need to check every part on the BOM each time I send that board in for manufacture. It all adds up.
Why doesn’t the manufacturer just pick something and automatically make the substitution, you ask? They can’t, because they don’t know what parameters are important to the designer. Say my LED has a 5 mA forward current and they substitute one with a 20 mA forward current. That might totally mess up my battery life, or it could bring me above the total current source limit of the MCU. On the other hand, if brightness is important to me, putting a 5 mA LED in place of a 20 mA LED could ruin the performance of my product.
“Startups are getting frustrated over the same problems — they don’t understand issues with parts availability and would build boards and need to scrap them because they couldn’t find some of their parts,” said Wurzel. “BOMs get sent to manufacturers that aren’t useable because the parts aren’t available in the supply chain.”
Large companies with a lot of volume manufacturing solve this problem by having a list of approved substitutions. The engineer will pick two or three parts that are all suitable for the design, and the purchasing agents can buy anything on the list without needing any additional approval.
Octopart is working to do the same thing en masse with its Common Parts Library initiative. The idea is that Octopart can look at a large set of purchasing data and determine what kind of parts engineers use the most. From this data, they have come up with two lists: one focused on production and one on prototypes. For each part in the CPL, they try to identify at least two manufacturers’ parts that are of equivalent value that will be available. It’s not an absolute guarantee, but it’s close enough.
Common Parts Library for Production
The Common Parts Library for Production is a set of commonly used electronic components for designing and manufacturing connected device products.
https://octopart.com/common-parts-library
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Just try it!’ with IEEE DIY Project
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/anablog/4440923/-Just-try-it–with-IEEE-DIY-Project?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151207&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151207&elq=4a8b5a536784414e9030eec15c947053&elqCampaignId=26037&elqaid=29686&elqat=1&elqTrackId=92cc5973306e49659a57afd76bb777bf
IEEE’s latest initiative to support our community of engineers and makers is the IEEE DIY Project. The IEEE DIY Project is a competition that is asking engineers, makers and hobbyists, 18 years and older, to submit engineering projects they have created at school or during their free time to a microsite developed by IEEE.
Last year, 305 projects were submitted from around the world and the grand prize was awarded to Gaurav Gautam for his Wirelessly Operated Hand Glove Robot.
The IEEE DIY Project
https://transmitter.ieee.org/diy/
tech projects you are working on. Whether it is robotics, wearable technology, software, hardware, or an alternative energy device, if your project solves complex problems and has applications in the real world we want to see it!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Critical and Creative Thinking in a Hacker’s Work
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/15/critical-and-creative-thinking-in-a-hackers-work/
Imagine yourself in a labyrinth, vast – endless for all you know. You wander the corridors, stumbling upon a closed door. You could invest some effort into unlocking it to find out what’s inside. Pretty soon you realize there are many more doors in the maze and you wish you had some sort of tool to help you see what’s behind them, and whether they are worth the effort.
If the labyrinth is a metaphor for your life or your work, then you should know that there is such a tool, and its name is Critical Thinking. It can save you a lot of time and money, sometimes your health and even your life. It can help you optimize or debug your projects, and even boost your creativity.
Why Should We Think Critically?
Even though many equate it with criticism, critical thinking is not a negative process. It keeps you open to new ideas, and at the same time it acts as a firewall against harmful ideological, political, or marketing delusions and scams, and especially against your own self-delusions. It suggests how to think, not what to think.
You can find a lot of definitions of critical thinking on the internet, and most of them are worth reading. I like the definition which [Richard Paul] gave in an informal presentation: “Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking, while you’re thinking, in order to make your thinking better”.
How to Think in a Creative Way
Critical thinking is a learned skill, that can be reinforced by habit. The same is valid for logical thinking, but we shall not discuss it here, as most hackers have already practiced logic over many years, and they surely know how to apply it in their activity. You can say that the logic is a necessary part of critical thinking.
It is hard to imagine debugging, servicing or any other form of problem solving without critical thinking, but if you are creating a project from scratch, you also have to think creatively. Creative thinking is different from critical thinking, but they share a strong bond. The creative process needs to have a critical check of ideas, and on the other hand, creative thinking can help you imagine all the possibilities when you need to pinpoint a problem.
Creative thinking is more motivating and generally brings more pleasure than critical thinking, and you can use it even when you are relaxed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FIRST Robotics Gives Us Hope In the Next Generation of Hackers
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/13/first-robotics-gives-us-hope-in-the-next-generation-of-hackers/
A top scoring team in FIRST Robotics shows off just what some high-school students are capable of. Called the Simbot SideSwipe, their 2015 robot is a slick piece of mechatronic genius, which according to our tipster was built in just six weeks by the students.
The robot is essentially a remote controlled palletizing forklift, capable of collecting and stacking six recycling totes, and a green bin. It’s an impressive combination of mechanical control and fabrication — though it is worth noting, these bots are remote controlled — not autonomous.
Team 1114 Simbotics FRC Greater Toronto Central Regional 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7-NigYFrWo
Tomi Engdahl says:
The First Person to Hack the iPhone Built a Self-Driving Car. In His Garage
George Hotz is taking on Google and Tesla by himself.
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/
A few days before Thanksgiving, George Hotz, a 26-year-old hacker, invites me to his house in San Francisco to check out a project he’s been working on. He says it’s a self-driving car that he had built in about a month. The claim seems absurd. But when I turn up that morning, in his garage there’s a white 2016 Acura ILX outfitted with a laser-based radar (lidar) system on the roof and a camera mounted near the rearview mirror. A tangle of electronics is attached to a wooden board where the glove compartment used to be, a joystick protrudes where you’d usually find a gearshift, and a 21.5-inch screen is attached to the center of the dash. “Tesla only has a 17-inch screen,” Hotz says.
He’s been keeping the project to himself and is dying to show it off. We pace around the car going over the technology. Hotz fires up the vehicle’s computer, which runs a version of the Linux operating system, and strings of numbers fill the screen. When he turns the wheel or puts the blinker on, a few numbers change, demonstrating that he’s tapped into the Acura’s internal controls.
After about 20 minutes of this, and sensing my skepticism, Hotz decides there’s really only one way to show what his creation can do. “Screw it,” he says, turning on the engine. “Let’s go.”
Over the past couple years, Hotz had been on a walkabout, trying to decide what he wanted to do next, before hitting on the self-driving car idea as perhaps his most audacious hack yet.
“Hold this,” he says, dumping a wireless keyboard in my lap before backing out of the garage. “But don’t touch any buttons, or we’ll die.” Hotz explains that his self-driving setup, like the autopilot feature on a Tesla, is meant for highways, not chaotic city streets. He drives through San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood and then onto Interstate 280.
With Hotz still holding the wheel, the Acura’s lidar paints a pixelated image on the dash screen of everything around us, including the freeway walls and other cars.
Breakthrough work on self-driving cars began about a decade ago. Darpa, the research arm of the Department of Defense, sponsored the Grand Challenge, a contest to see how far autonomous vehicles could travel. On a course through the desert in the inaugural 2004 event, the top vehicle completed just 7 of 150 miles. In subsequent years, the vehicles became quite good, completing both desert and city courses.
Artificial-intelligence software and consumer-grade cameras, Hotz contends, have become good enough to allow a clever tinkerer to create a low-cost self-driving system for just about any car. The technology he’s building represents an end run on much more expensive systems being designed by Google, Uber, the major automakers, and, if persistent rumors and numerous news reports are true, Apple. More short term, he thinks he can challenge Mobileye, the Israeli company that supplies Tesla Motors, BMW, Ford Motor, General Motors, and others with their current driver-assist technology. “It’s absurd,” Hotz says of Mobileye. “They’re a company that’s behind the times, and they have not caught up.”
Hotz plans to best the Mobileye technology with off-the-shelf electronics. He’s building a kit consisting of six cameras—similar to the $13 ones found in smartphones—that would be placed around the car. Two would go inside near the rearview mirror, one in the back, two on the sides to cover blind spots, and a fisheye camera up top. He then trains the control software for the cameras using what’s known as a neural net—a type of self-teaching artificial-intelligence mechanism that grabs data from drivers and learns from their choices. The goal is to sell the camera and software package for $1,000 a pop either to automakers or, if need be, directly to consumers who would buy customized vehicles at a showroom run by Hotz. “I have 10 friends who already want to buy one,” he says.
The timing for all of this is vague. Hotz says he’ll release a YouTube video a few months from now in which his Acura beats a Tesla Model S on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The point of the exercise is twofold. First, it will—he hopes—prove the technology works and is ready to go on sale. Second, it will help Hotz win a bet with Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla.
He quit Vicarious in July and decided to put his conviction to the test. A friend introduced him to Musk, and they met at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif., talking at length about the pros and perils of AI technology.
There was a proposal that if Hotz could do better than Mobileye’s technology in a test, then Musk would reward him with a lucrative contract.
“I’m happy to work out a multimillion-dollar bonus with a longer time horizon that pays out as soon as we discontinue Mobileye.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Hotz replied, “but like I’ve said, I’m not looking for a job. I’ll ping you when I crush Mobileye.”
Musk simply answered, “OK.”
“For the first time in my life, I’m like, ‘I know everything there is to know’ ”
Hotz has filled out since his days as a scrawny teenage hacker, although he dresses the same.
It’s easy enough to draw a connection between Hotz and Steve Wozniak.
There are two breakthroughs that make Hotz’s system possible. The first comes from the rise in computing power since the days of the Grand Challenge. He uses graphics chips that normally power video game consoles to process images pulled in by the car’s camera and speedy Intel chips to run his AI calculations. Where the Grand Challenge teams spent millions on their hardware and sensors, Hotz, using his winnings from hacking contests, spent a total of $50,000—the bulk of which ($30,000) was for the car itself.
The second advance is deep learning, an AI technology that has taken off over the past few years. It allows researchers to assign a task to computers and then sit back as the machines in essence teach themselves how to accomplish and finally master the job.
The theory behind this type of AI software has been around for decades. It’s embedded in products consumers take for granted.
With the help of Google, for example, you can search for “pictures of the beach,” and AI software will comb through your photo collection to turn up just that. Some of the biggest breakthroughs have come in voice recognition, where smart assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana can pick up a person’s voice even in noisy situations. The same goes for instantaneous translation applications, which have largely been taught new languages via deep-learning algorithms that pore over huge volumes of text. With his car, Hotz wants to extend the same principles to the field of computer vision.
In the month before our first drive on I-280, Hotz spent most of his time outfitting the sedan with the sensors, computing equipment, and electronics.
Once all the systems were up and running, he drove the vehicle for two and a half hours and simply let the computer observe him.
Two weeks later, we went on a second drive. He’d taken the car out for a few more hours of training, and the difference was impressive.
Hotz’s approach isn’t simply a low-cost knockoff of existing autonomous vehicle technology. He says he’s come up with discoveries—most of which he refuses to disclose in detail—that improve how the AI software interprets data coming in from the cameras.
There’s really no telling how effective Hotz’s software and self-learning technology ultimately will be. His self-funded experiment could end with Hotz humbly going back to knock on Google’s door for a job. “Yeah, of course there will be skepticism,” he says. “This is part of a great adventure. All I can say is, ‘Watch.’ ”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rory Aronson on Documenting Open Source Projects
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/16/rory-aronson-on-documenting-open-source-projects/
Every project starts off with an idea. Sometimes those ideas are bigger than one person, or even a small group of people. That was the position [Rory Aronson] found himself in with Farmbot, his finalist entry in the 2015 Hackaday Prize. Documentation was key for [Rory]. Farmbot first came into the world in the form of a white paper. The paper included a request for collaborators, making this an open source project from day 0.
Rory’s mission statement is that “Great documentation is a fun, thorough, and concise dialogue that distributes knowledge”. He’s right of course. Anyone can pick out terrible documentation. It’s either too long, too short, out of date, or just plain wrong. [Rory] strives to keep documentation short and to the point with the Farmbot project.
No one likes writing documentation – it’s just not as much fun as jumping onto the next project. The reward is in inspiring people to work with you, to build upon the foundations you’ve laid down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
$20 Sip-and-Puff Mouse from E-Cig and 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/21/20-sip-and-puff-mouse-from-e-cig-and-3d-printing/
At Hackaday, we think the highest form of hacking is hacking for good. Sure, it’s fun to build robots and gadgets, and universal remotes. But it is even better to create things that make people’s lives better. In that spirit, we enjoyed seeing the Assistive Tech Challenge over on Thingiverse that ended last month. The winner was [0_o] who used 3D printing and an Arduino to produce a mouth-operated mouse for under $20.
Mouth Operated Mouse
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1090461
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kate Reed: The Creative Process in Action
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/21/kate-reed-the-creative-process-in-action/
Kate Reed is an artist. Kate Reed also builds hand-driven wheelchair accessories that work with any wheelchair. Wait, what? These things don’t have to be separate skills. We’re living in the age of artisanal creation and Kate is a perfect example that you need to embody all skills. She’s an artist who follows a creative idea from inception through to implementation. Check out her talk on the Creative Process in Action from the Hackaday SuperConference, then jump past the break for some more details on what she’s been building and how she build her diverse set of skills.
She attends the NuVu Studio, an innovation school for middle and high school students in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The focus is to study the creative process from start to finish. The curriculum involves conceiving, developing, and building things. To us it looks like a technique that turns on its head the stereotype that students having no experience coming out of school, and we like it!
https://cambridge.nuvustudio.com/discover
We enjoyed Kate’s comment that “Creativity takes practice”. The current design of Hand Drive is the sixth prototype.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hand Drive
https://hackaday.io/project/7221-hand-drive
A wheelchair attachment that allows any wheelchair to be powered in a rowing motion. It is 3D printable, open source, and available to all.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vintage Video Projector Lives Again
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/10/vintage-video-projector-lives-again/
Projectors are getting a lot less expensive these days, what with China pumping out Pico projectors by the boat load and all. But did you know it’s not that hard to convert an old slide projector to digital? [Alec Smecher] shows us how with a 1950’s LaBelle 75 slide projector, and the result is pretty awesome.
DIY Projector Conversion
http://cassettepunk.com/blog/2015/12/06/diy-projector-conversion/
So obviously I wanted to make it into a working video projector. People have made DIY projectors ever since LCD displays became available; the normal way to do it is to separate the built-in backlight from the LCD itself, which is transparent, and use a high-power light source instead. I’ve done this before
The Achilles’ heel for this technique is heat. A projector bulb generates a lot of heat, and LCDs don’t like variations in temperature. The brighter the light, and the smaller the LCD, the worse it gets.
In recent years we’ve gained a very good solution: high-power LEDs. These are stunningly efficient, meaning low power and less heat — but another less obvious improvement is that they really only output light on the visible spectrum. Other kinds of projector bulbs typically output light all over the spectrum, which the LCD absorbs and has to dissipate as heat.
So instead of a 500W bulb you can throw a 10W LED in, mounted on a modest heat-sink, and basically forget that heat was ever a problem. A 10W LED isn’t going to give anyone a tan, but it’s bright enough for my purposes.
I decided to work with the optics of the slide projector as unmodified as possible, and the existing physical limits of the slide mount were roughly 45x45mm, so I opted for an Adafruit 2.2″ LCD
With the display mounted, I built a short ribbon cable connecting the SPI interface for the LCD to the 40-pin Raspberry Pi header
The verdict? It’s quite watchable. The resolution isn’t stunning (320x240x18-bit colour for the original display, minus a little bit of that due to cropping) but I didn’t find it distracting. The aesthetic worked best showing something classic — I chose Chaplin’s “Modern Times” for the demo.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacklet 88 – Projector Projects
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/11/hacklet-88-projector-projects/
Everyone loves a big screen TV. Back in the old days, anything over 27 ” was considered big. These days if you’re not sporting at least 50″, you’ll end up with display envy. One thing hasn’t changed though, those who want to go really, really big get into projectors. Hacking and projectors seem to go hand in hand. Anyone else remember those old DIY projection setups where the user would put their TV in a box upside down? This week’s Hacklet is all about projector hacks!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dream, build, win: Arduino Maker Challenge offers thousands of prizes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/diy-zone/4441077/Dream–build–win–Arduino-Maker-Challenge-offers-thousands-of-prizes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151224&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20151224&elq=ef3d0223d1e44603a871642eccb57fe3&elqCampaignId=26286&elqaid=30037&elqat=1&elqTrackId=9aa22947d5084b98bab05e1cc0d3cd38
The Maker Challenge will happen in two phases. All it takes to enter Phase I and win a new Arduino board is to pitch your idea. Just show the world an innovative and original IoT application you would like to create using Microsoft Windows 10, Microsoft Azure, and the new Arduino MKR1000 or the Arduino UNO. You can earn bonus points by tapping into the power of Microsoft Azure cloud to capture, analyze, and visualize your data with Azure IoT Suite, Azure IoT Hub, Stream Analytics, and Machine Learning.
Dream big and be original about an application ranging from environmental sensors to gaming, to augmented reality and robotics or drones, and submit your project idea before January 15th, 2016 at 11:59 PM (PT). Arduino will notify the 1000 lucky winners of the MKR1000 by January 22nd, 2016 at 8:00 AM (PT).
The 1,000 winners of Phase I will have the opportunity to complete their project and enter it in the Phase II competition which will award three grand prizes.
All submissions must include Windows 10 and Arduino.cc boards (only).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackathon Adventures in Africa
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328560&
In which intrepid explorer Lindsay (Linz) Craig describes recent hackathon and STEM training sessions in Africa, along with projects planned for 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Roles: Starters vs. Maintainers
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/12/30/1611249/open-source-roles-starters-vs-maintainers
Mozilla developer James Long has posted a sort of internal monologue on the difficulties of being a hobbyist open source project maintainer. He says, “I hugely admire people who give so much time to OSS projects for free. I can’t believe how much unpaid boring work is going on. It’s really cool that people care so much about helping others and the community. … There are two roles for any project: starters and maintainers. People may play both roles in their lives, but for some reason I’ve found that for a single project it’s usually different people. Starters are good at taking a big step in a different direction, and maintainers are good at being dedicated to keeping the code alive.
Starters and Maintainers
December 29, 2015
http://jlongster.com/Starters-and-Maintainers
I am definitely a starter. I tend to be interested in a lot of various things, instead of dedicating myself to a few concentrated areas. I’ve maintained libraries for years, but it’s always a huge source of guilt and late Friday nights to catch up on a backlog of issues.
From now on, I’m going to be clear that code I put on github is experimental and I’m not going to respond to issues or pull requests. If I do release a production-ready library, I’ll already have someone in mind to maintain it. I don’t want to have a second job anymore.
Here’s to all the maintainers out there. To all the people putting in tireless, thankless work behind-the-scenes to keep code alive, to write documentation, to cut releases, to register domain names, and everything else.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sourcing Your CNC Tools in 2016: Buy Them
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/
Hobbyist 3D printers have had a home in the maker space for years now. Along the way, they’ve left a mark in our imaginations. They’ve tickled our fancy for watching a computer orchestrated symphony written in G-code hum away while cranking out parts. They’ve opened a door to the idea that while computer controlled machines may be decades old, having one or two homebrew setups in our garage might not be as far-fetched as we first thought. Now that we’ve seen the steppers and linear slides that go into these setups, it’s not unreasonable for many of us to start asking: What else? Perhaps a computer numerically controlled (CNC) lathe, mill, or even a laser cutter–anything that would add to the vocabulary of tools and techniques that we’re starting to build at home.
Since 3D printers have become somewhat commonplace, it’s not too difficult to find commodity spare parts spilling to the surface of online vendors’ websites. We can even find kit versions for building our own variants. Now that the notion of CNC-at-home is here to stay, the question for 2016 is: do we build our own CNC tools or buy them?
Despite the countless CNC build logs, extruded aluminum kits, and open source G-code interpreters, I’m still convinced that unless your needs are truly custom, buying the machine that fits your needs will have you putting together projects faster and with far less maintenance than you’d need if you assembled the machine yourself.
In the days of yore, an affordable desktop CNC mill was a dream only realized through a slew of open source tools and a shrewd eye for the right parts. Pre-2016, those open source tools often included LinuxCNC, and “the right parts” usually involved both a retrofitted Taig Desktop CNC Milling Machine and GeckoDrive motor controllers.
2016 marks the arrival of our first options for affordable desktop milling machines. Among them are the Carbide 3D and the Other Mill.
Laser Cutters have had a similar ancestry to mills as a low cost DIY-endeavor. A few brave souls have tackled the challenge, and fewer have documented their progress. Most commercial laser cutters vastly exceed the budget of the hobbyist, so either a homebrew or modified solution is most common in the DIY space. When compared to CNC mills, laser cutters offer similar build challenges in terms of precision, but they also involve a suite of different components, such as mirrors and CO2 tubes, many of which weren’t originally easily accessible at low cost until recently.
In contrast to CNC mills, however, the DIY laser cutter endeavor has produced one standout among buildlogs: Lasersaur.
Now in 2016, you can purchase a working system for about $5000 from either Full Spectrum Laser or Glowforge. 3D Printers may have given DIY enthusiasts the chance to taste the thrill of at-home fabrication; now laser cutters can give them the fulfillment of functional prototypes by enabling them to use structurally sound materials such as wood or Delrin.
2016 might be the year to consider an off-the-shelf machine, but the spectrum of tools is still far from complete. Vacuum formers and CNC lathes have yet to see their desktop alternatives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comment at http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/
peter6960 says:
December 30, 2015 at 10:10 am
For open source Lasers i developed a super cool UI/Host running on node.js, that supports lasers running Smoothieware, Marlin, Grbl, LasaurGrbl.
– native DXF import (svg tools a plenty, no one had a working dxf implementation – as an engineer i need dimensionally accurate parts, dxf gives me that.
– built in OpenJSCAD apps for tabbed boxes, gear generator, etc
– web based UI built on socket.io, Bootstrap and JQuery
– 3D viewer shows gcode render
– built in scale, translate and rotate tools for existing gcode
– can run multiple machines (even each with own firmware flavour) on a single instance of LaserWeb
See http://github.com/openhardwarecoza/LaserWeb
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comments at http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/sourcing-your-cnc-tools-in-2016-buy-them/
0xfred says:
December 30, 2015 at 10:17 am
Everyone has different needs and budgets, but for most HaD readers I’d definitely recommend going the cheap Chinese eBay route (CNC3020/3040/6040 mill or DC-K40 laser) and sorting out the terrible electronics. The mechanics are reasonable quality and great value. The laser can definitely be sorted for way less than $5000 – more like $1000 to $1500.
prcdslnc13 says:
December 31, 2015 at 11:18 am
Those 400$ laser cutters are not out of the box tools though. They can basically be looked at as a “pre-built” (poorly) “kit” that can be made into a very capable machine after a few days of tinkering and even better a control retro fit.
0xfred says:
December 31, 2015 at 2:53 pm
Exactly. Any half competent HaD reader and a few hundred dollars will have it sorted out and performing well. If Joe Public expects to be running a business laser cutting stuff straight away then they’ll be sorely disappointed.
atheros says:
December 30, 2015 at 11:45 am
Funny timing for this article. Just earlyer today I finished assembling all the parts needed for a small CNC (https://github.com/carlosgs/Cyclone-PCB-Factory). Since I’m lazy, I was going to use it for making PCBs instead of etching. but since I’ve printed all the parts two months ago, someone suggested I should try exposing PCBs with lasers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SNkzoOvoD8
So if all goes well, I’ll have to stuff a 3d printer, a small cnc mill and a small cnc laser in a <2 square meter workshop… I hope it’s worth it
Jondale says:
December 30, 2015 at 11:27 am
It seems with 3D printers, you have the option now to buy commercially supported products that are also open source (Ultimaker, Printrbot).
With CNC routers you have the X-Carve and Shapeoko which have open designs but the software that comes with them is closed. 2.5D/3D CAD/CAM is an area needing improvement in the open source community. There are some larger scale projects out there but they are all DIY.
With laser cutters you have a few good open source projects but they are completely DIY. All the commercial options seem to be closed/proprietary.
I can’t speak to the economic sense of a commercial company opening their designs and software for these tools but there is successful precedent in 3D printers at least. I built my laser cutter (lasersaur) but I’ll consider buying one of the other tools if there is a good open option.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Hovalin: Open Source 3D Printed Violin Sounds Great
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/02/the-hovalin-open-source-3d-printed-violin-sounds-great/
[Matt and Kaitlin Hova] have created The Hovalin, an open source 3D-printed violin. Yes, there have been 3D-printed instruments before, but [The Hovas] have created something revolutionary – a 3D printed acoustic instrument that sounds surprisingly good. The Hovalin is a full size violin created to be printed on a desktop-sized 3D printer. The Hovas mention the Ultimaker 2, Makerbot Replicator 2 (or one of the many clones) as examples. The neck is one piece, while the body is printed in 3 sections. The Hovalin is also open source, released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.
Hovalin
An open source 3D printable acoustic violin
http://www.hovalin.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
32C3: 20 Oscillators in 20 Minutes
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/03/32c3-20-oscillators-in-20-minutes/
In terms of implausible stand-up comedy, [Darsha]’s “20 Oscillators in 20 Minutes” is pretty far out there. First of all, she’s sitting down, with googly eyes on her multimeter, and five breadboards and a mess of 9V batteries laid out in front of her. “Has anybody built electronics before? Has anybody built electronics in front of this many people before? Yeah, so you’d better f**king be nice.” And she’s off!
20 OSCILLATORS IN 20 MINUTES – video
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7549-20_oscillators_in_20_minutes#video
20 OSCILLATORS IN 20 MINUTES is an experimental music performance/technical challenge/standup comedy act where I attempt to build twenty sound generating square wave oscillators in twenty minutes. This involves fabricating small electronic circuits with wires, chips, small components and nine-volt batteries under the pressure of limited time and expectation. This is a test of my technical abilities and an experiment in working with live troubleshooting as a method of musical improvisation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC building seems to decrease
Every self-respecting PC player used to build the machines themselves from components.
However, this action seems to be a clear decline. This development is reflected, for example, for sale motherboards – Motherboards targeted at builders whom sales fell last year by as much as 21.7 per cent. Only total, 54 million PC builder targeted motherboards were sold globally.
Two largest producers, namely, motherboards Asustek and Gigabyte have sold last year, nearly 10 percent fewer cards than a year earlier (17.1 to 17.5 million). ASRock and MSI tell each sold about five million system board.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3798:pc-rakentelu-nayttaa-vahenevan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Full RTOS free for startups, students, and makers
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-insights/4441115/Full-RTOS-free-for-startups–students–and-makers?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160104&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160104&elq=a5bc84a887dd459fa8d2655dbca76cf6&elqCampaignId=26331&elqaid=30091&elqat=1&elqTrackId=d9b5bfe42ef0474e8d3a70cc2a8154ff
If you’re a student, a hobbyist with ambitions for productizing your embedded creation, or part of a budget-strapped startup beginning active development of an embedded design, there’s a present you might not have known you got for Christmas. (It was actually announced in November.) Micrium is making its popular μC/OS-III RTOS and IoT protocol stacks available free of charge while you’re getting established. You won’t need to pay a licensing fee unless or until your company exceeds $100k in revenue or $1M in funding. Students and educators at accredited institutions get an even better deal.
Free access to software and tools is not a new concept, but Micrium has added a few new wrinkles. Instead of being a time- or capacity-limited version of the RTOS and tools, Micrium is making its regular commercial version of μC/OS-III available. Along with the RTOS, the associated TCP/IP, USB Host, USB Device, and ModBus stacks as well as the file system are also being made freely available. Even more, they come with complete documentation, video training, and space-available access to live training seminars. Micrium is even including its μC Probe tool for access into system memory during run-time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open-Source Firmware for a Mini Quadrotor
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/07/open-source-firmware-for-a-mini-quadrotor/
Since you’re going to have to be flying your “drones” indoors anyway in the USA, at least in the US Capitol region, you might as well celebrate the one freedom you still have — the freedom to re-flash the firmware!
The Eachine H8 is a typical-looking mini-quadcopter of the kind that sell for under $20. Inside, the whole show is powered by an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, with the programming pins easily visible. Who could resist? [garagedrone] takes you through a step-by-step guide to re-flashing the device with a custom firmware to enable acrobatics, or simply to tweak the throttle-to-engine-speed mapping for the quad. We had no idea folks were doing this.
https://dronegarageblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/eachine-h8-open-source-firmware-with-acro-mode/
Tomi Engdahl says:
25 Years of Hardware Manufacturing in Plovdiv
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/05/25-years-of-hardware-manufacturing-in-plovdiv/
Plovdiv, Bulgaria has a long history of design and innovation going back at least 6000 years to cultures like the Thracians, Celts, and Romans. In the last decade it is also an important center for open hardware innovation — reviving the lost glory of the computer hardware industry from the former “Soviet bloc countries”. One of the companies in the region that has thrived is a 5000 square-meter microelectronics factory which you may have heard of before: Olimex.
Olimex has over 25 years of experience in designing, prototyping, and manufacturing printed circuit boards, components, and complete electronic products. Over the last decade it has evolved into a shining example of an open hardware company. We recently had the chance to visited Olimex and to meet its CEO, Tsvetan Usunov.
When our driver arrived to pick us up, we asked, “Who actually is Olimex?” and were pleasantly surprised with the response: “I’m Olimex”.
Olimex is a buzzing hardware manufacturing paradise with pick and place machines, reflow ovens, and optical inspection rigs. The infrastructure and the 40 person team support a motivated local and international network of hardware developers interested in building and using an affordable and open “mini-computer” called OLinuXino. But the company was very different when it began.
Tsvetan started Olimex in 1991, developing and manufacturing for companies in the Turkish market. They needed a reliable manufacturer to produce boards for kitchen appliances.
His new focus became development boards. Traditionally these would be sold to only hardware developers, but at the time open hardware was just starting to grow. Many new customers, from software professionals interested in hardware to industrial designers to general enthusiasts, would be buying development boards. As his business grew, so did the footprint of Olimex.
In the present Olimex is recognized as an approved Third Party Hardware Developer by many leading companies including Texas Istruments, Maxim Integrated, Atmel, Philips Semiconductors, and ST Microelectronics. Olimex has over 30,000 active customer accounts and their Linux DIY computers and boards feed various from IoT projects, ATM cash machines, and are used even by car manufacturers.
The open hardware model for Tsvetan means more than just publishing the final designs. He is interested in having a continuous conversation with his peers from the start of the project. This forms a “participatory and collaborative design” and it leads to a better product.
Olimex keeps a very active GitHub page. This extends to the CAD files which are available in pre-fab stages before any hardware revision is out. Tsvetan mentions this is considered a big no-no in the crowdfunding circles, and often other supposedly open hardware projects sometimes choose a policy of ‘CAD will be available when the first batch of products are shipped’. Olimex has directly benefited from sharing early, as community members sometimes catch bugs that can be fixed before going to production.
https://github.com/olimex