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.
7,250 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Simple, Cheap Nitrate Tester is Open Source
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/11/simple-cheap-nitrate-tester-is-open-source/
Assessing nitrate levels commercially is an expensive process that uses proprietary instruments and toxic reagents such as cadmium. But [Joshua Pearce] has recently developed an open-source photometer for nitrate field measurement that uses an enzyme from spinach and costs a mere $65USD to build.
The device itself is incredibly simple – a 3D printed enclosure houses an LED light source and a light sensor. The sample to be tested is mixed with a commercially available reagent kit based on the enzyme nitrate reductase, resulting in a characteristic color change proportional to the amount of nitrate present. The instrument reads the amount of light absorbed by the sample, and communicates the results to an Android device over a Bluetooth link.
Open-source instruments like this can really open up educational opportunities for STEM groups to get out into the real world and start making measurements that can make a difference.
Open-Source Photometric System for Enzymatic Nitrate Quantification
http://www.appropedia.org/Open-Source_Photometric_System_for_Enzymatic_Nitrate_Quantification
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Gynepunks’ DIY Gynecology For Underserved Women
http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/08/25/2128201/gynepunks-diy-gynecology-for-underserved-women
Meet the GynePunks Pushing the Boundaries of DIY Gynecology
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/meet-the-gynepunks-pushing-the-boundaries-of-diy-gynecology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Measuring the Value of Open Hardware Designs
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2015/08/25/measuring-the-value-of-open-hardware-designs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins unveil open source GPU
Benchmarks today, real hardware tomorrow?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/31/boffins_unveil_open_source_gpu/
It’s a kitten rather than a roar right now, but if the MIAOW project unveiled at last week’s Hot Chips conference can get legs, the next year could see the launch of the world’s first “open GPU”.
The result of 36 months’ development (so far) by a team of 12 developers, MIAOW – the Many-core Integrated Accelerator of Wisconsin – is based on AMD’s Southern Islands GPU ISA.
As Nicole Hemsoth writes over at The Register’s HPC sister site The Platform, the GPU takes its subset of Southern Islands and adds OpenCL codes to get performance “comparable to existing single-precision GPU results”.
The AMD basis of the project means that MIAOW is going to be confined to the research community for some time. Project leader Dr Karu Sankaralingam told The Platform AMD’s only input has come from individuals offering architectural insights, but at some point the boffins are going to have to talk to the chip vendor about its intellectual property.
The chip uses 95 vector, scalar, and memory instructions of the 400-plus available in Southern Islands.
The architecture supports 32 compute units connecting to the layer 2 cache.
As their proof-of-concept, the GPU has been implemented on an FPGA.
At the project page on GitHub, they group notes that MIAOW has an immediate use: “MIAOW implements a compute unit suitable for performing architecture analysis and experimentation with GPGPU workloads. In addition to the Verilog HDL composing the compute unit, MIAOW also includes a suite of unit tests and benchmarks for regression testing,” they write.
An open source GPU based off of the AMD Southern Islands ISA.
https://github.com/VerticalResearchGroup/miaow/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Want to Create a FabLab in your Garage? Start by Joining your Hackerspace
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/31/want-to-create-a-fablab-in-your-garage-start-by-joining-your-hackerspace/
For many hardware enthusiasts, it’s hard to stop imagining the possibilities of an almighty fablab in our garage — a glorious suite of machines that can make the widgets of our dreams. Over the years, many of us start to build just that, assembling marvelous workbenches for the rest of us to drool over. The question is: “how do we get there?”
Ok, let’s say we’ve got a blank garage. We might be able to pick up a couple of tools and just “roll with it,” teaching ourselves the basics as we go and learning from our mistakes. With enough endurance, we’ll wake up ten years later and realize that, among the CNC mill, lathe, o-scope, logic analyzer, and the graveyard of projects on the shelves–we’ve made it!
“Just rolling with it,” though, can squeeze the last bits of change out of our wallets–not to mention ten years being a long journey while flying solo the whole time. Hardware costs money. Aimless experimentation, without understanding the space of “what expectations are realistic,” can cost lots of money when things break.
These days, the internet might do a great job of bringing people together with the same interest. But how does it fare in exchanging the technical know-how that’s tied directly to tools of the trade?
Ruling out forums for taking our first baby steps, where can we find the “seasoned gurus” to give us that founding knowledge? It’s unlikely that any coffee shop would house the local hardware guru sippin’ a joe and taking questions. Fear not, though; there are places for hackers to get their sustenance.
Enter the hackerspace. With coffee mugs and doilies replaced with soldering irons and 3D printers, these places are scattered worldwide and filled with tinkerers and DIY-enthusiasts drawn to the same machines. Hackerspaces put a roof over the heads of local hackers, bring in a few tools, and roll out projects.
Hackerspaces give us something that the internet and our empty garages just can’t: a foreground of tools and a background of “after-hours” engineers who can show us how to use them. If you’ve never taken a chunk out of aluminium with a spinning endmill, the Hackerspace might be the right place to do it. First, we don’t have the up-front cost of paying for the machine ourselves. Second, given some machine time, we now have the opportunity to learn how to use it properly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Furniture Makes This Office Look Like a Toy Box
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/opendesk-open-source-furniture/
Kano’s office bears a striking resemblance to the product it makes.
Kano is a handsomely-designed modular kit of parts that assembles into a computer, and its office, while not a computer, is also assembled from a handsomely designed modular kits of parts.
You see, Opendesk, the company behind Kano’s interiors, is known for making open source furniture. It’s a little like GitHub, only instead of offering a repository of code, it offers tables, desks and chairs whose designs can be tweaked to individual specifications.
The way it works is simple: Customers choose from one of 40 design on the website and download it as a digital file that can be altered to fit any given room. That file is then sent to a local manufacturer who uses a CNC machine to cut the pre-designed parts into what amounts to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Those parts are then delivered to your door as a flatpack piece piece of furniture just waiting to be assembled. Joni Steiner, one of Opendesk’s five co-founders, explains the whole idea by quoting a John Maynard Keynes saying: “It’s easier to ship a recipes than cakes and biscuits,” he recites. In this case, the recipe is a digital blueprint file and the cake is a piece of furniture.
If you look around the Kano office, or really any office Opendesk helped to design, you’ll notice a lot of wood. Right now, the company only works with plywood and CNC machine milling.
Most of Opendesk’s pieces are optimized for the material and the way they’re made. Most plywood comes in 8×4 foot sheets that are ¾ of an inch thick, which fits nicely on the bed of many CNC machines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Rise of the Rural Hacker
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/07/the-rise-of-the-rural-hacker/
On the far side of the Boso peninsula lies Kamogawa. This isn’t the Japan of LEDs, Otaku and maid cafes, or that of wage slave salarymen collapsing from exhaustion. This is the Japan of rice farmers and fields, fresh fish and wild boar, electron microscopes and gigabit fiber, SMD assembly and 500Mhz 5 Gigasample oscilloscopes.
The world has changed. In the 20th century the life of a rural hacker was a constant hunt for technological innovation.
So, as had been the case for the preceding 1000 years, innovation clustered around technological hubs, San Francisco, Cambridge, and Tokyo among others. And Hackers flocked to these centers where innovation flourished while Hackers exchanged knowledge and tools.
But then the world of the rural Hacker began to expand. The technological hubs that so many rural hackers had migrated to began to connect the world. Young Hackers could learn to program (as I learned C) from textfiles posted on BBSs and exchange knowledge linking national communities. Shortly after that the Internet came bringing its Eternal September. Hackers across the world, regardless of location could communicate.
On the flip-side tech centers were changing too. Venture capital, rather than bootstrapping became the norm. With the influx of cash the demand for skilled Hackers rose, increasing wages and further focusing tech talent around these hubs. But rents and expenses rose too. And Hackers became locked into their expensive lifestyles; eyes firmly focused on the promised million dollar payoff and the eternal dream of an “exit”.
For some though, the freedom to Hack is more important than that million dollar exit and so a new model is emerging. Groups of Hackers in rural communities with low cost lifestyles and access to the world’s best technical talent and equipment that would put the best startups to shame.
The finest example of this model is perhaps Hacker Farm a Hacker community centered around a small village in rural Japan. At present 4 families have relocated to the area with more on the way, and the occasional long term visitor. Many of Hacker Farm’s members have fled the pressure filled life of the Tokyo tech workers. At Hacker Farm members share technical skills, tools, and co-working spaces equipped not only with electronic and scientific test equipment, but also tools used to renovate local abandoned structures for use by Hacker Farm members.
This freedom has also meant that tools can be acquired slowly. With a focus on repairing used equipment, a difficult proposition at most modern startups. Fueled by Japan’s declining manufacturing industry, Hacker Farm has acquired and repaired a variety of test equipment most of which would have cost tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago. In some cases hundreds like their recently acquired electron microscope.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Biohackers are Fighting a Two-front War on Antibiotic Resistance
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/08/how-biohackers-are-fighting-a-two-front-war-on-antibiotic-resistance/
So what exactly is going on here? Why are we losing the war against microbes? I think the first thing we need to keep in mind is that the age of universally effective antibiotics is actually not that old. The antibiotic properties of Penicillium molds were only first explored in 1928, but Alexander Fleming’s famous discovery languished until the 1940s, when mass-production of penicillin from fungal cultures was perfected.
In the 75 years since then, huge advancements in antibiotic therapy beyond penicillin have been made, and literally millions of lives have been saved by the tetracyclines, sulfonamides, cephalosporins and quinolones that have followed it. Each antibiotic class has its own method of action, and each medicine has a particular niche that it exploits
Quit the medicine early, and you’re just giving the resistant bugs a chance to explode in population and cause a real problem.
Misuse of antibiotics has also contributed to the current state of affairs.
Going home with a useless course of antibiotics used to be a common practice and has no doubt contributed to the selection of the resistant strains of bacteria we’re seeing today.
The University of Nottingham’s AncientBiotics Project is a combination of history and molecular microbiology that’s recreating antibiotic recipes from Anglo-Saxon texts and testing their efficacy. Following the detailed Viking-era instructions and using carefully sourced ingredients, they produced a medicine that was not only effective against cultures of Staphylococcus aureus, the bug behind deadly MRSA infections, but also managed to destroy tough-to-kill biofilms of S. aureus in an artificial skin infection system. It’s pretty remarkable to think that a brew of garlic, onions, wine and ox gall can accomplish what modern antibiotics can no longer d
Could there be a wealth of similar recipes in ancient texts? My guess is yes – humans have always put a lot of effort into staying alive, and while a lot of traditional therapies are clearly quackery, there has always been a tendency to apply rational thought and scientific methods to problems.
What’s Next?
CRISPR is a really powerful tool for gene editing, and one that has applications for overcoming antibiotic resistance. In an ironic twist, researchers are packing CRISPR/Cas systems into phages and using them to attack bacteria. The CRISPR system is programmed to search for and destroy the sequences that code for antibiotic resistance, like the beta-lactamase protein that confers penicillin resistance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Democratizing the Maker Movement
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/09/09/1638209/democratizing-the-maker-movement
To its advocates and participants, the Maker Movement resonates with those characteristics that we believe makes America great: independence and ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness. But as impressive as today’s tools are, they’re not accessible to many Americans simply because of their cost and high technological barrier to entry.
Democratizing the Maker Movement
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-dubrow/democratizing-the-maker-m_b_7960540.html
Vanguard researchers design tools, technologies and approaches for more awesome, inclusive making
The fact that millions of Americans are building airplanes in their garage, meeting at makerspaces to work with strangers on customized robots, and collaboratively solving society’s problems at hackathons, is a beautiful thing.
To its advocates and participants, the Maker Movement resonates with all of those characteristics that we believe makes America great: independence and ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness.
But as impressive as today’s tools are, they’re not accessible to many Americans simply because of their costs and high technological barrier to entry.
Though the price of 3-D printers has come down considerably and continues to drop, the tool still costs several hundred to thousands of dollars to buy. And mastering even the simplest computer-aided modeling tools requires a bit of dedicated study and technical savvy.
This begs the question: How can we continue to bring this nascent revolution to everyone who is interested?
Hurst’s experiences working with a diverse population — including individuals with intellectual disabilities and visual impairments, power wheelchair users and physical therapists — led her to realize that many people couldn’t access the supposedly “easy-to-use” DIY tools currently on the market.
Moreover, she found most people didn’t necessarily want to create unique 3-D models or original objects; they wanted to replace, repair or customize objects they already owned.
These insights led Hurst and her team to develop a series of new tools and platforms under the banner: “Making for All.”
“We’re empowering people to incorporate making into their daily lives to solve their own accessibility challenges,” Hurst said.
Support for Hurst and others like her from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is helping to expand and improve 3-D printing and design technologies, to make ‘making’ more accessible to all people.
“NSF invests in the innately curious, creative and self-motivated people who engage in various forms of making,”
NSF’s role in making actually started decades ago, before the movement had a name, a grassroots following and a presidential champion.
Today, NSF and DOD aren’t alone in this effort. NASA, NIST and the Department of Energy are involved in 3-D printing and additive manufacturing R&D as well, expanding the materials, techniques and applications to which the technology can be applied.
This federal-supported foundational research has led to the development of many of the tools that play such a big role in DIY activities, from machine-controlled CNC routers, to Computer Aided Design (CAD) and the Scratch programming language.
Makerspaces in expected and unexpected places
In addition to funding the creation of the tools and technologies that underpin making, the agency has helped launch several makerspaces in communities, schools and universities across the nation.
Learn+Build+Launch
“Our mission is to usher the best IT and engineering ideas into the real world where they can make a difference for the better,” said Wright, chair in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley.
At the National Makers Faire, graduate students from the lab showed off smart furniture they’d designed in class and demonstrated “Skintillates,” an interactive electronic temporary tattoo invented in the lab that won a “Maker of Merit” award at the fair.
“Unlike many of the more complex 3-D printing and design projects we hear about, Skintillates can be produced in much the same way kids create arts-and-crafts projects and cost less than a few dollars to make,” said Joanne Lo, a graduate students at UC Berkeley and one of Skintillates designers.
Defining making
The maker movement is so new and diverse that it has a bit of a ‘definition problem’, according to experts. For that reason, it’s critical for researchers and practitioners to describe the dimensions and intended outcomes that characterize their particular approach to making to determine whether they are successful.
“It’s a turbulent sea out there right now, with museums, public libraries, universities, youth-serving organizations and makerspaces all getting into the game and exploring different approaches,” said Al DeSena, an NSF program director and former director of the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
So at the same time that NSF is supporting makerspaces and the underlying technologies of making, the agency is also encouraging researchers to study how making happens at diverse sites, what the real benefits are, and how they can be measured, analyzed and repeated across the nation, whether in classrooms or extra-curricular settings.
Despite the differences they found three unifying themes that they believe are common to makerspaces broadly:
Makerspaces’ multidisciplinarity fuels engagement and innovation;
makerspaces have a marked diversity of learning arrangements; and
learning is in and for the making.
“Making as a discipline allows learners to take project-first approach, where learning to use tools and materials are all in service of getting your work done,”
In May, NSF invited proposals for “transformative research ideas or approaches that advance the frontier of knowledge with respect to STEM learning and design thinking.”
The solicitation encourages the community to submit ideas to:
study the processes and potential benefits of learning in the maker context;
test its role in improving formal and informal learning pathways;
investigate new approaches to design and innovation enabled by makerspaces and practices;
create new tools and knowledge for design and prototyping across all disciplines; and
further the understanding of innovation processes from prototypes through their transition to products.
That’s a tall order, but one NSF believes the research community can achieve.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackathon Meets Old MacDonald
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1327635&
“Farmers are not programmers. But they need to get a grip on data,” says Casper Koomen. He plans on a hackathon called Farmlab, hoping to bring farmers fresh perspectives about using data and applying it to the farm.
A hackathon called Farmlab will gather on Sunday (Sept. 13) in Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. It will take place at an actual farm, located south of Amsterdam and owned by one of the farmers who belong to the group.
A team of 20 some people, ranging from designers, engineers, programmers and hardware makers to agricultural experts and business people, are expected down on the farm to look at “open data” and explore “sensor solutions.”
“a farmer in the Netherlands with many small scattered odd-sized patches of land who uses drones, sensors and data analysis to manage his farm.”
I’ve heard of hackathons in various shapes, forms and sizes, but this is the first I’ve encountered that’s dedicated to farming.
Too idealistic? Maybe so. But Koomen is also grounded. To apply the hackathon concept to the farm, his strategy is to “be smarter about using technology,” “going open source,” “and exploring possibilities by picking each other’s brains.”
He’s convinced there is “a major opportunity for farms to diversify their production, improve productivity and re-claim their position as places that support the environment.”
Asked for more specifics about the possible opportunities from sensors, smart data and crowd-sourcing, he rattled off a list:
increased biodiversity (versus the one-directional and land-draining farming that occurs now)
multi-year crops (versus one-year crops that need to be re-planted, fertilized every year)
clean crop control (reducing harmful pesticides)
fragmented, distributed farming (smaller, distributed and fragmented, odd-sized patches of land – which makes it possible to leave trees, bushes, irregular patches in the field: good for biodiversity, flora and fauna)
asynchronous farming (growing a wider variety of crops that require different management)
Koomen is also working on something that’s called “micro-farming.” He described it as “farming with local citizens to increase awareness, distributed contribution to food chain and management.” This notion is in its early phase. “You heard it here first,” he noted.
The group is also naturally onto using IoT. They are taking a look at LoRa sensor networks for livestock and land.
Why hackathons?
It turns out that Farmlab isn’t Koomen’s first hackathon. Organizing hackathons is one of the many day jobs he has. Other hackathons he has been involved in were Hack Food Waste, Science Hack Day Eindhoven, and Flora Fauna Hack.
Wait. Organizing hackathons is your day job?
Koomen explained, “I earn my living from being a freelance brainstormer, facilitator of creative sessions and meetups (such as hackathons), innovation consulting.”
This is no ordinary business consultant.
Koomen said, “I tinker on problems to generate ideas that resonate with people’s hearts and minds. That is my mission. Not sure if I always succeed in it. So, in a sense, I have many day jobs. Some fill my bank account, others fill my heart. The best ones do both.”
‘Hack, code, save’
Koomen is fascinated with the power of people when those from diverse backgrounds gather in a creative setting. Through brainstorming, design thinking, prototyping, facilitating and lots of questions, “We arrive at an answer,” he said.
As the “Hack Food Waste” website defines it, a hackathon is where people (“stakeholders”) present challenges based on a specific topic (in this case “hack food waste”). Participants form teams based on their particular interests. Teams, then, “hack” the challenge, that is to say, “they try to come up with an actual solution to the problem — usually by developing an app.” Teams make presentations, there is a judging and winners are announced.
How do you run successful brainstorming sessions or hackathons?
“In a creative settling, you need room to disagree with each other” and “you also need room to say ‘I don’t know.’” Bringing people from various backgrounds is essential. “I’d like to confuse people, because participants need to see the same problem from a completely different angle,” he noted.
To generate solutions, participants are first asked to “make things, engineer convincing mockups.” Second, they must “get to the essence of the design and its business model.” Third, they need to get people in the field involved. Then, bring on the investors, Koomen said. During a hackathon which can last 48 hours, meeting rooms are stocked with tools that include electronics hardware, a help desk and 3D printers, he said. “Oh, and there has to be good food available” for all the participants.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Semifinalist: An Open Smartphone
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/13/hackaday-prize-semifinalist-an-open-smartphone/
One of the biggest trends in DIY electronics, both now and fifty years ago, is creating at home what is usually made in a factory. Fifty years ago, this meant radios and amplifiers. Today, this means smartphones. It used to be the case that you could pull out a Heathkit catalog and find kits for every electronic gadget imaginable. There are no kits for DIY smartphones.
For [Gerard]’s entry for The Hackaday Prize, he’s tapping into the spirit of the decades-old DIY movement and building his own cell phone. He’s calling it the libresmartphone, and it’s able to make calls and send emails, just like any other portable, pocketable computer.
libresmartphone
Open hardware smartphone
https://hackaday.io/project/6310-libresmartphone
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Open, Hackable Electronic Conference Badge
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/14/the-open-hackable-electronic-conference-badge/
Electronic conference badges have been around for at least a decade now, and they all have the same faults. They’re really only meant to be used for a few days, conference organizers and attendees expect the badge to be cheap, and because of the nature of a conference badge, the code just works, and documentation is sparse. Surely there’s a better way.
Enter the Hackable Electronic Badge
https://www.parallax.com/downloads/hackable-electronic-badge
Tomi Engdahl says:
No user Serviceable Parts Inside? The rise of the Fix-It Culture
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/15/the-rise-of-the-fix-it-culture/
I assumed that my fix-it bug made me part of a dying breed of cheapskates and skinflints, but it appears that I was wrong. The fix-it movement seems to be pretty healthy right now, fueled in part by the explosion in information that’s available to anyone with basic internet skills.
“If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it.”
Back in the old days, if you really needed a schematic for a TV you’d have to buy a Sam’s Photofact manual, and a service manual for your car came in either the Chilton or Haynes flavors.
Some sites are beginning to bring order to the chaos of DIY tutorials and repair information. One of my favorites is iFixit, a wiki-based site which boasts over 16,000 community-created repair guides. Their repair manifesto really resonates with me, and the stretch goal of creating a repair manual for every device in the world is a lofty but noble one. The site is very much a work in progress
There’s the rub, though: time. For all the money and resources DIYers save by keeping fixable gear out of the landfill, the trade-off is the hours spent on the repair. Adding more hours to the repair in the form of documentation is sometimes tough to justify. And yet, the videos and tutorials just keep piling up, not only on iFixit but also on sites like FixYa and RepairClinic.
From Fixer to Builder
All these meetups and the wealth of online repair information seem to be having a positive effect on the repair movement – witness this recent Wall Street Journal feature where a reporter and admitted DIY-newbie undertook a repair on a friend’s TV. The fix turned out to be a simple re-capping of the power supply, but the skills that the reporter learned from his experience might just encourage him to try another repair. Nothing builds confidence like success.
What about the next step, though? What about the step from fixer of existing devices to builder of new and wondrous things? That’s where the growth of the fix-it movement can really start to pay off to the hacker culture. I think that in a lot of ways, fixing feeds hacking
Tomi Engdahl says:
Join Awesome Arduino Show & Tell at ESC Minneapolis 2015
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1327679&
This Show and Tell at ESC Minneapolis will feature engineers and makers presenting their home-built, Arduino-based devices and explaining how they were constructed.
One of the sessions I’m really looking forward to at the forthcoming Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Minneapolis, MN, November 4-5, 2015, is the Awesome Arduino Show & Tell.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Espoo Maker Faire
https://espoomakerfaire.fi/
Maker Faire is coming to Finland next month.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Era of Open Source Cars
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/09/15/2152232/the-era-of-open-source-cars
An article at Ars Technica details how open source is slowly but surely working its way into the automotive manufacturing industry.
A company named StreetScooter is flattening the design process, having designers and engineers work directly with suppliers right from the get-go.
Another company, Local Motors, has built an open source community that’s 50,000-strong, whose members include everybody from hobbyists to industrial engineers.
Ford has created OpenXC, a platform that is attempting to standardize how to get data out of a car’s computer.
Welcome to the era of open source cars
Outside perspectives and an escape from red tape make it a powerful tool.
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/09/open-source-design-is-changing-the-way-we-make-cars/
Even if they’ve been longtime partners, the tech sector’s influence on the automotive industry has never been stronger. OEMs in Detroit, Stuttgart, Seoul, and elsewhere are continually transforming cars to meet the demands of consumers now conditioned to smartphones (and their 18-month refresh cycle). Much of this is being driven by cheap and rugged hardware that can finally cope with the harsh environment (compared to your pocket or an air-conditioned office) that a car needs to be able to handle. Wireless modems, sensors, processors, and displays are all essential to a new car in 2015, but don’t let this visible impact fool you. The tech industry is having a broader influence on the automobile. Hardware is important, but we’re now starting to see larger tech philosophies adopted—like the open source car.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tact-Tiles
https://hackaday.io/project/4812-tact-tiles
A low-cost open-source scalable hardware platform for the development of interactive systems for deafblind people
The project aims at building an open source (hardware + software), low cost development platform for creating interactive devices for deafblind people.
This platform is composed of two main components: A main board for reading capacitive sensors and managing the tactile feedback (vibration motors), and a Java software to setup the device gestures language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MiniWear – DIY Miniature & Wearable Electronics
Creating an open source platform for easily creating miniature and wearable electronics projects
https://hackaday.io/project/7671-miniwear-diy-miniature-wearable-electronics
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why You Should Build a Clock for Social Good this Week
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/16/why-you-should-build-a-clock-for-social-good-this-week/
We’ve seen a wide range of emotional responses regarding [Ahmed Mohamed]’s arrest this week for bringing a clock he built to school. No matter where you fall on the political scale, we can all agree that mistaking a hobby engineering project for a bomb is a problem for education. People just don’t understand that mere mortals can, and do, build electronics. We can change that, but we need your help.
Our friends at NYC Resistor came up with a great idea. Why don’t we all build a clock? I want you to take it one step further: find a non-hacker to partner with on the project. Grab a friend, relative, or acquaintance and ask them to join you in building a clock from stuff you have on hand in order to promote STEM education.
9th Grader Arrested, Searched for Building a Clock
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/15/9th-grader-arrested-searched-for-building-a-clock/
A 14-year-old in Dallas, Texas has been arrested for bringing a clock to his school. [Ahmed Mohamed] could be any one of us. He’s a tinkerer, pulling apart scrap appliances and building projects from the parts.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656
President Obama Verified account
@POTUS
Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.
Tomi Engdahl says:
No user Serviceable Parts Inside? The rise of the Fix-It Culture
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/15/the-rise-of-the-fix-it-culture/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MiniWear – DIY Miniature & Wearable Electronics
Creating an open source platform for easily creating miniature and wearable electronics projects
https://hackaday.io/project/7671-miniwear-diy-miniature-wearable-electronics
MiniWear combines 3d printing with DIY miniature and wearable electronics, to create an open source development platform for creating projects. It is Arduino compatible, and includes a range of sensors. from heart rate to motion sensing.
MiniWear is one the smallest open source DIY electronics platforms, and we hope it will help and support other makers in making miniature and wearable electronics projects.
Key benfits of MiniWear are:
Open source
Modular Electronics
Supporting the maker movement
Combines 3d printing with DIY miniature and wearable electronics
Electronics modules can be stacked, daisy chained, sown, soldered and will fit into a standard breadboard
Sensor modules include: heart rate sensor, non contact temperature sensor, 9 axis motion sensor, and a UV, IR and light sensor.
Some of the smallest electronics on the market, measuring less than 2cm X 2cm (0.79” X 0.79”)
Arduino based bluetooth low energy microcontroller with ibeacon capabilities
Can communicate with your computer, tablet or phone
Uses I2C to communicate to modules (Only needs 4 pins: VCC, GND, SDA, SCL)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Live From Open Hardware Summit 2015
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/19/live-from-open-hardware-summit-2015/
Right now Hackaday and Tindie are in Philadelphia at the Open Hardware Summit 2015.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s an offer from Intel and the guy behind all of reality TV [Mark Burnett]: win a million dollars for making something. Pitch an idea for wearable electronics to the producers by October 2, and you might be on a reality TV show about building electronics which they’re calling America’s Greatest Makers. With this, Intel is promoting the Curie module a tiny, tiny SoC with Bluetooth, IMU, and DSP functions.
Source: http://hackaday.com/2015/09/20/hackaday-links-september-20-2015/
Intel, United Artists Media Group, and Turner Broadcasting System are bringing a national makers’ challenge to television in 2016.
Makers Wanted
America’s Greatest Makers (working title) is coming to television in 2016. Are you ready to build the next truly amazing device? Bring your big ideas to life with Intel, in collaboration with Mark Burnett, United Artists Media Group, and Turner Broadcasting System.
Competitors will vie for a $1 million grand prize.
For your chance to be on America’s Greatest Makers (working title), submit a complete application packet along with an image of your team or product.
Source: https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/wearables/americas-greatest-makers.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Semifinalist: OpenBionics Affordable Prosthetic Hands
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/20/hackaday-prize-semifinalist-openbionics-affordable-prosthetic-hands/
The human hand is an amazing machine, and duplicating even a fraction of its abilities in a prosthetic is a daunting task. Flexible anthropomorphic prosthetics can reach tens of thousands of dollars and are beyond the means of many of the people who need them. So imagine the impact a $200USD prosthetic hand could have.
For such a low, low price you might expect a simple hook or pincer grip hand, but the OpenBionics initiative designed their hand from the outset to mimic the human hand as much as possible
OpenBionics
An open-source initiative for low-cost, light-weight, underactuated robot hands and prosthetic devices.
http://www.openbionics.org/
OpenBionics is an open-source initiative for the development of affordable, light-weight, modular robot hands and prosthetic devices, that can be easily reproduced using rapid prototyping techniques and off-the-shelf materials.
Our robot hands cost less that 100$ and weigh less than 200 gr while our new anthropomorphic prosthetic hand costs less than 200$ and weighs less than 300 gr.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Openhand Combines 3D Printing with Urethane Casting
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/25/openhand-combines-3d-printing-with-urethane-casting/
Yale University brings us quite a treat with their Openhand Project.
If you’ve ever operated a robotic arm, you know that one of the most cumbersome parts is always the end effector. It will quickly make you realize what an amazing work of engineering the human hand really is, and what a poor intimation a simple open-close gripper ends up being.
About OpenHand
http://www.eng.yale.edu/grablab/openhand/index.html
The Yale OpenHand Project is an initiative to advance the design and use of robotic hands designed and built through rapid-prototyping techniques in order to encourage more variation and innovation in mechanical hardware.
Commercially available robotic hands are often expensive, customized for specific platforms, and difficult to modify. It is typically impractical to experiment with alternate end effector designs. This results in researchers needing to compensate in software for intrinsic and pervasive mechanical disadvantages, rather than allowing software and hardware research in manipulation to co-evolve.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Hardware Certification Announced
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/21/open-source-hardware-certification-announced/
Last weekend was the Open Hardware Summit in Philadelphia, and the attendees were nearly entirely people who build Open Source Hardware. The definition of Open Source Hardware has been around for a while, but without a certification process, the Open Hardware movement has lacked the social proof required of such a movement; there is no official process to go through that will certify hardware as open hardware, and there technically isn’t a logo you can slap on a silkscreen layer that says your project is open hardware.
Now, the time has come for an Open Hardware Certification. At OHSummit this weekend, the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) announced the creation of a certification process for Open Source Hardware.
Open Hardware is well defined, but as with any kind of license, there are questions about what happens when things that aren’t open hardware are integrated into a project. The largest problem facing any Open Hardware project is the parts outside of the creator’s control.
Open Source Hardware Certification Version 1
http://www.oshwa.org/2015/09/19/open-source-hardware-certification-version-1/
This is version 1 of an official certification for open source hardware housed in the Open Source Hardware Association. It outlines the purpose and goals of such a certification, and establishes the mechanisms for the operation of the certification process itself.
Primary Goals
Make it easier for the public to identify open source hardware.
Expand the reach of open hardware by making it easier for newer members to join the open source hardware community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Hardare Definition (English)
http://www.oshwa.org/definition/
The open-source hardware statement of principles and definition were developed by members of the OSHWA board and working group along with others.
Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Statement of Principles 1.0
Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The hardware’s source, the design from which it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications to it. Ideally, open source hardware uses readily-available components and materials, standard processes, open infrastructure, unrestricted content, and open-source design tools to maximize the ability of individuals to make and use hardware. Open source hardware gives people the freedom to control their technology while sharing knowledge and encouraging commerce through the open exchange of designs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The people behind Wasp also see themselves as members of the ‘maker economy’ – a new economic model that moves the production of goods from the hands of a few to everyone, using technology.
The use of 3D printing technology in construction has been used before – in Amsterdam, Dus Architects are currently attempting to build a completely 3D printed canal house.
Both examples are experimental projects
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/italian-wasp-engineers-3d-print-a-house-10511655.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Single-Chip Video Game Console
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/23/a-single-chip-video-game-console/
Ready to feel inadequate with your programming skills? You’ve been warned. Take a look at [Voja’s] single chip video game console using the PIC24. It produces the VGA signal, 5-channel sound, and is presented in a gamepad form-factor with directional pad and two buttons.
It uses a PIC24EP512GP202 microcontroller, complete with 512K flash memory, 48k data, and a whopping 28-pins. The game, which is extremely well documented, is laid out over on his projects page.
It makes our heads spin just looking at it! This is a great project to compare with the ArduinoCade from last week. Both do an amazing job of pumping out audio and video while leaving enough room for the game to actually run.
Single chip game console
The simple DIY retro game controller with PIC MCU which generates VGA signal, music and sound effects
https://hackaday.io/project/5574-single-chip-game-console
Tomi Engdahl says:
Retro Games on ArduinoCade Just Shouldn’t Be Possible
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/17/retro-games-on-arduinocade-just-shouldnt-be-possible/
Making retro video games on today’s micro controllers brings many challenges, especially when using only the micro controller itself to handle the entire experience. Complex graphics, sound, game logic and input is taxing enough on the small chips, toss in NTSC color graphics and you have a whole different bear on your hands.
[rossum] set out making the Arduinocade retro game system using an overclocked Arduino Uno, and not much more. Supporting 4 voice sound and IR game controllers, the system also boasts 27 simultaneous colors all in software.
Play color retro games on an arduino with a few cheap components
https://github.com/rossumur/Arduinocade
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Project Will Be Stolen
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/24/this-project-will-be-stolen/
What do you get when you take a flight case from Harbor Freight, fill it up with random electronics junk, and send it off to a stranger on the Internet? The travelling hacker box. It’s a project I’m putting together on hackaday.io to emulate a swap meet through the mail.
The idea is simple – take a box of random electronics junk, and send it off to a random person on hackaday.io. This person will take a few items out of the box, replace those items with something sitting on their workbench, and send it off to the next person. This is repeated until the box is stolen.
The current plan for the Travelling Hacker Box is to bounce across the United States for the circumference of the Earth until departing for more exotic lands.
Travelling Hacker Box
lol travelling salesman problem
https://hackaday.io/project/7373-travelling-hacker-box
Tomi Engdahl says:
Clocks for Social Good
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/22/clocks-for-social-good/
The point is that our society — which has pretty much universally accepted everyday carry of complex electronics — has no idea what goes into electronic design. How are we supposed to get kids excited about engineering if they are never able to pull back that curtain and see it in action?
Build something simple that can be understood by everyone, and show it off in a way that invites the uninitiated to get excited. What’s simpler than a clock? I think of it as the impetus behind technology. Marking the passage of time goes back to our roots as primitive humans following migratory herds, and betting on the changing seasons for crop growth. Our modern lives are governed by time more than ever. These Clocks for Social Good prove that anyone can understand how this technology works.
Clocks for Social Good
https://hackaday.io/list/7675-clocks-for-social-good
Tomi Engdahl says:
World Maker Faire 2015: Automatic Photo Collage
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/26/world-maker-faire-2015-automatic-photo-collage/
We’re on the ground here at the 6th Annual World Maker Faire in Queens, New York. This year the Faire is even bigger, extending out from the New York Hall of Science towards Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2015 RedBull Creation Competition is Underway!
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/25/2015-redbull-creation-competition-is-underway/
I’m here as a judge at the 2015 RedBull Creation Competition in Detroit — it’s a super intense 72 hour build off where makers, engineers, and artists can come to show us what they’ve got. This year’s theme is pretty broad: Serious Fun.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s Make Robots Changes Hands: Kerfuffle Ensues
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/25/lets-make-robots-changes-hands-kerfuffle-ensues/
There’s been a bit of a shakeup at Let’s Make Robots (LMR).
LMR is possibly the most popular DIY robotics website around and was started up by a fun-loving Dane, [Frits Lyneborg]. It grew a large community around building up minimal robots that nonetheless had a lot of personality or pushed a new technical idea into the DIY robotics scene.
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s not a Maker Faire unless there’s fire
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/maker-faire-/4440444/It-s-not-a-Maker-Faire-unless-there-s-fire?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150928&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150928&elq=c1005f1dfbc94102961e3ab2814e2e6c&elqCampaignId=24949&elqaid=28312&elqat=1&elqTrackId=3726579ab97248e89a9765bd158050cf
When the temperature begins to drop below 70 degrees here in New York and school buses begin to drive the streets again, it means it’s that time of year again. It means it’s time for World Maker Faire, one of the greatest show and tells on Earth.
World Maker Faire has taken over the New York Hall of Science in Queens every late September since 2009, drawing masses of crowds to its fairgrounds for the largest gathering of the maker community on the East Cost of the United States.
The weekend event overflowed with creativity and innovation. In many ways, that creativity has begun to represent itself in useful ways that will soon truly benefit the masses. As example, 3D printing is now utilized in medical treatments, wearables can be found in stores, and Arduino has spawned other easy-entry DIY platforms that will help spread engineering knowledge.
However, in some cases, the creativity found at Maker Faires represents itself in less than mainstream ways (some would say outright weird).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hack Anything into a Phone
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/29/hack-anything-into-a-phone/
If you’ve spent much time tinkering with electronics, you’ve probably heard of [Seeedstudio] from their development boards, tools, and their PCB fabrication service. Their latest Kickstarter venture is the RePhone, an open source and modular cell phone that will allow hackers to put together a phone by blending GSM modules, batteries, screens, and other stock units, including an Arduino-based processing core, GPS, NFC, and other building blocks.
RePhone Kit – World’s First Open Source and Modular Phone
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seeed/rephone-kit-worlds-first-open-source-and-modular-p
Create a phone yourself in minutes and hack a new way to communicate with things.
RePhone GSM + BLE features the world’s smallest System-on-Chip (SOC) for Wearables and Internet Of Things. It offers a wide range of communication protocols including GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth (4.0 and 2.1 Dual mode). It supports quad-band 850/900/1800/1900MHz, connecting onto any global GSM network.
RePhone Core Module 3G
Powerful microcontroller
Standard xadow interface, USB, 20*GPIO(I2C\SPI\UART\EINT)
Support analog audio interface(1*speaker, 2*mic, 1*headset)
Compatible with all xadow modules
Nano SIM, button, LED, antenna
HSPA/WCDMA:850/1900
GPRS/EDGE:850/1900
Voltage:3.3-4.2V
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teen clockmaker Ahmed Mohamed given VIP treatment at Google Science Fair
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/09/23/teen-clockmaker-given-vip-treatment-at-google.html
Teen clockmaker Ahmed Mohamed went from high school suspension to Silicon Valley in less than a week.
Google gave the 14-year-old high school freshman the VIP treatment and introduced him to company co-founder Sergey Brin at the Google Science Fair at the Mountain View-based Googleplex on Monday. Mohamed caught the attention of the media last week after he was suspended from school and detained by police when a clock he built was mistaken for a bomb by school officials.
The Google Science Fair is an annual event that celebrates the culmination of a global online competition open to any kid from ages 13-18. The theme of this year’s event was: “It’s your turn to change the world.” The competition receives the thousands of submissions from students in more than 100 countries. The overall winner takes home a $50,000 Google scholarship.
The company invited Mohamed to attend following his trouble at school.
“Hey Ahmed — we’re saving a seat for you at this weekend’s Google Science Fair … want to come? Bring your clock!” Google wrote on Twitter.
“Of course!” Mohamed responded. “Going to Cali!!!”
Mohamed still has a few outstanding invites in Silicon Valley, as well. The teen has offers to intern at Twitter and Reddit, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg invited the ninth-grader to visit the Menlo Park-based campus.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cardboard Robot Deathmatch
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/29/cardboard-robot-deathmatch/
Fighting robots are even more awesome than regular robots. But it’s hard for us to imagine tossing all that money (not to mention blood, sweat and tears) into a bot and then watching it get shredded. The folks at Columbia Gadget Works, a Columbia, MO hackerspace had the solution: make the robots out of cardboard.
The coolest thing about building your robots out of cardboard and hot glue is that it’s cheap, but if they’re going to be a modest scale, they can still be fairly strong, quick to repair
Open House and Cardboard Robot Fighting Recap
http://comogadgetworks.org/2015/09/open-house-and-cardboard-robot-fighting-recap/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Novation Launchpad MIDI Controller Moves Toward Open Source
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/30/novation-launchpad-midi-controller-moves-toward-open-source/
The Novation Launchpad is a MIDI controller, most commonly used with the Ableton Live digital audio workstation. It’s an eight by eight grid of buttons with RGB LED backlights that sends MIDI commands to your PC over USB. It’s often used to trigger clips, which is demonstrated by the artist Madeon in this video.
The Launchpad is useful as a MIDI input device, but that’s about all it used to do. But now, Novation has released an open source API for the Novation Pro. This makes it possible to write your own code to run on the controller, which can be flashed using a USB bootloader. An API gives you access to the hardware, and example code is provided.
Novation Release Custom Firmware API for Launchpad Pro!
http://hotchk155.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/novation-release-custom-firmware-api.html
The original Launchpad showed up as a MIDI device (assuming you have Novations drivers installed) and you could open it using your programming language of choice (I was using C++ on Windows MIDI API).
Then when you press buttons you receive MIDI messages (notes for the grid and CC’s for the menu buttons). Sending the same messages back to the controller turns the lights on and off. And it is pretty much that simple!
Check out the API here
https://github.com/dvhdr/launchpad-pro
Tomi Engdahl says:
Autodesk Open Source 3D Printer
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2015/09/30/autodesk-open-source-3d-printer/
If you’ve ever been interested in what goes on inside a (roughly) $6000 DLP stereolithography printer, you might want to check out the recent announcement from Autodesk that open sources their electronics and firmware for their Ember 3D printer. The Ember 3D Printer from Autodesk is a DLP SLA 3D printer
Tomi Engdahl says:
World Maker Faire 2015: Prometheus and The New Air Quality Egg
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/30/world-maker-faire-2015-prometheus-and-the-new-air-quality-egg/
There were plenty of projects and products to be seen at the 2015 World Maker Faire. In the maker pavilion, we found [Rocco Tuccio] showing off Prometheus, his PCB CNC router. Machines like this make prototyping circuits easy. Just place a blank piece of copper clad in the machine, load up your design, and a few minutes later you’ll have a board ready to stuff.
The unique part of Prometheus is the spindle design. Like many other small PCB routers, Prometheus uses a brushless quadcopter motor for power
A few minutes later we ran into [Victor Aprea] from Wicked Device, showing off the Air Quality Egg V2. [Victor] and his partner [Dirk] ran the design and manufacturing side of the Air Quality Egg, which had a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2012. The eggs from that campaign can be found online at the project’s website. [Victor and Dirk] have greatly improved on the Egg since then. The biggest update are the sensors. Sensors for ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide are now much more sensitive units from SpecSensors. These sensors don’t come cheap though.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Makers to watch: 5 stand-outs from World Maker Faire
http://www.edn.com/design/systems-design/4440467/Makers-to-watch–5-stand-outs-from-World-Maker-Faire?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150930&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150930&elq=8a0b9eeabfdf43bd9737a32f9824d522&elqCampaignId=24996&elqaid=28375&elqat=1&elqTrackId=d437278ab8e94a179bfdd5af0b78ce0f
Of the makers EDN met with and embedded projects previewed, here are 5 that stood out as ones to watch for their strong engineering and future potential.
The Third Industrial Revolution
Get to know Qtechknow
Oh, it’s an O Watch!
Maker neuroscientists
Is there an Arduino doctor in the house?
Bonus: From quadcopters to power racing to paragliding
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Internet of things could stop the next Volkswagen scandal in its tracks
http://fortune.com/2015/09/25/volkswagen-internet-of-things/
The Internet of things and a culture of experimentation makes it harder to lie to consumers and regulators.
Volkswagen is still reeling from the revelations that it lied to U.S. regulators and pumped nearly 1 million tons of extra pollutants into the air by installing software onto its cars to fool emissions tests. Now regulators, legislators and others are wondering how to prevent such a scandal from happening again. Open source software has been a suggested salve. So has random testing.
But I think these are part of two bigger trends that will come together to prevent these sort of shenanigans going forward—the Internet of things and the development of a maker culture. The Internet of things and its proliferation of data gathering sensors that are connected to the cloud and to each other combined with an increasing number of people who are comfortable building their own gear to experiment with the world around them will create an environment of constant scrutiny.
“It seems like we’ve gone through this trough where only 100 people in the world have the tools to test something like the Volkswagen emissions, to having a limitless number of people having the tool to detect this,” said Eben Upton, the creator of the Raspberry Pi computer, which is a computer beloved by makers. “But it’s not just that the tools are available, but that the tech culture has changed.”
Upton explained that people are willing to play with technology and experiment with cheap sensors to see if what they are being told is true. The combination of $1 or $2 sensors and a general skepticism has led a class of people to build tools to see if their air quality is really what the EPA is telling them. And, said Upton, as the tools are commercialized through companies, that ability to test will only get easier for the average consumer.
The Internet of things and a culture of experimentation makes it harder to lie to consumers and regulators.
Volkswagen is still reeling from the revelations that it lied to U.S. regulators and pumped nearly 1 million tons of extra pollutants into the air by installing software onto its cars to fool emissions tests. Now regulators, legislators and others are wondering how to prevent such a scandal from happening again. Open source software has been a suggested salve. So has random testing.
But I think these are part of two bigger trends that will come together to prevent these sort of shenanigans going forward—the Internet of things and the development of a maker culture. The Internet of things and its proliferation of data gathering sensors that are connected to the cloud and to each other combined with an increasing number of people who are comfortable building their own gear to experiment with the world around them will create an environment of constant scrutiny.
“It seems like we’ve gone through this trough where only 100 people in the world have the tools to test something like the Volkswagen emissions, to having a limitless number of people having the tool to detect this,” said Eben Upton, the creator of the Raspberry Pi computer, which is a computer beloved by makers. “But it’s not just that the tools are available, but that the tech culture has changed.”
Upton explained that people are willing to play with technology and experiment with cheap sensors to see if what they are being told is true. The combination of $1 or $2 sensors and a general skepticism has led a class of people to build tools to see if their air quality is really what the EPA is telling them. And, said Upton, as the tools are commercialized through companies, that ability to test will only get easier for the average consumer.
He thinks environmental groups will lead the charge.
Already there are projects such as AirCast that are trying to track air quality around cities using air quality sensors worn by volunteers.
Or you can buy an Air Quality Egg for $240 that measures carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide and become part of a worldwide air quality monitoring effort linked over the Internet.
Again, you’d need to make correlations between a cluster of offending Volkswagens and higher-than-expected pollution levels. However, in today’s era of cheap and easy data analysis such a thing isn’t too far fetched.
So, as cheap, connected sensors proliferate, a culture of making and experimenting expands, and civic groups embrace both attributes to start testing the world around them, more consumers will have the tools they need to tell if companies are lying. For those who are damaging the environment, they could find themselves having some sticky conversations.
VW’s Cheating Proves We Must Open Up the Internet of Things
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/volkswagen-open-iot/
It’s been a rough year for the Internet of Things. Security researchers uncovered terrifying vulnerabilities in products ranging from cars to garage doors to skateboards. Outages at smart home services Wink and Google’s Nest rendered customers’ gadgets temporarily useless. And the Volkswagen emissions scandal, though not precisely an Internet of Things issue, has exposed yet another issue with “smart” physical goods: the possibility of manufacturers embedding software in their products designed to skirt regulations.
And those are only the most immediate concerns. The Internet of Things brings with it privacy concerns and compatibility headaches. There’s also the potential for the companies that make this stuff to go belly-up at any moment—as Wink’s parent company Quirky just did. In the worst case scenario, customers could be left with a house full of expensive, not-so-smart gadgets.
The Safety of Objects
Today, the vast majority of smart home gadgets, connected cars, wearable devices, and other Internet of Things inhabitants are profoundly closed. Independent researchers can’t inspect the code that makes them run. You can’t wipe the factory-loaded software and load alternative software instead. In many cases you can’t even connect them to other devices unless the manufacturers of each product have worked out a deal with each other.
Ostensibly, this is for your own protection. If you can’t load your own software, you’re less likely to infect your car, burglar alarm, or heart monitor with a virus. But this opacity is also what helped Volkswagen get away with hiding the software it used to subvert emissions tests. It makes it harder to trust that your thermostat isn’t selling your personal info to door-to-door salesmen or handing it out to the National Security Agency.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2015 RedBull Creation Ends with Flaming Tire Swing of Death
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/01/2015-redbull-creation-ends-with-flaming-tire-swing-of-death/
Holy *#$&. That just about sums up the 2015 RedBull Creation Competition. It was fantastic. Where else could you ride a gasoline engine powered tire-swing-of-death, complete with fireball launcher? Well… maybe Burning Man…
Anyway, was it a hackathon? No, this was a build-a-thon. A few Arduinos and Atmel’s may have been used, but the majority of the projects were serious mechanical marvels. The teams had 72 hours to compete, with the very broad theme of “Serious Fun”.
And did they make some serious fun.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Square Inch Project Challenges Your Layout Skills
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/02/the-square-inch-project-challenges-your-layout-skills/
[alpha_ninja] proves that Hackaday.io is not just about great projects, but about an awesome community. Over this past week [alpha_ninja] has created The Square Inch Project, which is a grass-roots contest. The contest rules are pretty simple: The project PCB must fit in a 1″ x 1″ square. That’s 2.54 cm for those that don’t use freedom units. Smaller than a square inch is fine. If the project has multiple PCBs like a cordwood module, ALL the PCBs must still fit within the 1″ x 1″ square.
The Square Inch Project
A contest to create awesome, useful square inch boards.
https://hackaday.io/project/7813-the-square-inch-project
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make a PCB that fits into a 1×1 inch square, has a purpose, and is cool.
Seven projects will be awarded a prize:
One first prize winner gets $100 in credit for the Hackaday store and $50 for OSHPark.
Six other projects will get $50 in credit for the Hackaday store and $25 for OSHPark.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Radial Solenoid Engine is Undeniably Cool
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/05/radial-solenoid-engine-is-undeniably-cool/
Radial engines are just plain cool – it’s inarguable that any tech that originated with early aviation is inherently awesome. But, what do you do when you want to build a radial engine in your dorm where a combustion engine would be inadvisable? For University of Washington students [Jeffrey Weng] and [Connor Lee] the answer was to power it with solenoids in place of the pistons.
Also impressive is what they were able to accomplish with such basic tools. Those of us who are lazy and have access to more expensive tools would have just 3D printed or CNC cut most of the parts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Finalist Projects Prove We Can Save the World
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/05/10-finalist-projects-prove-we-can-save-the-world/
People should build something that matters. The ones who actually do so end up shaping the world. We are proud to announce the ten finalists for the 2015 Hackaday Prize.
The Hackaday Prize challenges Hackers, Designers, and Engineers to solve a problem and to build their solution using Open Design.
the $100,000 Best Product prize, will be awarded to one of these ten projects at the Hackaday SuperConference in San Francisco on November 14th and 15th.
DOLPi – RasPi Polarization Camera
FarmBot – CNC Farming and Gardening
Eye Controlled Wheelchair!
Gas Sensor For Emergency Workers
Household Electrically Enhanced Wet Scrubber
Luka EV
Portable environmental monitor
Light Electric Utility Vehicle
Vinduino, a wine grower’s water saving project
OpenBionics Affordable Prosthetic Hands
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Time to Vote for 2015 Gadget Freak of the Year
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1362&dfpLayout=blog&dfpLayout=blog&dfpLayout=blog&itc=dn_analysis_element&dfpPParams=htid_66%2Cbid_30%2Caid_278849&dfpPParams=htid_66%2Cbid_30%2Caid_278849&dfpPParams=htid_66%2Cbid_30%2Caid_278849&doc_id=278849&page_number=1
Welcome to this year’s voting in Design News and Allied Electronics’ annual Gadget Freak of the Year contest!
Watch the following six videos, click the project page to learn more about each gadget, and then cast your vote!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday at Berlin Maker Faire
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/08/hackaday-visited-berlin-maker-faire/