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:
Don’t Try This at Home is Cliché for a Reason
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/19/dont-try-this-at-home-is-cliche-for-a-reason/
We’ve seen one dangerous YouTube video too many. Are we honestly cursed with a false feedback system that unequitably rewards dangerous behavior in online videos? Obviously the answer is ‘yes’. Now the real question becomes, can we do anything about it?
Marketing is all about putting something in front of a consumer and getting their brain to go “awesome!”.
Back in the day, people were hurt and even killed when replicating stunts they saw done on television. To protect from litigation, companies started adding disclaimers — Don’t Try this at Home or my favorite: Professional Driver on a Closed Course.
But the thing is, commercials are big business. If someone gets hurt, there’s money to be had by assigning blame in a court of law.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The Hardware Hacker” Will Open Your Eyes
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=31&doc_id=1331636&
Get an inside look at Chinese electronic component markets, manufacturing, fake parts, and the hacker mentality.
“The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware” by Andrew “bunnie” Huang. No Starch Press, San Francisco, Calif. http://www.nostarch.com. Price: $29.95 (includes e-book if purchased from the publisher).
We hear about hacks all the time. While we mostly hear about hacks such as cyberattacks, don’t believe for a second that hardware hacks don’t happen. In “The Hardware Hacker,” Andrew “bunnie” Huang takes you through the steps required to develop and manufacture electronics in China; then he shows you in detail how he hacked hardware to uncover previous hacks and how he circumvented legal loopholes to create legal hacks.
The book opens with bunnie taking you on a tour of the electronics markets in Shenzhen, China. Having never been there, I can only surmise that these markets must make an engineer’s mouth water. You’ll get the impression that you can find any component there.
Bunnie’s Shenzhen tour wasn’t just for fun. He went there to buy parts for his new product, but he had to make sure that the parts were exactly what he expected — which, as he shows later, is often not the case.
Bunnie clearly stresses the importance of knowing your manufacturers’ capabilities, which means spending time with the people who will build and test your product. He also warns you of the risks of buying excess parts, which you’ll pay for but can be resold by the contract manufacturer, distributor, or some unscrupulous employee on the gray market.
Then there are counterfeit parts, of which there are many variations
The book also takes a long look at the hacking mentality in China. The Chinese approach to intellectual property (IP) is, as bunnie explains, difficult for Westerners to understand. We, in the West, tend to put more emphasis on protecting IP, but bunnie argues that China’s open approach has advantages that encourage innovation in ways that we simply can’t see because of our protectionist way of thinking. He shows how, because of this more open system, engineers can design feature phones that cost a mere $10 for emerging markets, something that simply couldn’t happen in the West.
Bunnie is an advocate for open-source hardware and software. Indeed, he provided schematics and source code for his products because he wanted others to experiment and improve on his designs. Furthermore, bunnie sees a slowing of Moore’s law. With that, he says, will come longer life cycles for electronics. That will encourage a stronger hacker/repair culture as products might not be so “throw-away.” Such a culture will produce a rising demand for schematics and documentation. Remember, there was a time when computer and other consumer electronics — and especially test equipment — came with schematics, and bunnie argues that could return. “I’m looking forward to the return of artisan engineering, where elegance, optimization, and balance are valued over feature creep, and where I can use the same tool for a decade and not be viewed as an anachronism.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Behold the Many Builds of World Create Day
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/24/behold-the-many-builds-of-world-create-day/
World Create Day was huge this year. Over 70 different groups on six continents got together on Saturday to work on projects as a global Hackaday community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top free DIY tools every EE needs
http://www.edn.com/design/diy/4430357/Top-free-DIY-tools-every-EE-needs
Every electrical engineer who does DIY projects knows that dozens of free resistor calculators are out there that can save quite a bit of tedious work. Other simple tools can be found, but traditionally the free tool arsenal would stop there. Sure, there are base platforms such as SolidWorks and Autodesk, but what happens when they are missing a feature needed at that exact moment?
Now we’re seeing a relative explosion in free tools for engineering electronics. It is easy just to hit the Net and use the myriad resources available. Some of those online tools prove to be worthless, and it’s back to blind searching or some paid tool, but free software extends far beyond the functionality of a simple calculator.
Mostly free engineering software
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4434930/Mostly-free-engineering-software
We’re living in a golden age of software, where many useful programs are available – for free!
Let’s survey some of what’s out there that just might interest an engineering crowd like the EDN community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free PCB ECAD: The Ultimate list
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/all-aboard-/4441802/Free-PCB-ECAD–The-Ultimate-list
The world of PCB CAD software has been very active in recent years – so much so that it’s easy to lose track of all the players and products.
The lower end in particular offers many new options, including many FREE ones, so let’s take a look. You’ll see that free no longer means toy.
The approaches to these ECAD (electronic computer-aided design) systems are varied, ranging from open-source, to proprietary (some with upgradeability to more capable paid versions), to cloud-based, work-anywhere systems that run in a Web-browser window. Read on to learn about the products in each category. Which will you try for your next project?
We start our survey with the open-source systems:
Tomi Engdahl says:
Decade Resistance Substitution Box Under 10$
http://www.instructables.com/id/Decade-Resistance-Substitution-Box-Under-10/
Decade Resistance Substitution Box can create any ressitor value with push of a button, it’s like an programmable ressitor in which you can set resistance value where from 1 ohm to 10 Mega ohm .
Well, you can build your for 10 $ , get the parts and build your ressistance substitution box .
SMD Decade Resistance Box
http://www.instructables.com/id/SMD-Decade-Resistance-Box/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Resistance Substitution Box (0 – 100 Meg Ohm Resistance)
http://www.instructables.com/id/0-to-100-MegOhm-Resistance-decade-box/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Look at me with your Special Animatronic Eyes
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/25/look-at-me-with-your-special-animatronic-eyes/
Animatronics for movies is often about making something that works and is reliable in the short term. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to last forever. [Corporate Sellout] shows us the minimalist approach to building animatronics with this pair of special eyes. These eyes move in both the pan and tilt. Usually, that means a gimbal style mount. Not in this case. The mechanical assembly consists of with popsicle sticks, ping-pong balls, film canisters and dental floss.
LOOK WITH YOUR SPECIAL EYES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jljkv5blM4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Hackaday: What About the Diffusers?
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/25/ask-hackaday-what-about-the-diffusers/
Blinky LED projects: we just can’t get enough of them. But anyone who’s stared a WS2812 straight in the face knows that the secret sauce that takes a good LED project and makes it great is the diffuser. Without a diffuser, colors don’t blend and LEDs are just tiny, blinding points of light. The ideal diffuser scrambles the photons around and spreads them out between LED and your eye, so that you can’t tell exactly where they originated.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Around the Globe on World Create Day
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/25/around-the-globe-on-world-create-day/
Last weekend was great for science and technology. While thousands of people took to the streets to protest anti-intellectualism, a few members of the Hackaday community dug their heels in, turned on the soldering iron, and actually did something about it. This was World Create Day, a community effort to come together and build something that matters. What did these people build? So much awesome stuff.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Universal Robots Academy Offers Do-It-Yourself Robot Programming
Ease of configuration is a hallmark of collaborative robots. Universal Robots offers free online training to get users started.
https://www.designnews.com/automation-motion-control/universal-robots-academy-offers-do-it-yourself-robot-programming/157990936056667?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170426.tst004t
Collaborative robots are defined by a number of characteristics, from human friendliness to flexibility. One of their hallmarks is the ease of configuration. Unlike the caged automotive robots for welding and painting, collaborative robots don’t require a full-time programmer on hand. You don’t need to be a software engineer to get your collaborative robot picking and packing.
Universal Robots has developed online training modules to further lower the training barrier to robot deployment. The hands-on modules are offered free of charge, open to all, and built to deliver hands-on learning via interactive simulations. Anyone with a desire to learn the concepts of collaborative robots can log in to the Universal Robots Academy and get the introduction necessary to master basic programming skills – and actually, it’s more configuration than programming.
Step-by-Step Teaching Program
Universal Robots had created the training sessions as an introduction to collaborative robotics as well as practical configuration. The company suggests users spend time with the online training even if they plan to attend hands-on training at Universal. “The online learning academy has six modules. This is the introductory training and it’s interactive,”
https://www.universal-robots.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wherein The Mechanical Keyboard Community Discovers Motorized Linear Potentiometers
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/26/wherein-the-mechanical-keyboard-community-discovers-motorized-linear-potentiometers/
Deep in the bowels of the Digikey and Mouser databases, you’ll find the coolest component ever. Motorized linear potentiometers are a rare, exotic, and just plain neat input device most commonly found on gigantic audio mixing boards and other equipment that costs as much as a car. They’re slider potentiometers with a trick up their sleeve: there’s a motor inside that can set the slider to any position.
The mechanical keyboard community has been pushing the boundaries of input devices for the last few years, and it looks like they just discovered motorized linear pots. [Jack] created a motorized sliding keycap for his keyboard. It’s like a scroll wheel, but for a keyboard. It’s beautiful, functional, and awesome.
the real trick here is the software. So far, [Jack] has implemented a plugin system, configuration software, and force feedback. Now, messing with the timeline in any Adobe product is easy and intuitive.
https://imgur.com/gallery/2z31d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using Blender and Python to 3D print a dress
https://opensource.com/article/16/12/blender-python-3D-dress
The opening ceremony at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio featured snowboarder Amy Purdy wearing a 3D printed dress, wearing prosthetics printed from the same material as the dress, and dancing with a Kuka robotic arm.
The dance was a statement about the merging of the human spirit and technology. “The backstory, which mainstream media passed over, was the critical role open source software played in the making of the dress: it was created using Blender and Python.
When I started writing code for manipulating 3D objects in Euclidean space I began wishing I had taken at least Algebra 1, but I somehow skipped that part of high school. Fortunately, all of that can be learned from free video tutorials. About six months after I wrote my first line of computer code, I created my first cloth engine from scratch using Numpy. I gave a presentation at the Blender conference in Amsterdam on this. Everyone said it was an amazing achievement
So many people in the open source community were doing amazing things I never would have dreamed of and they were all sharing their ideas, assets, and even source code freely.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Help Wanted: Open Source Oscilloscope on Rigol Hardware
http://hackaday.com/2017/04/27/help-wanted-open-source-oscilloscope-on-rigol-hardware/
We’ve often heard (and said) if you can’t hack it, you don’t own it. We noticed that [tmbinc] has issued a call for help on his latest project: developing new firmware and an FPGA configuration for the Rigol DS1054Z and similar scopes. It isn’t close to completion, but it isn’t a pipe dream either. [tmbinc] has successfully booted Linux.
Why the Rigol? [tmbinc] says they are cheap, have decent hardware, and use parts that have accessible tool chains. Plus, the Rigol is popular among people likely to hack their scope. The Xilinx FPGA and the ARM processor are reasonably easy to work with using either open source or freely available tools.
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/rigol-ds10xxz-firmware-re-write/
Tomi Engdahl says:
GearBoxes.py
Create gear boxes with a laser cutter
https://hackaday.io/project/21619-gearboxespy
This is a sub project of Boxes.py (https://hackaday.io/project/10649-boxespy). Goal of the project is to create Boxes.py generators for gear boxes that can be used for transmitting power in real projects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boxes.py
Cut out boxes and other stuff with a laser cutter
https://hackaday.io/project/10649-boxespy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Actuator System: Maker Muscle
Customizable linear actuators made easy….and cheaper.
https://hackaday.io/project/20886-open-actuator-system-maker-muscle
Tomi Engdahl says:
Graphite Circuitry Experiments
https://hackaday.io/project/21622-graphite-circuitry-experiments
Using graphite, powders, pencils and other common household chemicals to create transistors, resistors and possibly caps.
Creating circuit components at home with everyday and easy to obtain materials. Using graphite pencils, compressed carbon powder, paper, foil, wires and electrical tape. Goal to reduce the need for as many manufactured components with the exception of LEDs. Also homegrown crystals and acetates for plating and other experiments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacker Calculus
https://hackaday.io/project/20621-hacker-calculus
Isaac Newton was a hacker. Let’s take calculus back to its roots and make it accessible to everyone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AnanasStepper 2.0
Open Source CAN Bus Based Servo Stepper for Multi Axis Gang Control
https://hackaday.io/project/20980-ananasstepper-20
This an upgrade of AnanasStepper(https://github.com/Dark-Guan/Ananas), which is a stand alone closed loop stepper driver.With STM32F103 MCU, this version has more performance to driver stepper well and CAN Bus support.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Analyzing and Controlling Hand Tremors
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/03/hackaday-prize-entry-analyzing-and-controlling-hand-tremors/
For the millions of people suffering from Parkinson’s and other causes of hand tremor, there is new hope in the form of [mohammedzeeshan77]’s entry into the Hackaday Prize: a glove that analyzes and controls the tremors.
The glove uses an accelerometer and a pair of flex sensors to determine the position of the hand as it oscillates. A Particle Photon crunches the raw data to come up with the frequency and amplitude of the tremors and uploads it to the cloud for retrieval and analysis by medical staff.
Analysis and control of hand tremor
https://hackaday.io/project/20698-analysis-and-control-of-hand-tremor
A project for the people suffering from tremor,this device can be used to analyze the tremor frequency and stabilize it by using a gyroscope
Tomi Engdahl says:
Want Gesture-Tracking? All You Have To Do Is Lift Your Finger.
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/02/want-gesture-tracking-all-you-have-to-do-is-lift-your-finger/
Watching Tony Stark wave his hands to manipulate projected constructs is an ever-approaching reality — at least in terms of gesture-tracking. Lift — a prototype built by a team from UC Irvine and FX Palo Alto Laboratory — is able to track up to ten fingers with 1.7 mm accuracy!
Lift’s gesture-tracking is achieved by using a DLP projector, two Arduino MKR1000s, and a light sensor for each digit. Lift’s design allows it to work on virtually any flat surface; the projected image acts as a grid and work area for the user. As their fingers move across the projected surface, the light sensors feed the information from the image to the Arduinos, which infers the location of each finger and translate it into a digital workspace. Sensors may also be mounted on other objects to add functionality.
This System Uses Encoded Light for Millimeter-Level Finger Tracking
https://blog.hackster.io/this-system-uses-encoded-light-for-millimeter-level-finger-tracking-9d0029acc55b
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robotic Glockenspiel and Hacked HDD’s Make Music
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/02/robotic-glockenspiel-and-hacked-hdds-make-music/
He has incorporated his robotic glockenspiel with a hacked hard drive rhythm section to play audio controlled via a PIC 16F84A microcontroller. The song choice is Axel-F.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robotic Glockenspiel Crunches “Popcorn”
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/12/robotic-glockenspiel-crunches-popcorn/
Tomi Engdahl says:
ODrive – High performance motor control
https://hackaday.io/project/11583-odrive-high-performance-motor-control
Hobby brushless motors are incredibly cheap and powerful. However we need a way to make robots out of them. ODrive is that way.
Stepper motors are ubiquitous in hobby robotics projects: If you make a robotics or automation project today, it is very likely you will use them. Almost all DIY projects from 3D printers and CNC mills, to air hockey and juggling robots use them. However in industrial automation, brushless servomotors have taken over, and it’s clear why: They don’t lose steps, are much more powerful, efficient, and silent.
However, brushless motors are not unique to expensive industrial automation equipment. In fact, you can get some very powerful and cheap motors at hobby shops. The electronics to drive these motors are also dirt cheap. So how come virtually no non-industrial automation systems use them?
To be honest, I have no idea. Seriously, a driver that allows this should clearly exist.
But since it didn’t, I decided to make one.
And you are invited!
This project is open source, both in hardware and software, and I warmly welcome anyone who wants to join.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Powerful, Professional Brushless Motor from 3D-Printed Parts
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/08/powerful-professional-brushless-motor-from-3d-printed-parts/
Not satisfied with the specs of off-the-shelf brushless DC motors? Looking to up the difficulty level on your next quadcopter build? Or perhaps you just define “DIY” as rigorously as possible? If any of those are true, you might want to check out this hand-wound, 3D-printed brushless DC motor.
There might be another reason behind [Christoph Laimer]’s build — moar power! The BLDC he created looks more like a ceiling fan motor than something you’d see on a quad, and clocks in at a respectable 600 watts and 80% efficiency. The motor uses 3D-printed parts for the rotor, stator, and stator mount. The rotor is printed from PETG, while the stator uses magnetic PLA to increase the flux and handle the heat better.
600 Watt, 3d-printed, Halbach Array, Brushless DC Electric Motor
http://www.instructables.com/id/600-Watt-3d-printed-Halbach-Array-Brushless-DC-Ele/
This is a very powerful, 3d-printed brushless DC electric motor. It has 600 Watts, and performs with more than 80% efficiency. The main components like rotor and stator can be printed with a common FDM-printer. Magnets, copper wire, and ball-bearings are ordinary components. The magnets of the rotor are arranged as Halbach Array. The motor runs with a standard ESC widely used in different RC-applications (plane, drone, car).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Curie TinyTILE Dress: Accelerometer + Optical Fibers
https://www.hackster.io/kitty-yeung/intel-curie-tinytile-dress-accelerometer-optical-fibers-274294
A dress using Intel Curie accelerometer on TinyTILE and its small form factor to control colors of the optical fibers with arm movements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
These Twenty Designs Just Won $1000 in The Hackaday Prize
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/08/these-twenty-designs-just-won-1000-in-the-hackaday-prize/
Today we’re excited to announce the winners of the Design Your Concept phase of The Hackaday Prize. These projects just won $1000 USD, and will move on to the final round this fall.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Micro Cassette Player
https://hackaday.io/project/21837-open-source-micro-cassette-player
It wont look like the elbow elbow cassette player (different)
I saw the concept art on a website called the Verge, and decided that ill build by own, and open source it .
https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/vCalc/Belt+Pulley+RPMs
Tomi Engdahl says:
ODrive – High performance motor control
https://hackaday.io/project/11583-odrive-high-performance-motor-control
Hobby brushless motors are incredibly cheap and powerful. However we need a way to make robots out of them. ODrive is that way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Make Munich was Awesome
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/08/make-munich-was-awesome/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Risks and Rewards of Open Platform Firmware
Can you build a product using open platform hardware? Yes, if you understand the risks.
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/risks-and-rewards-open-platform-firmware/44266721456766?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170509.tst004t
Open-source hardware is great for a lot of things. It gives students and educators a great learning platform, and it’s the perfect solution for all sorts of DIY projects . But can you design a commercial product around open source?
You can if you understand the risks and take the proper security precautions, particularly when it comes to your firmware.
Speaking at the 2017 Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Boston Brian Richardson, a technical evangelist for Intel, praised open hardware platforms for many reasons: they offer publicly available designs; they’re based on open-source concepts; and they encourage experimentation, new features, and new designs. The DIY and Maker community has already heavily embraced hobbyist boards like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and there are other products on the market as well such as the MinnowBoard and Intel’s own Galileo Board .
“On an open hardware platform the firmware is made available primarily for debugging and hacking,” Richardson told the audience. “It ships with unsigned binary firmware images because as a maker if we signed binary it doesn’t do you any good. It also assumes updates are run by a developer – and hopefully not a hacker.” The trouble comes, Richardson said, because the platform identifiers are not unique. If a developer uses GitHub or some other open-source repository to get a GUID for a platform that means everyone else can get and use the same one as well, even people with bad intentions.
There are also problems inherent in the way firmware itself operates. “Firmware initializes hardware, establishes root-of-trust, then hands things off to OS … which creates an opportunity for someone else,”
“If I trust the firmware then we can let the firmware be the root of trust,”
Ultimately it will be up to developers to decide if using open source is the right move. With the open-source hardware space growing and companies even beginning to offer open-source SoCs , it’s likely that a lot more designers, particularly at the DIY and startup level, will be opting to leverage some sort of open source hardware and software to help bring their product to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nema17 3D printed Linear Actuator & ESP32 WebGui
https://hackaday.io/project/21883-nema17-3d-printed-linear-actuator-esp32-webgui
Nema17 Stepper motor 3D printed Linear Actuator (250mm+ stroke 2Kg+ dead weight lift) with Ramps driver & ESP32/ESP8266 WebGui.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D-Printed Tiger Lopes with the Help of a Motor
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/09/3d-printed-tiger-lopes-with-the-help-of-a-motor/
[Greg Zumwalt], master of 3D-printed mechanisms, has published his Saber 2 project as well as an assembly Instructable telling you how to put it together.
Saber 2 is a 3D-printed gear-and-cam saber-toothed tiger that can be motorized to show an excellent loping movement. It’s 14” long and 10” tall and consists of 108 components of which 34 are unique parts, and it all moves with the help of a 6 VDC 60 RPM gearmotor.
Saber 2
http://www.instructables.com/id/Saber-2/
Saber 2 is a larger format version of my original Saber design (the original Saber design was inspired by the Disney “Cyber Tiger” video attached). At 14 inches (36cm) long and 10″ (25.5cm) tall, Saber 2 is 1.3 times the size of the original Saber, and uses a mostly threaded assembly as opposed to the press fit assembly of Saber. With threaded assembly, Saber 2 travels much better between trade show appearances than Saber, and with its increased size, it definitely attracts attention
Tomi Engdahl says:
SnapBloks
https://hackaday.io/project/20554-snapbloks
Tools for students, makers, designers and artists
to quickly demonstrate interactive concepts.
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Internet of Useful Things
Best Product
This project was created on 03/22/2017 and last updated 11 days ago.
Description
Introducing SnapBloks! It is the latest modular technology for hardware and software development, based-on Arduino system. With SnapBloks, users create, design, and prototype ideas quickly by combining modular sensors and actuators with easy snap-on Blok.
SnapBloks hides the cumbersome hardware wiring with easy three-magnetic-contacts that serve as conductor, powering, and networking. Each Blok does data serialization and deserialization from UART, SPI, I2C, etc into one shared communication line. SnapBloks can also get connected to computer, tablet, smartphone, or other SnapBloks system over local network or to the internet.
Let SnapBloks take care of hardware composition and you concentrate on data handling and manipulation. If you are a hacker, the least requirement for hacking SnapBloks is an Arduino IDE. SnapBloks’ core design is open and everyone can add new sensors as many!
SnapBloks can help demonstrate interactive concept to the world quickly by snapping Bloks together and instantly gather useful information to your computer, tablet, phone, or to the cloud. SnapBloks is meant as complementary tools to speed up productivities. It is based-on Arduino, so we don’t reinvent the wheels in the process of making this project to happen.
SnapBloks v3.0 is currently planned to be much lower cost than the previous two models. The shape does not have to be circular this time, but we keep the number of contacts the same. For this project, we will use the low cost and famous ESP8266/ESP8285 Wi-Fi chip.
STORMLab for STEM Education: An Affordable Modular Robotic Kit for Integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7467483/metrics
Tomi Engdahl says:
Object Following Control of a Robotic Camera Arm
https://hackaday.io/project/21757-object-following-control-of-a-robotic-camera-arm
Virtual Reality, Kalman Filter, and Inverse Dynamics Control
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Lab
A full open source electronic lab
https://hackaday.io/project/21383-open-lab
This lab includes:
a variable power supply (DPS5015);
a fixed power supply (LM2596);
an oscilloscope (redpitaya);
a signal generator (redpitaya).
This box also include a raspberry pi 3 with a 10″ touch screen to control the redpitaya.
https://redpitaya.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hexapod Modelling, Path Planning and Control
3rd Year Individual Project
https://hackaday.io/project/21904-hexapod-modelling-path-planning-and-control
Tomi Engdahl says:
ROSbot – autonomous robot platform
Open source & connected universal robot platform. ROS-powered. Sensors: LIDAR, camera, IMU, encoders, distance sensors. 4 DC motors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robot Party
Google+ Hangout showing what robot makers are working on
https://hackaday.io/project/10517-robot-party
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Open Source Electrospinning
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/11/hackaday-prize-entry-open-source-electrospinning/
Electrospinning is the process of dispensing a polymer solution from a nozzle, then applying a very high voltage potential between the nozzle and a collector screen. The result is a very, very fine fiber that is stretched and elongated down to nanometers. Why would anyone want this? These fibers make great filters because of their large surface area. Electrospinning has been cited as an enabling technology for the future of textiles.
OpenESpin
Building an Electrospinning machine for everyone.
https://hackaday.io/project/20702-openespin
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get into Biohacking on the Cheap with this Electrophoresis Rig
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/11/get-into-biohacking-on-the-cheap-with-this-electrophoresis-rig/
If you want to get into electronics, it’s pretty straightforward: read up a little, buy a breadboard and some parts, and go to town. Getting into molecular biology as a hobby, however, presents some challenges. The knowledge is all out there, true, but finding the equipment can be a problem, and what’s out there tends to be fiendishly expensive.
So many would-be biohackers end up making their own equipment, like this DIY gel electrophoresis rig.
DIY Simple & Cheap Electrophoresis Setup for DNA Separation
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Simple-Cheap-Electrophoresis-Setup-for-DNA-Sep/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Risks and Rewards of Open Platform Firmware
Can you build a product using open platform hardware? Yes, if you understand the risks.
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/risks-and-rewards-open-platform-firmware/44266721456766?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170512.tst004t
Open-source hardware is great for a lot of things. It gives students and educators a great learning platform, and it’s the perfect solution for all sorts of DIY projects . But can you design a commercial product around open source?
You can if you understand the risks and take the proper security precautions, particularly when it comes to your firmware.
Speaking at the 2017 Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in Boston Brian Richardson, a technical evangelist for Intel, praised open hardware platforms for many reasons: they offer publicly available designs; they’re based on open-source concepts; and they encourage experimentation, new features, and new designs. The DIY and Maker community has already heavily embraced hobbyist boards like the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and there are other products on the market as well such as the MinnowBoard and Intel’s own Galileo Board .
“On an open hardware platform the firmware is made available primarily for debugging and hacking,” Richardson told the audience. “It ships with unsigned binary firmware images because as a maker if we signed binary it doesn’t do you any good. It also assumes updates are run by a developer – and hopefully not a hacker.”
The trouble comes, Richardson said, because the platform identifiers are not unique. If a developer uses GitHub or some other open-source repository to get a GUID for a platform that means everyone else can get and use the same one as well, even people with bad intentions.
There are also problems inherent in the way firmware itself operates. “Firmware initializes hardware, establishes root-of-trust, then hands things off to OS … which creates an opportunity for someone else,”
So how do you deploy products based on open designs without creating a BlackHat presentation waiting to happen?
The first step Richardson said is to build for release – that is, make a product look like it is proprietary, and keep people from knowing you used open source. “At the very least don’t advertise so someone can’t find it on GitHub,” Richardson said, also strongly suggesting that designers remove the debug features and change the default identifiers on their open source hardware.
The other big key is in UEFI itself and providing secure field updates to firmware. “You really want to have firmware update in the field,” Richardson said. “The risk is someone can drop the wrong thing on the platform, such as hacked firmware or a slight variation that could brick a product by accident. The reward is if there’s a bug or security hole on the platform you can patch it.”
“If I trust the firmware then we can let the firmware be the root of trust,” Richardson said. “If you can’t trust version 1 of your firmware not to be exploited you have a bigger problem than anyone can help you with.”
Ultimately it will be up to developers to decide if using open source is the right move. With the open-source hardware space growing and companies even beginning to offer open-source SoCs , it’s likely that a lot more designers, particularly at the DIY and startup level, will be opting to leverage some sort of open source hardware and software to help bring their product to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing A Synthesizer
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/12/3d-printing-a-synthesizer/
Before there were samplers, romplers, Skrillex, FM synths, and all the other sounds that don’t fit into the trailer for the new Blade Runner movie, electronic music was simple. Voltage controlled oscillators, voltage controlled filters, and CV keyboards ruled the roost. We’ve gone over a lot of voltage controlled synths, but [Tommy] took it to the next level. He designed a small, minimum viable synth based around the VCO in an old 4046 PLL chip
http://blog.tommy.sh/posts/hello-f0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microcontroller Load Meter Tells You How Hard It’s Currently Working
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/13/microcontroller-load-meter-tells-you-how-hard-its-currently-working/
Writing code for embedded applications can be difficult. There are all sorts of problems you can run into – race conditions, conflicting peripherals, unexpected program flow – any of these can cause havoc with your project. One thing that can really mess things up is if your microcontroller is getting stuck on a routine – without the right debugging hardware and software, this can be a tricky one to spot. [Terry] developed a microcontroller load meter just for this purpose.
It’s a simple setup – a routine named loadmeter-task on the microcontroller sends a train of pulses to a mechanical ammeter. The ammeter is then adjusted with a trimpot to read “0” when the chip is unloaded. As other tasks steal CPU time, there’s less time for loadmeter-task to send its pulses, so the meter falls to the left.
Overall it’s a quick and easy bit of code you could add to any project with a spare GPIO pin
Loadmeter
http://128.199.141.78/instrument-mcu.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
From Amritsar to Busselton; More World Create Day Stories
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/13/from-amritsar-to-busselton-more-world-create-day-stories/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get into Biohacking on the Cheap with this Electrophoresis Rig
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/11/get-into-biohacking-on-the-cheap-with-this-electrophoresis-rig/
DIY Simple & Cheap Electrophoresis Setup for DNA Separation
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Simple-Cheap-Electrophoresis-Setup-for-DNA-Sep/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Art With Steppers And STM32
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/14/art-with-steppers-and-stm32/
stm32f4-discovery art
https://trandi.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/stm32f4-discovery-art/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Long Tail of DIY Electronics
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/15/the-long-tail-of-diy-electronics/
These are the Golden Years of electronics hacking. The home DIY hacker can get their hands on virtually any part that he or she could desire, and for not much money. Two economic factors underlie this Garden of Electronic Eden that we’re living in. Economies of scale make the parts cheap: when a factory turns out the same MEMS accelerometer chip for hundreds of millions of cell phones, their setup and other fixed costs are spread across all of these chips, and a $40 million factory ends up only costing $0.50 per unit sold.
But the unsung hero of the present DIY paradise is how so many different parts are available, and from so many different suppliers, many of them on the other side of the globe. “The Internet” you say, as if that explains it. Well, that’s not wrong, but it’s deeper than that. The reason that we have so much to choose from is that the marginal cost of variety has fallen, and with that many niche products and firms have become profitable where before they weren’t.
So let’s take a few minutes to sing the praises of the most important, and sometimes overlooked, facet of the DIY economy over the last twenty years: the falling marginal cost of variety.
Amazon and Netflix were the poster children of the mid-2000s. But eBay, Alibaba, Etsy, and Banggood are in the same boat, if not even better exemplars. How much does it cost Etsy to add another supplier of hand-sculpted, breakfast-shaped rings? Nothing, so they add another seller and make more money by brokering more stuff.
We DIYers are huge beneficiaries of all of this long-tail business. In 2002, it would take a week’s work to find a factory in China that was making suitable DC-DC buck converters; now it takes a few mouse clicks. And the result is that an incredible variety of DIY raw materials, and not just blockbusters on the scale of a new cell phone or fitness tracker watch, are now available and make sense for the producers to sell even in quantity one. Which means that we can buy them in quantity one. Thanks eBay, Alibaba, or whatever.
And there are niches within niches. Even the DC-DC converter is a mass-produced item, as is an Arduino — probably the closest thing to a blockbuster in our little world. That doesn’t stop a company like eBay or Tindie (which our overlords, Supply Frame, purchased a couple years ago) from taking advantage of the decreased marginal cost of variety and registering an additional seller, or auctioning their one-off widget.
It’s the decreasing cost of getting access to niche firms, and them gaining access to us, that makes the items available in the first place. And we win from this change, both as the hacker consumer of oddball breakout boards and as the hacker entrepreneur who can start up a small-scale business.
Economies of scale — an additional unit of the same thing costing less to produce than the previous one — are responsible for the low, low price of an ESP8266 module.
Tomi Engdahl says:
$60 bluetooth head mounted display.
The HMD is bluetooth enabled and compatible with both Linux and Android.
https://hackaday.io/project/2068-60-bluetooth-head-mounted-display
The OLED display is a small .96″ display controlled by an arduino nano board. The display receives text and commands from a HC-05 serial bluetooth module connected to the arduino. There is also a small speaker and RGB LED connected to the board. The OLED display, RGB LED, and speaker are all controllable over bluetooth. The device is powered by a adafruit powerboost module connected to a small 0.7Wh lipo battery.
Bluetooth Head Mount Display Rev. 2
https://hackaday.io/project/21340-bluetooth-head-mount-display-rev-2
In this new Bluetooth Head mounted display we hope to make it sleeker, slimmer, and better looking!
Like the previous Project, we hope to have an OLED display controlled by an Arduino, or a Raspberry Pi Zero. The OLED display, RGB LED, and speaker are all controllable over bluetooth. The device is powered by a adafruit powerboost module connected to a small 0.7Wh lipo battery