Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Hackaday Podcast
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ep 290: iPhone's Electric Glue, Winamp's Source Code, and Sonya's Beautiful Instructions | 27 Sep 2024 | 01:12:36 | |
This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off by acknowledging an incredible milestone: 20 years of Hackaday! Well, probably. When a website gets to be this old, it's a little hard to nail down when exactly things kicked off, but it seems like September of 2004 is about right. They'll also go over the latest updates for the fast-approaching Hackaday Supercon, and announce the winner of another tough What's That Sound challenge. From there, the conversation makes its way from the fascinating electrically-activated adhesive holding the latest iPhone together to pulsed-power lasers and a high flying autonomous glider designed and built by a teenager. You'll also hear about 3D printing on acrylic, home biohacking, and the Tiny Tool Kit Manifesto. Stick around to the end to hear the duo discuss the fine art of good documentation, and an incredible bodge job from Arya Voronova. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
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| Ep 289: Tiny Games, Two Modern Modems, and the Next Big Thing | 20 Sep 2024 | 00:39:48 | |
This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: we've announced the 2024 Tiny Games Contest winners! We asked you to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM, and you did so in spades. Congratulations to all the winners and Honorable Mentions, and thanks to DigiKey, Supplyframe, and all who entered! We also announced the first round of Supercon speakers, so if you haven't gotten your ticket yet, now's the second best time. But wait, there's more! We're already a few weeks into the next contest, where we want you to show us your best Simple Supercon Add-On. We love to see the add-ons people make for the badge every year, so this time around we're really embracing the standard. The best SAOs will get a production run and they'll be in the swag bag at Hackaday Europe 2025. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which completely stumped Kristina once again. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Now it's on to the hacks, beginning with non-planar ironing for smooth prints, and a really neat business card that also plays tiny games. Then we'll discuss USB modems, cool casts for broken wrists, and archiving data on paper. Finally, we ask two big questions -- where do you connect the shield, and what's the Next Big Thing gonna be? Inquiring minds want to know. Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments! | |||
| Ep 280: TV Tubes as Amplifiers, Smart Tech in Sportsballs, and Adrian Gives Us the Fingie | 19 Jul 2024 | 00:55:20 | |
Despite the summer doldrums, it was another big week in the hacking world, and Elliot sat down with Dan for a rundown. Come along for the ride as Dan betrays his total ignorance of soccer/football, much to Elliot's amusement. But it's all about keeping the human factor in sports, so we suppose it was worth it. Less controversially, we ogled over a display of PCB repair heroics, analyzed a reverse engineering effort that got really lucky, and took a look at an adorable one-transistor ham transceiver. We also talked about ants doing surgery, picking locks with nitric acid, a damn cute dam, and how to build one of the world's largest machines from scratch in under a century. Plus, we answered the burning question: can a CRT be used as an audio amplifier? Yes, kind of, but please don't let the audiophiles know or we'll never hear the end of it.
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| Ep 190: Fun with Resin Printing, Tiny Tanks, Lo-Fi Orchestra, and Deep Thoughts with Al Williams | 21 Oct 2022 | 00:45:59 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos rendezvoused in yet another secret, throwaway location to rap about the hottest hacks from the previous week. We start off by gushing about the winners of the Cyberdeck Contest, and go wild over the Wildcard round winners from the Hackaday Prize. It's the What's That Sound? results show, and Kristina was ultimately stumped by the sound of the Kansas City Standard, though she should have at least ventured a guess after shooting down both modem and fax machine noises. Then it's on to the hacks, which feature an analog tank-driving simulator from the 1970s, much ado about resin printing, and one cool thing you can do with the serial output from your digital calipers, (assuming you're not a purist). And of course, stay tuned for the Can't-Miss Article discussion, because we both picked one of resident philosopher Al Williams' pieces. You can check out all the links in the show notes right here, on the Internet! | |||
| Ep 189: Seven Segments Three Ways, Candle Code, DIY E-Readers, and the Badge Reveal | 14 Oct 2022 | 01:07:50 | |
This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi will discuss the return of the East Coast RepRap Festival, the scientific application of slices of baloney, and the state of the art in homebrew e-readers. The discussion weaves its way through various reimaginings of the seven (or more) segment display, an impressive illuminated headboard that comes with its own science-fiction film, and the surprising difficulty of getting a blinking LED to actually look like a flame. Stick around to the end to find out why iPhones are freaking out on amusement park rides, and to hear all the details about this year's Supercon badge. Check out all the links and join the discussion over on Hackaday! | |||
| Ep 188: Zapping Cockroaches, Tricking AIs, Antique 3D Scanning, and Grinding Chips to QFN | 07 Oct 2022 | 01:08:13 | |
It's déjà vu all over again as Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams gets together with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to look over the best hacks from the past week. If you've got a fear of giant cockroaches, don't worry; we'll only mention the regular ones when we talk about zapping them with lasers. What do you need to shrinkify an NES? Just a little sandpaper and a lot of finesse. Did you know that 3D scanning is (sort of) over a century old? Or that the first real microcomputer dates all the way back to 1972 -- and isn't one of those blinkenlight deals? And watch out for what you tell GPT-3 to ignore -- it might just take you very seriously. We'll touch on solar-powered cameras, a compressor of compressors, and talk about all the unusual places to find lithium batteries for your projects. It's an episode so good you might just want to listen to it twice! (In case you're wondering about all this "twice" stuff -- Elliot forgot to hit record on the first take and we had to do the entire podcast over again. Oh, the humanity!) | |||
| Ep 187: The Sound of Gleeful Gerbils, The Song of the Hard Drive, and a Lipstick Pickup Lullaby | 30 Sep 2022 | 00:46:34 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos gushed about NASA's live obliteration of minor planet Dimorphos using a probe outfitted with a camera. Spoiler alert: the probe reaches its rock-dappled rocky target just fine, and the final transmitted image has a decidedly human tinge. Kristina brought the mystery sound again this week, much to Elliot's sonic delight. Did he get it? Did he figure it out? Well, maybe. The important thing is one of you is bound to get it, so budding Neos need only enter their guess and their email address on the extremely official What's That Sound? entry form. We kick off the hacks with a really neat 3D printed linkage that acts as an elevator for a marble run, and then we discuss a mid-century hack that helps you decide whether it's time to emerge from the fallout shelter using the contents of your typical 1950s pockets. We spent a few minutes comparing our recent radiation exposure levels -- Kristina wins with about a dozen x-rays so far this year, but no full-body CT scans. Then we talk guitars for a bit, remember a forgotten CPU from TI, and spend a few cycles talking about a tone-wheel organ that sounds like a chorus of gleeful gerbils. Finally, we talk toner transfer for 3D prints, argue in defense of small teams versus large committees, and get all tangled up in cursive. | |||
| Ep 186: Weighing Cats, Slamming VU Meters, Slimmer Skimmers, and Clean Air on the Cheap | 23 Sep 2022 | 01:01:10 | |
Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams took time out from Supercon planning to join Staff Writer Dan Maloney for a look through the hacking week that was. We always try to keep things light, but it's hard sometimes, especially when we have to talk about wars past and present and the ordnance they leave behind. It's also not a lot of fun to talk about a continent-wide radio outage thanks to our angry Sun, nor is learning that a wafer-thin card skimmer could be lurking in your ATM machine. But then again, we did manage to have some fun by weighing cats to make sure they're properly fed, and making music by pegging VU meters. We also saw how to use PCBs to make a beautiful yet functional circuit sculpture, clean up indoor air on a budget, and move microns with hardware store parts. And we also got to celebrate a ray of international hope by looking back on the year that taught us much of what we know about the Earth. Check out all the links (and the hoopla) in the show notes! | |||
| Ep 185: A 2022 Rotary Phone, How AI Imagines Zepplin, Are We Alone in the Universe | 16 Sep 2022 | 01:00:48 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start off by talking about the chip shortage...but not how you think. With a list that supposedly breaks down all of the electronic components that the Russian military are desperate to get their hands on, we can see hackers aren't the only ones scrounging for parts. If you thought getting components was tricky already, imagine if most of the world decided to put sanctions on you. We'll also talk about kid-friendly DIY stereoscopic displays, the return of the rotary cellphone, and using heat to seal up 3D printed parts for vacuum applications. Join us as we marvel over the use of rubbery swag wristbands as tank treads, and ponder an array of AI-created nightmares that are supposed to represent the Hackaday writing crew. Finally we'll talk about two iconic legacies: that of the 3.5 inch floppy disk, and astrophysicist Frank Drake. Check out the links in the show notes!
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| Ep 184: What is Art, Bulk Tape Eraser Go Brr, and the Death of Email | 09 Sep 2022 | 00:59:47 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos had a lot of fun discussing the best of the previous week's hacks in spite of Elliot's microphone connectivity troubles. News-wise, we busted out the wine and cheese to briefly debate whether a Colorado man should have won an art competition by entering an image created by AI. Afterward, we went around a bit about floppies, which are being outlawed in Japan. Then it's on to the What's That Sound Results Show, but since Elliot can't find a 14-sided die, he pulled on the the Internet for our random number needs. Congratulations to our big winner [D Rex], who will receive one our coveted Hackaday Podcast t-shirts. Is the food-safety-of-3D-printing debate over once and for all? It is as far as Elliot's concerned. You know what else is over? The era of distributed, independent email servers. Bah! We're not kidding about that last one -- and we discuss a lie-detecting app that may or may not prove our innocence. Finally, we talk active foot cooling, heat barriers for hot shops, and big, strong magnets. What are they for? Fixing floppies, fool! | |||
| Ep 183: Stowaway Science, Cold Basements, and Warm Beers | 26 Aug 2022 | 00:40:28 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos met up on a secret server to discuss the cream of this week's crop of hacks. After gushing about the first-ever Kansas City Keyboard Meetup coming up tomorrow -- Saturday the 27th, we start off by considering the considerable engineering challenge of building a knife-throwing machine, the logistics of live-streaming on the go, and the thermodynamics of split-level homes. This week, Kristina came up with the What's-That-Sound and managed to stump Elliot for a while, though he did eventually guess correctly after the tape stopped rolling. Think you know what it is? Then fill out the form and you'll earn the chance to win a genuine Hackaday Podcast t-shirt! Later in the show, we look at a macro pad that breaks the mold, an ASCII terminal like it's 1974, and a Z80 that never was (but definitely could have been). Stick around as we root for the CubeSats hitching a ride aboard Artemis I, and at last call on the 'cast, it's lagers vs. ales (vs. ciders). Head on over to the show notes for links and oh, so much more! | |||
| Ep 182: Sparkpunk Photography, Anti-Xiomi Air Filters, and Keyfob Foibles | 19 Aug 2022 | 01:07:52 | |
Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi are here to bring you the best stories and hacks from the previous week (and maybe a little older). Things kick off with news that the Early Bird tickets for the 2022 Hackaday Supercon tickets sold out in only two hours -- a good sign that the community is just as excited as we are about the November event. But don't worry, regular admission tickets are now available for those who couldn't grab one out of the first batch. This week there's plenty of vehicular hacks to talk about, from John Deere tractors running DOOM to a particularly troublesome vulnerability found in many key fobs. We'll also lament about the state of 3D CAD file formats, marvel at some retro-futuristic photography equipment, and look at the latest in home PCB production techniques. Wrapping things up there's a whole lot of cyberdeck talk, and a trip down silicon memory lane courtesy of Al Williams. | |||
| Ep 181: 3D Printing with Volcano Nuts, The Hackaday Bookshelf, and a Puzzlebot | 12 Aug 2022 | 00:51:20 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos convened in a secret location to say what we will about the choicest hacks of the past week. We kick things off by discussing the brand new Cyberdeck contest, which is the first of it's type, but certainly won't be the last. In other contest news, we recently announced the winners of the Hack it Back Challenge of the Hackaday Prize, which ran the gamut from bodysnatching builds to rad resto-mods and resto-recreations. Taking top honors in wow factor this week is [Stuff Made Here]'s jigsaw puzzle-solving robot. This monster can currently tackle small laser-cut puzzles, but is destined to solve an all-white 5000-piece nightmare once all the engineering pieces have come together. Then we took a field trip to Zip Tie City, where the plastic's green  and the wiring's pretty, admired volcano nuts from afar, and briefly considered the idea of a 3D printer with a heating zone of programmable length. Finally, we take a look at a creatively destructive robot that's akin to a useless machine, bloviate about books you should read, and dance around the topic of learning by playing. | |||
| Ep 279: Solar Flares, Flash Cells, and Free Airline WiFi | 12 Jul 2024 | 00:51:28 | |
Get your weekly fix of great hacks with your guides, Elliot Williams and Al Williams. This week, the guys talk about hacking airline WiFi, vanishing cloud services, and hobbies adjacent to hacking, such as general aviation. Things go into the weird and wonderful when the topic turns to cavity filters, driving LEDs with a candle, and thermite. Quick hacks? Everything from vintage automated telescopes to home fusion reactors and ham radio mobile from a bicycle. Then there's the can't miss articles about the Solar Dynamics Observatory and an explainer about flash memory technology. Check out the links over on Hackaday and leave your favorite hack of the week in the comments! | |||
| Ep 180: Tiny CRTs, Springy PCBs, and Measuring Trees | 05 Aug 2022 | 00:48:10 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos traded sweat for silence, recording from their respective attic-level offices in the August heat unaided by fans (too noisy). We decided there's no real news this week that lacks a political bent, except maybe that Winamp is back with a new version that's four years in the making. (Is Winamp divisive?) Does it still whip the llama's ass? You be the judge. After Elliot gives Kristina a brief math lesson in increasing area with regard to 3D printer nozzle sizes, we talk a bit about 3D pens, drool over a truly customizable macropad that uses a microcontroller for each keyswitch, and discuss dendrometers and tree health. Then it's back to keyboards for one incredible modular build with an e-ink display and haptic feedback knob which is soon to go open source. Finally, we talk tiny CRTs, a USB drive that must have the ultimate in security through obscurity, discuss the merits of retrograde clocks, and wonder aloud about the utility of jumping PCBs. Don't bounce on us just yet -- not until you hear about our first electronics wins and learn the one thing Kristina doesn't do when she's spending all day in the heat. | |||
| Ep 179: Danger Chess, Corona Motors, an Omni-Walker, and a Fast Talking Telescope | 29 Jul 2022 | 01:13:05 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for their take on the hottest hacks in a hot, hot week. We found a bunch of unusual mechanisms this week, like an omnidirectional robot that's not quite wheeled but not quite a walker either. Or, if you'd rather fly, there's a UAV that's basically a flying propeller. There's danger afoot too, with news of a chess-playing robot with a nasty streak, a laser engraver that'll probably blind you, and a high-voltage corona motor that actually does useful work. We'll use our X-ray vision to take a deep dive into a 60-GHz phased array antenna, let a baby teach a machine what it means to be hungry, and build a couple of toy cameras just for funsies. Ballons as a UI? Maybe someday, thanks to ultrasonic levitation. And we'll wrap things up by snooping in on the Webb telescope's communications, as we find out how many people it takes to make wire harnesses. Spoiler alert: it's a lot. Check out the links in the show notes! | |||
| Ep 178: The Return of Supercon, Victory for Open Source, Exquisite Timepieces, and Documentation to Die For | 22 Jul 2022 | 01:11:32 | |
Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week's podcast off with an announcement the community has been waiting years for: the return of the Hackaday Supercon! While there's still some logistical details to hammer out, we're all extremely excited to return to a live con and can't wait to share more as we get closer to November. Of course you can't have Supercon without the Hackaday Prize, which just so happens to be wrapping up its Hack it Back challenge this weekend. In other news, we'll talk about the developing situation regarding the GPLv3 firmware running on Ortur's laser engravers (don't worry, it's good news for a change), and a particularly impressive fix that kept a high-end industrial 3D printer out of the scrapheap. We'll also fawn over a pair of fantastically documented projects, learn about the fascinating origins of the lowly fire hydrant, and speculate wildly about the tidal wave of dead solar panels looming menacingly in the distance. | |||
| Ep 177: Microscopes, Telescopes, Telephonoscopes, and a Keyboardoscope? | 15 Jul 2022 | 00:46:22 | |
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos stood around talking like they weren't thousands of miles apart. And we mean that literally: Kristina just got an up/down desk, and it turns out that Elliot's had the exact same one for years. In between the hammerings on Kristina's house (she's getting new siding), we kick things off by drooling over the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and compare a few of them to the same shots from Hubble. We managed to save a bit of saliva for all the seriously swell keyboards and not-keyboards we saw throughout the Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals contest, all of which are winners in our book. This week, we ask the tough questions, like why would someone who has never played guitar want to build one from scratch? We can only guess that the answer is simply, 'because l can'. As lazy as that reasoning may sound, this build is anything but. Later on, we'll ogle an ocean of PS/2 keyboards and their new owner's portable testing rig, complain about ASMR, and laugh about a giant nose that sneezes out sanitizer.
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| Ep 176: Freezing Warm Water, Hacking Lenses, Hearing Data, and Watching YouTube on a PET | 08 Jul 2022 | 01:03:05 | |
It's podcast time again, and this week Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams sat down with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to review the best hacks on the planet, and a few from off. We'll find out how best to capture lightning, debate the merits of freezing water -- or ice cream -- when it's warm, and see if we can find out what R2D2 was really talking about with all those bleeps and bloops. Once we decode that, it'll be time to find out what Tom Nardi was up to while the boss was away with his hidden message in episode 174, and how analog-encoded digital data survives the podcast production and publication chain. But surely you can't watch a YouTube video on a Commodore PET, can you? As it turns out, that's not a problem, and neither apparently is 3D printing a new ear. Check out the show notes!
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| Ep 175: Moonrocks and Cockroach Chyme, A Raspberry Pi iPad, and a Retro-Respectful Tape Deck | 01 Jul 2022 | 00:49:00 | |
Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we cuss and discuss all the gnarliest hacks from the past week. We kick off this episode with a gentle reminder that the Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals Contest ends this Monday, July 4th, at 8:30 AM PDT. We've seen a ton of cool entries so far, including a new version of [Peter Lyons]' Squeezebox keyboard that we're itching to write up for the blog. In other contest news, the Round 2 winners of the Reuse, Recycle, Revamp challenge of the 2022 Hackaday Prize have been announced. Elliot is super stoked about [Jason Knight]'s open-source recycled skateboard deck-making apparatus, and Kristina wishes she had the time and money to build some of the fundamental Precious Plastic machines. Elliot managed to stump Kristina with this week's What's That Sound, though she probably should have reached further into the annals of her memory and made a semi-educated guess. From there, it's on to missing moon rocks and the word of the day before we get into a handful of contest entries, including a mechanical keyboard to end all mechanical keyboards. This really just scratches the surface of this week's show, which includes some new hardware stuffed into old, as well as modern implementations of old technology. And in case you didn't get enough of Kristina's childhood memoirs, she goes a bit deeper into the teddy bears and telephones rooms of her memory palace. | |||
| Ep 174: Breaking into the Nest, The Cheapest 3D Printer, A Spy in Your HDMI, and AI All Over the Place | 24 Jun 2022 | 01:08:05 | |
Fresh from vacation, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams makes his triumphant return to the Hackaday Podcast! He's joined this week by Managing Editor Tom Nardi, who's just happy he didn't have to do the whole thing by himself again. In this episode we'll talk about tackling BGA components in your custom PCBs, a particularly well executed hack against Google's Nest Hub, and why you probably don't really want the world's cheapest 3D printer. We'll also take a look at an incredible project to turn the Nokia 1680 into a Linux-powered handheld computer, a first of its kind HDMI firewall, and a robot that's pretty good at making tacos. Listeners who are into artificial intelligence will be in for quite a treat as well, as is anyone who dreams of elevating the lowly automotive alternator to a more prominent position in the hacker world. By the way, it seems nobody has figured out the hidden message in last week's podcast yet. What are you waiting for? One of you out there has to be bored enough to give it a shot. Check out the links, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
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| Ep 173: EMF Camp Special Edition | 17 Jun 2022 | 00:42:24 | |
With Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams enjoying some time off, Managing Editor Tom Nardi is flying solo for this special edition of the Hackaday Podcast. Thanks to our roving reporter Jenny List, we'll be treated to several interviews conducted live from EMF Camp -- a European outdoor hacker camp the likes of which those of us in the United States can only dream of. After this special segment, Hackaday contributors Al Williams and Ryan Flowers will stop by to talk about their favorite stories from the week during what may be the longest Quick Hacks on record. There's a few extra surprises hidden in this week's program...but if we told you everything, it would ruin the surprise. Listen closely, you never know what (or who) you might hear. | |||
| Ep 172: Frickin' Laser Beams, Squishy Stomp Switches, and a Tiny but Powerful DIY Loom | 10 Jun 2022 | 00:41:27 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos for a free-as-in-beer showcase of the week's most gnarly but palatable hacks. But first, a reminder! Round 2 of the 2022 Hackaday Prize comes to an end in the early hours of Sunday, June 12th, so there's still enough time to put a project together and get it entered. This week, we discuss the utility of those squishy foam balls in projects and issue the PSA that it is in fact pool noodle season, so go get 'em. We drool over if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it 3D printers with staircases and such, and wonder why breadboard game controls didn't already exist. Later on we laugh about lasers, shake the bottle of LTSpice tips from [fesz], and ponder under-door attacks. Finally, we're back to frickin' laser beams again, and we discover that there's a fruity demoscene in Kristina's backyard. Check out the show notes for all the sweet, sweet links. | |||
| Ep 171: Rent the Apple Toolkit, DIY an Industrial CNC, or Save the Birds with 3D Printing | 03 Jun 2022 | 01:15:18 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for a tour of the week's best and brightest hacks. We begin with a call for point-of-sale diversity, because who wants to carry cash? We move on to discussing glass as a building material, which isn't really easy, but at least it can be sintered with a DIY-grade laser. Want to make a call on a pay phone in New York City? Too late -- the last one is gone, and we offer a qualified "good riddance." We look at socially engineering birds to get them away from what they should be really afraid of, discuss Apple's potential malicious compliance with right-to-repair, and get the skinny on an absolute unit of a CNC machine. Watching TV? That's so 2000s, but streaming doesn't feel quite right either. Then again, anything you watch on a mechanical color TV is pretty cool by definition. | |||
| Ep 278: DIY Subs, the ErgoRing, and Finding NEMA 17 | 05 Jul 2024 | 01:14:48 | |
In this episode, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi kick things off with a reminder about the impending deadline for Supercon talk and workshop proposals. From there discussion moves on to the absolutely incredible tale of two brothers who solved a pair of missing person cases with their homebrew underwater vehicle, false data sneaking into OctoPrint's usage statics, and an organic input device that could give the classic mouse a run for its money. You'll also hear about cheap radar modules, open source Xbox mod chips, and lawnmowers from the grocery store. The episode wraps up with a look at the enduring mystique of perpetual motion devices, and the story of a legendary ship that might soon end up being turned into paper clips. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments! | |||
| Ep 170: Poop Shooting Laser, Positron is a 3D Printer On Its Head, DIY Pulsar Capture, GPS's Achilles Heel | 27 May 2022 | 01:14:02 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi for a recap of all the best tips, hacks, and stories of the past week. We start things off with an update on Hackaday's current slate of contests, followed by an exploration of the cutting edge in 3D printing and printables. Next up we'll look at two achievements in detection, as commercial off-the-shelf hardware is pushed into service by unusually dedicated hackers to identify both dog poop and deep space pulsars (but not at the same time). We'll also talk about fancy Samsung cables, homebrew soundcards, the surprising vulnerability of GPS, and the development of ratholes in your cat food. Check out all the sweet, sweet links over on Hackaday. | |||
| Ep 169: 3D Print Vase Mode: Engage, Measuring Nanovolts through Mega DIY, and The Softest Pants are Software Pants | 20 May 2022 | 00:49:25 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we take a tour of our top hacks from the past week. Elliot brought some fairly nerdy fare to the table this time, and Kristina pines for physical media as we discuss the demise of the iPod Touch, the last fruit-flavored mp3-playing soldier to fall. But first, we talk about a why-didn't-I-think-of-that 3D printing hack that leverages vase mode into something structural. We'll take a look inside a see-through cyberdeck made from laptop parts, marvel over the minuscule voltages that can be picked up with a bit of meticulous meter design, and chew the fat about old rotary phones. We also put in some overtime discussing a cheap fix for an expensive time card clock part, and rock out to a guitar that can use various things for its resonant cavity. Finally, Elliot questions the difference between software and firmware when it comes to hiding your dirty secrets, and Kristina bloviates about see-through electronics and music appreciation using whatever format you can afford. Head on over to Hackaday for all the links! | |||
| Ep 168: Math Flattens Spheres, FPGAs Emulate Arcades, and We Can't Shake Polaroid Pictures | 13 May 2022 | 00:53:25 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney as they review the top hacks for the week. It was a real retro-fest this time, with a C64 built from (mostly) new parts, an Altoids Altair, and learning FPGAs via classic video games. We also looked at LCD sniffing to capture data from old devices, reimagined the resistor color code, revisited the magic of Polaroid instant cameras, and took a trip down television's memory lane. But it wasn't all old stuff -- there's flat-packing a sphere with math, spraying a fine finish on 3D printed parts, a DRM-free label printer, and a look at what's inside that smartphone in your pocket -- including some really weird optics. Check out the show notes over on Hackaday for all the sweet, sweet links. | |||
| Ep 167: Deadly Art Projects, Robot Lock Pickers, LED Horticulture, and Good Samaritan Repairs | 06 May 2022 | 01:06:11 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi for a review of all the tech that's fit to print. Things kick off with an update about the Hackaday Prize and a brief account of the 2022 Vintage Computer Festival East. Then we'll talk about an exceptionally dangerous art project that's been making the rounds on social media, a smart tea kettle that gave its life so that others can hack their device's firmware, some suspiciously effective plant grow lights, and the slippery slope of remote manufacturer kill switches. We'll wrap things up with some thought provoking discussion about personal liability as it pertains to community repair groups, and a close look at what makes synthetic oil worth spending extra on. Check out the links over on Hackaday. | |||
| Ep 166: Engraving with the Sun, Explosive Welding, Juggling Chainsaws, and Torturing Wago Connectors | 29 Apr 2022 | 01:09:05 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney as they dive into the last week of Hackaday articles. If you love things that go boom, you won't want to miss the discussion about explosive welding. Ever use the sun to burn something with a magnifying glass? Now you can CNC that, if you dare. We'll take a quick trip through the darkroom and look at analog-digital photography as well as a tactical enlarger you can build, watch someone do terrible things to Wago and Wago-adjacent connectors, and talk about how suborbital chainsaws can be leveraged into a mass storage medium. Not enough for you? Then don't miss our bafflement at one corporation's attitude toward 3D printing, the secret sauce of resin casting, and our rundown of the 2022 Sci-Fi Contest winners. Check out the show notes for links! | |||
| Ep 165: Old Printers, Dark Towers, 3DP Gaskets, and Wavy Traces | 22 Apr 2022 | 00:49:43 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we gab about the most interesting hacks and stories of the previous week. This time, we start off by marveling over everything happening this weekend. Most urgently, it's your last chance to enter the 2022 Sci-Fi contest, which closes Monday, April 25th at 8:30 AM Pacific Time sharp. Already got your hat in the ring? If you're anywhere in the neighborhood of New Jersey, don't miss the VCF's Vintage Computer Festival East. Don't want to leave the house? Then check out all the talks that start approximately right now, assuming you get your Hackaday Podcasts hot off the server. In this episode, we'll fawn over a KiCAD plug-in that gives your PCBs that old-timey look, discuss ancient telephone exchanges and the finest in 70s-era custom telephones, and dream about building a wall of sound out of Raspberry Pis. Then we'll talk about awesome old printers and the elegance of RSS feeds, developing your own digital film, and a really cool line follower robot that works without a brain. Stay with us to find out where Kristina likes her taskbar, and we'll tell you the cool-kid name for the the Commodore key. Check out the links and more over at Hackaday! | |||
| Ep 164: Vintage NASA Soldering, Mouse Bites, ATTiny85 Graphics, and PVC Pontoons | 15 Apr 2022 | 01:03:29 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they review the most interesting hacks and stories of the previous week. This time we'll start things off by talking about the return of in-person events, and go over several major conventions and festivals that you should add to your calendar now. Then we'll look at a NASA training film from the Space Race, an interesting radio-controlled quirk that Tesla has built into their cars for some reason, a very promising autonomous boat platform, and some high performance visuals generated by an ATtiny85. Stick around to find out what happens with an interplanetary probe looses its ride to space, and why the best new enclosure for your Raspberry Pi 4 might be a surveillance camera. For all the good links, or to enter the What's That Sound contest, head on over to Hackaday. | |||
| Ep 163: Movie Sound, Defeating Dymo DRM, 3DP Guitar Neck, Biometrics Bereft of Big Brother | 08 Apr 2022 | 00:48:02 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we spend an hour or so dissecting some of the more righteous hacks and projects from the previous week. We'll discuss a DIY TPM module that satisfies Windows 11, argue whether modern guts belong in retrocomputer builds even if it makes them more practical, and marvel at the various ways that sound has been encoded on film. We'll also rock out to the idea of a 3D-printed guitar neck, map out some paths to defeating DYMO DRM, and admire a smart watch that has every sensor imaginable and lasts 36+ hours on a charge. Finally, we'll sing the praises of RS-485 and talk about our tool collections that rival our own Dan Maloney's catalogue of crimpers. | |||
| Ep 162: Hackaday Prize is On, Thermal Printers are So Hot These Days, Cloud Chambers are Super Cool, and Batteries Must be Replaceable | 01 Apr 2022 | 01:06:19 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi for your weekly review of the best projects, hacks, and bits of news that we can cram into 45 minutes or so. We'll look at the latest developments in DIY air-powered engines, discuss the whimsical combination of GitHub's API and a cheap thermal printer, and marvel at impressive pieces of homebrew biology equipment. We've also got an exceptionally polished folding cyberdeck, a bevy of high-tech cloud chambers, and some soda bottles that are more than meets the eye. Finally we'll go over the pros and cons of today's super-smart cameras, and speculate wildly about what a new EU law means for our battery powered gadgets. Check out links at the show notes!
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| Ep 161: Laser Lithography, Centurion Hard Drive, and Mad BGA Soldering | 25 Mar 2022 | 00:56:39 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for an audio tour of the week's top stories and best hacks. We'll look at squeezing the most out of a coin cell, taking the first steps towards DIY MEMS fabrication, and seeing if there's any chance that an 80's-vintage minicomputer might ride again. How small is too small when it comes to chip packages? We'll find out, and discover the new spectator sport of microsoldering while we're at it. Find out what's involved in getting a real dead-tree book published, and watch a hacker take revenge on a proprietary memory format -- and a continuous glucose monitor, too. Head over to Hackaday for links in the show notes! | |||
| Episode 277: Edible Robots, a Personal Eclipse, and DIY PCBs to Die For | 28 Jun 2024 | 00:46:57 | |
This week on the Podcast, it's Kristina's turn to ramble on alongside Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum + Labs is being liquidated at auction after just 12 years of being open to the public. In Hackaday news, the 2024 Business Card Challenge ends next Tuesday, July 2nd, so this is your weekend to shine! Also, you've got about two weeks to get your talk proposals in for this year's Supercon. (Can you believe it's only four months away?) Then it's on to What's That Sound, at which Kristina made a couple of close-but-no-cigar guesses. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Then it's on to the hacks, beginning with a $3 smartwatch that can run Python, and a completely DIY analog tape recording solution. We'll talk about making your wireless keyboard truly low power, all the steps you can take to produce perfect PCBs at home, and AI in a font. Finally, we talk about the dangers of a curious childhood, and talk about a dotcom hardware solution that could have gone far, given the right business model. Check out the links and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments! | |||
| Ep 160: Pedal Power, OpenSCAD in the Browser, Tasmanian Tigers, and the Coolest Knob | 18 Mar 2022 | 00:51:16 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they tackle all the hacks that were fit to print this last week. Things start off with some troubling news from Shenzhen (spoilers: those parts you ordered are going to be late), and lead into a What's That Sound challenge that's sure to split the community right down the center. From there we'll talk about human powered machines, bringing OpenSCAD to as many devices as humanly possible, and the finer points of installing your own hardware into a Pelican case. There's a quick detour to muse on laser-powered interstellar probes, a Pi-calculating Arduino, and a surprisingly relevant advertisement from Sony Pictures. Finally, stay tuned to hear the latest developments in de-extinction technology, and a seriously deep dive into the lowly nail.
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| Ep 159: Zombie Killer or Rug Maker, 3D Printed Rims, 1950s Drum Machines, and Batteries on Wheels | 11 Mar 2022 | 00:56:25 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they look back on the best hacks and stories of the previous week. There's plenty in the news to talk about, though between faulty altimeters and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, it isn't exactly of the positive variety. But things brighten up quickly as discussion moves on to 3D printed car wheels, a fantastically complex drum machine from 1958, a unique take on the seven-segment flip display, and a meticulously designed (and documented) coffee machine upgrade. Somewhere in there a guy also recreates a rare German anti-air rocket launcher from WWII, but it's all in the name of history. We'll also tackle two very different forms of electric propulsion, from the massive wheeled batteries popping up in garages and driveways all over the world to high-efficiency thrusters for deep space missions. | |||
| Ep 158: Phased Array Physics, CRTs Two Ways, A Micro Microcontroller, and a Surgically Implanted Red Herring | 04 Mar 2022 | 00:50:44 | |
Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney as they take a look at the week's top stories, taken straight off the pages of Hackaday. What happens when you stuff modern parts into a 90's novelty PC case? Nothing good, but everything awesome! Is there any way to prevent PCB soil moisture sensors from being destroyed by, you know, soil moisture? How small is too small for a microcontroller, and who needs documentation anyway? We also cast a jaundiced eye -- err, ear -- at an electronic cheating scandal, and if you've ever wondered how phased arrays and beam steering work, gazing into a pan of water might just answer your questions. We also share all our soldering war stories, and hey -- what's with all these CRT projects anyway? | |||
| Ep 157: Airtag Security, Warped 3D Printing, Suturing Grapes with a DIY Robot Arm, and the Wizard's Calculator | 25 Feb 2022 | 00:53:30 | |
This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi look at the week's most interesting stories and projects, starting with the dystopian news that several people have had their bionic eye implants turn off without warning. We then pivot into an only slightly less depressing discussion about the poor security of Apple's AirTags network and how it can be used to track individuals without their knowledge. But it's not all doom and gloom. We'll look at new projects designed to push the envelope of desktop 3D printing, and marvel at a DIY robotic arm build so accurate that it can put stitches in the skin of a grape. You'll also hear about the surprisingly low cost of homebrew hydrophones, the uncomfortable chemistry behind wintergreen, and an early portable computer that looks like it came from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Check out the show notes for all the links! | |||
| Ep 156: 3D-Printing Rainbows, Split-Flap Clocks, Swapping EV Car Batteries, and Floppy Time | 18 Feb 2022 | 00:45:07 | |
This week, Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos fawn over a beautiful Italian split-flap clock that doesn't come cheap, and another clock made of floppies that could be re-created for next to nothing. We'll also sing the praises of solderless circuitry for prototyping and marvel over a filament dry box with enough sensors to control an entire house. The finer points of the ooh, sparkly-ness of diffraction gratings will be discussed, and by the end of the show, you'll know what we each like in a microscope. Check out the show notes for links! | |||
| Ep 155: Dual Integrating Spheres, More Magnetic Switches, PlottyBot, Red Hair in Your Wafers | 11 Feb 2022 | 01:03:48 | |
This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi take a close look at two pairs of projects that demonstrate the wildly different approaches that hackers can take while still arriving at the same conclusion. We'll also examine the brilliant mechanism that the James Webb Space Telescope uses to adjust its mirrors, and marvel over a particularly well-developed bot that can do your handwriting for you. The finer points of living off home-grown algae will be discussed, and by the end of the show, you'll learn the one weird trick to stopping chip fabs in their tracks. Check out all the links, and Tom's Algae, on Hackaday! | |||
| Ep 154: A Good Enough CNC, Stepper Motors Unrolled, Smart Two-Wire LEDs, a Volcano Heard Around the World | 04 Feb 2022 | 00:55:33 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for this week's podcast as we talk about Elliot's "defection" to another podcast, the pros and cons of CNC builds, and making Nixie clocks better with more clicking. We'll explore how citizen scientists are keeping a finger on the pulse of planet Earth, watch a 2D stepper go through its paces, and figure out how a minimalist addressable LED strip works. From solving a Rubik's cube to answering the age-old question, "Does a watched pot boil?" -- spoiler alert: if it's well designed, yes -- this episode has something for everyone. Check out the show notes for links and more!
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| Ep 153:A 555 Teardown to Die For, Tetrabyte is Not a Typo, DIY Injection Molding, and Using All the Parts of the Trash Printer | 28 Jan 2022 | 00:55:43 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi on another whirlwind tour of the week's top stories, hacks, and projects. We start off with some breaking Linux security news, and then marvel over impeccably designed pieces of hardware ranging from a thrifty Z table for the K40 laser cutter to a powerful homebrew injection molding rig. The finer technical points of a USB device that only stores 4 bytes at a time will be discussed, and after taking an interactive tour through the internals of the 555 timer, we come away even more impressed by the iconic 50 year old chip. We'll wrap things up by speculating wildly about all the bad things that can happen to floating solar panels, and then recite some poetry that you can compile into a functional computer program should you feel so inclined. Check out the show notes for links and more! | |||
| Ep 152: 555 Timer Extravaganza, EMF Chip Glitching 3 Ways, a Magnetic Mechanical Keyboard, and The Best Tricorder Ever | 21 Jan 2022 | 00:59:04 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they bring you up to speed on the best stories and projects from the week. There's some pretty unfortunate news for the physical media aficionados in the audience, but if you're particularly keen on 50 year old integrated circuits, you'll love hearing about the winners of the 555 Timer Contest. We'll take a look at a singing circuit sculpture powered by the ESP32, extol the virtues of 3D printed switches, follow one hacker's dream of building the ultimate Star Trek tricorder prop, and try to wrap our heads around how electronic devices can be jolted into submission. Stick around to the end as we take a close look at some extraordinary claims about sniffing out computer viruses, and wrap things up by wondering why everyone is trying to drive so far. | |||
| Ep 151: The Hackiest VR Glove, Plotting Boba Fett with Shoelaces, ECU Hacking, and Where Does Ammonia Come From? | 14 Jan 2022 | 01:01:24 | |
Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi are back again to talk about all the weird and wonderful stores from our corner of the tech world. Canon having to temporarily give up on chipping their toner cartridges due to part shortages is just too perfect to ignore, and there's some good news for the International Space Station as the White House signals they're ready to support the orbiting outpost until 2030. We'll also look at an extremely promising project looking to deliver haptic feedback for VR, programming retrocomputers with the Arduino IDE, and the incredible reverse engineering involved in adding a DIY autonomous driving system to a 2010 Volkswagen Golf. Finally we'll find out why most of the human life on this planet depends on a process many people have never heard of, and learn about the long history of making cars heavier than they need to be. Check out all the links over on Hackaday! | |||
| Ep 276: A Mac on a Pico, Ropes on the Test Stand, A Battleship up on Blocks | 21 Jun 2024 | 01:09:16 | |
The week gone by was rich with fun hacks, and Elliot and Dan teamed up this time around to run them down for everyone. The focus this week seemed to trend to old hardware, from the recently revived Voyager 1 to a 1940s car radio, a homebrew instrument from 1979, a paper tape reader, and a 128k Mac emulator built from an RP2040. Newer hacks include a 3D-printed bottle labeler, a very hackable smart ring, and lessons learned about programming robots. We also took a look at turning old cell phones into Linux machines, making sure climbing ropes don't let you down, and snooping on orbital junk with a cool new satellite. We wrapped things up with a discussion of just how weird our solar system is, and Dan getting really jealous about Tom Nardi's recent trip to see the battleship New Jersey from an up close and personal perspective. Head on over to Hackaday to check out the links and leave your thoughts! | |||
| Ep 150: Blackberry Runs Out of Juice, NODE has your pinouts, Rats learn DOOM, and 2021 is Done | 07 Jan 2022 | 01:02:42 | |
Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they ring in the New Year with the first podcast episode of 2022. We get the bad news out early for those still thumbing away at their Blackberries, then pivot into some of the highlights from over the holidays such as the release of NODE's The Pinouts Book and the discovery of a few expectation-defying OpenSCAD libraries. We'll look at modifying a water cooler with Ghidra, and the incredible technology that let's historians uncover the hidden history of paintings. Oh, and we'll also talk about all the best and most important stories of the last 12 months. There's a lot of ground to cover, so get comfortable.
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| Happy New Year! | 31 Dec 2021 | 00:01:09 | |
The Hackaday Podcast is in its second, and final, week of winter hibernation. So join me and special guest Tom Nardi in the first week of 2022 as we discuss the best of 2021 and the holiday season. | |||
| No Podcast This Week, But What's That Sound! | 24 Dec 2021 | 00:03:28 | |
The Podcast is in Holiday Mode this week, so keep on hacking (and reading Hackaday!) until we catch up again in 2022.
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