Hackaday Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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Hackaday Podcast

Hackaday

Technology

Education

Frequency: 1 episode/7d. Total Eps: 387

Hackaday Editors take a look at all of the interesting uses of technology that pop up on the internet each week. Topics cover a wide range like bending consumer electronics to your will, designing circuit boards, building robots, writing software, 3D printing interesting objects, and using machine tools. Get your fix of geeky goodness from new episodes every Friday morning.

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https://hackaday.com/2026/03/03/get-your-green-power-on/
4 shares
https://hackaday.io/contest/205085-green-powered-challenge
4 shares
https://wp.me/paBn4l-3dSH
3 shares

https://www.youtube.com/hackaday
1 share

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Score global : 38%

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Ep 347: Breaking Kindles, Baby's First Synth, and Barcodes!

Season 7 · Episode 347

Friday, November 28, 2025 • Duration 49:43

This week, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over coffee to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so.

On What's That Sound, Kristina got sort of close, but of course failed spectacularly. Will you fare better and perhaps win a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt? Mayhap you will.

After that, it's on to the hacks and such, beginning with an interesting tack to take with a flat-Earther that involves two gyroscopes. And we take a look at the design requirements when it comes to building synths for three-year-olds.

Then we discuss several awesome hacks such as a vehicle retrofit to add physical heated seat controls, an assistive radio that speaks the frequencies, and an acoustic radiometer build. Finally, we look at the joys of hacking an old Kindle, and get a handle on disappearing door handles.

Check out the links over at Hackaday to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Ep 346: Melting Metal in the Microwave, Unlocking Car Brakes and Washing Machines, and a Series of Tubes

Season 7 · Episode 346

Friday, November 21, 2025 • Duration 55:55

Wait, what? Is it time for the podcast again? Seems like only yesterday that Dan joined Elliot for the weekly rundown of the choicest hacks for the last 1/52 of a year. but here we are.

We had quite a bit of news to talk about, including the winners of the Component Abuse Challenge -- warning, some components were actually abused for this challenge. They're also a trillion pages deep over at the Internet Archive, a milestone that seems worth celebrating.

As for projects, both of us kicked things off with "Right to repair"-adjacent topics, first with a washing machine that gave up its secrets with IR and then with a car that refused to let its owner fix the brakes. We heated things up with a microwave foundry capable of melting cast iron -- watch your toes! -- and looked at a tiny ESP32 dev board with ludicrously small components.

We saw surveyors go to war, watched a Lego sorting machine go through its paces, and learned about radar by spinning up a sonar set from first principles.

Finally, we wrapped things up with another Al Williams signature "Can't Miss Articles" section, with his deep dive into the fun hackers can have with the now-deprecated US penny, and his nostalgic look at pneumatic tube systems.

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Ep 337: Homebrew Inductors, Teletypes in the Bedroom, and Action!

Season 7 · Episode 337

Friday, September 12, 2025 • Duration 01:03:12

Fresh hacks here! Get your fresh hot hacks right here! Elliot and Dan teamed up this week to go through every story published on our pages to find the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and serve them up hot and fresh for you. The news this week was all from space, with the ISS getting its latest (and last?) push from Dragon, plus <<checks notes>> oh yeah, life on Mars. Well, maybe, but it's looking more and more like we are not alone, or at least not a few million years ago.

But even if we are, plenty is still going on down here to keep you interested. Like homebrewing? Good, because we looked at DIY inductors, wire nuts, and even a dope -- but nope -- ultralight helicopter. Into retro? We've got you covered with a loving look at IRC, a 60s bedside computer guaranteed to end your marriage, and a look at the best 8-bit language you never heard of.

We looked at a rescued fume hood, sensors galore on your phone, a rug that should have -- and did, kind of -- use a 555, and raytracing for the rest of your natural life. As for "Can't Miss Articles," Elliot could barely contain himself with the bounty of projects written up by our Hackaday writers, not to mention Arya's deep dive into putting GPS modules to work in your builds.

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Ep 251: Pluto, Pinball, Speedy Surgery, and DIY GPS

Season 6 · Episode 251

Friday, January 5, 2024 • Duration 01:06:06

Welcome to 2024! This time around, Elliot and Dan ring in a new year of awesome hacks with quite an eclectic mix. We kick things off with a Pluto pity party and find out why the tiny ex-planet deserved what it got. What do you do if you need to rename a bunch of image files? You rope a local large-language model in for the job, of course. We'll take a look at how pinball machines did their thing before computers came along, take a fractal dive into video feedback, and localize fireworks with a fleet of Raspberry Pi listening stations.

Ever wonder what makes a GPS receiver tick? The best way to find out might be to build one from scratch. Looking for some adventure? A ride on an electroluminescent surfboard might do, or perhaps a DIY "Vomit Comet" trip would be more your style. And make sure you stick around for our discussion on attempts to optimize surgery efficiency, and our look back at 2023's top trends in the hardware world.

Check out all the links over at Hackaday!

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Ep 250: Trains, RC Planes, and EEPROMS in Flames

Season 5 · Episode 250

Friday, December 29, 2023 • Duration 46:16

This week in the Podcast, Elliot Williams is off at Chaos Communication Congress, hearing tales of incredible reverse engineering that got locomotives back up and running, while Al Williams is thinking over what happened in 2023. There's a lot of "how things work" in this show, from data buoys to sewing machines to the simulated aging of ICs.

Whether you're into stacking bricks, stacking Pi Picos, or stacking your 3D prints to make better use of precious bed space, this episode is for you. Enjoy.

And as always, check out the links over at Hackaday, and let us know what you think in the comments!

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Ep 249: Data by Laser and Parachute, Bluetooth Hacks, Google's Gotta Google

Season 5 · Episode 249

Friday, December 22, 2023 • Duration 01:09:10

'Twas the podcast before Christmas, and all through the house, the best hacks of the week are dancing around Elliot and Tom's heads like sugar-plums. Whatever that means.

Before settling their brains in for a long winter's nap, they'll talk about the open source software podcast that now calls Hackaday home, the latest firmware developments for Google's Stadia controller, high-definition cat videos from space, and upgrades for the surprisingly old-school battery tech that powers the Toyota Prius.

Out on the lawn, expect a clatter about the the state-of-the-art in DIY camera technology, the acoustic properties of hot chocolate, and a storage media from the 1990s that even Al Williams had never heard of.

Finally, after tearing open the shutters and throwing up the sash, the episode wraps up with a discussion about wiring techniques that let you leave the soldering iron at home, and the newest chapter in the long history of transferring data via parachute. Miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer sold separately.

Check out the links over on Hackaday.

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Ep 248: Cthulhu Clock Radio Transharmonium, Thunderscan, and How to Fill Up in Space

Season 5 · Episode 248

Friday, December 15, 2023 • Duration 01:03:16

This week, Elliot sat down with Dan for the penultimate podcast of 2023, and what a week it was. We started with news about Voyager; at T+46 years from launch, any news tends to be bad, and the latest glitch has everyone worried. We also took a look at how close the OSIRIS-REx mission came to ending in disaster, all for want of consistent labels. Elliot was charmed by a Cthulhu-like musical instrument, while Dan took a shine to a spark gap transmitter that's probably on the FCC's naughty list.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishably from magic, and we looked at the laser made possible by the magician-in-chief himself, C.V. Raman. Why would you stuff a PSU full of iron filings? Probably for the same reason you'd print fake markings on a 6502 chip. We also took a look at the chemistry and history of superglue, a paper tape reader that could lop off your arm, and rocket gas stations in space.

How about checking out the links over at Hackaday? That's what we'd do.

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Ep 247: Cameras From Gingerbread or Hardboard, and the Insecurity of Bluetooth

Season 5 · Episode 247

Saturday, December 9, 2023 • Duration 44:09

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up to discuss the best hacks of the previous week. We have no nerdy news this week, but is that necessarily a bad thing?

Speaking of nothingness, we have no winner for What's That Sound? because all six people who responded were wrong. Was the sound of Clippy too obscure?

But then it's on to the hacks, beginning with an awesome autonomous excavator that, among other things, lays boulders algorithmically to build load-bearing walls without any mortar or cement. From there, it's old school meets new school in the form of a laser-cut fox-wedged mortise and tenon joint. We take a look at a couple of simple cameras, making dry ice from seashells, and a really tiny POV display where everything spins. Finally, we talk about how small that proposed Italian lunar outpost is, and discuss whether rating airlines would help stop the spread of diseases.

Check out the links, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Ep 246: Bypassing Fingerprint Readers is Easy, Killing Memory Chips is Hard, Cell Phones vs Sperm

Season 5 · Episode 246

Friday, December 1, 2023 • Duration 01:17:31

It's the week after Thanksgiving (for some of us) and if you're sick of leftovers, you're in luck as Elliot and Dan get together to discuss the freshest and best inter-holiday hacks. We'll cue up the "Mission: Impossible" theme for a self-destructing flash drive with a surprising sense of self-preservation, listen in on ET only to find out it's just a meteor, and look for interesting things to do with an old 3D printer. We'll do a poking around a little in the basement at Tektronix, see how easy it is to spoof biometric security, and get into a love-hate relationship with both binary G-code and bowling balls with strings attached. What do you do with a box full of 18650s? Easy -- make a huge PCB to balance them the slow way. Is your cell phone causing a population crisis? Is art real or AI? And what the heck is a cannibal CME? Tune in as we dive into all this and more.

Check out the links over at Hackaday 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 245: The Silver Swan, ET's Umbrella Antenna, Model Tanks vs Space Shuttle Tires

Season 5 · Episode 245

Friday, November 24, 2023 • Duration 59:28

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi link up through the magic of the Internet to go over some of their favorite stories from the last week. After revealing the bone-chilling winners of this year's Halloween contest, the discussion switches over to old-timey automatons, receiving deep space transmissions with a homebrew antenna that would make E.T. proud, and the treasures that can be found while poking around in a modern car's CAN bus.

They'll also go over how NASA saved the taxpayers a bunch of money by hacking a remote controlled WWII tank, CNC controlled microscopes, and a cinema-quality camera you can probably build from what you've already got in the parts bin. Finally, they'll detail an ambitious effort to recreate an old computer's motherboard with a new feature in KiCad, and muse over all the interesting things that become possible once your test equipment can talk to your computer.

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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Hackaday Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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Hackaday Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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