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The End of the Electromechanical Era
When viewed from the far future, the early years of the 21st century will probably be seen as the end of a short era in human technological development. In the beginning of the 20th century, most...
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Desktop Performance In A Custom Mac Laptop
Most of us either own or have used a laptop at some point. For traveling, as a student, or even for browsing Hackaday on the couch in front of the TV, they are pretty much indispensable. They do tend...
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Hackaday Links: April 3, 2022
It’s that time of year again — the 2022 Hackaday Prize has officially launched, and we’re excited to see what it turns out. This year’s theme is “Sustainability, Resilience, and Circularity,” and just...
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Mobile-Focused Windows 11 Leaves Taskbar Stuck Along the Bottom
Yeah, I’ll admit it: I’m a Windows person. Two years ago this summer, I traded in an overworked Windows 7 laptop that was literally screaming in pain for a SFF Windows 10 box as my main machine. But 10...
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Tiny RISC Virtual Machine is Built for Speed
Most of us are familiar with virtual machines (VMs) as a way to test out various operating systems, reliably deploy servers and other software, or protect against potentially malicious software. But...
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A Love Letter to Small Design Teams, and the B-52
The true measure of engineering success — or, at least, one of them — is how long something remains in use. A TV set someone designed in 1980 is probably, at best, relegated to a dusty guest room today...
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A Nomadic Chair
There’s no shortage of different types of folding or portable chairs, but designer [Jorge Penadés] built a backpack chair that will go the long haul. Furniture that assembles without screws or glue is...
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Mechanical Keyboard Is Also a Mouse
The mechanical keyboard community is a vibrant, if not fanatical, group of enthusiasts determined to find as many possible ways of assembling, building, and using as many high-quality keyboards as...
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Tiny Tapeout 3: Get Your Own Chip Design to a Fab
Custom semiconductor chips are generally big projects made by big companies with big budgets. Thanks to Tiny Tapeout, students, hobbyists, or anyone else can quickly get their designs onto an actual...
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Opening Up ASIC Design
The odds are that if you’ve heard about application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) at all, it’s in the context of cryptocurrency mining. For some currencies, the only way to efficiently mine them...
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It’s Opposite Day For This Novel Wankel Engine
The Wankel engine seems to pop up in surprising places every so often, only to disappear into the ether before someone ultimately resurrects it for a new application and swears to get it right this...
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The BSides: more curious uses of off-the-shelf parts
Off-the-shelf stock parts are the blocks from which we build mechanical projects. And while plenty of parts have dedicated uses, I enjoy reusing them in ways that challenge what they were originally...
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Hinges Live Inside 3D Prints
Since desktop 3D printers have become more common, we’ve seen dramatic shifts in all kinds of areas such as rapid prototyping, antique restoration, mass production of consumer goods, or even household...
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How To Model a Twisted Part in FreeCAD
Quick references are handy, but sometimes it’s nice to have a process demonstrated from beginning to end. In that spirit, [Darren Stone] created a video demonstrating how to model a twisted part in...
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Share Your Projects: Making Helpful PCBs
When it comes to things that hackers build, PCBs are a sizeable portion of our creative output. It’s no wonder – PCB design is a powerful way to participate in the hardware world, making your ideas all...
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Remote-Controlled Hypercar Slices Through Air
Almost all entry-level physics courses, and even some well into a degree program, will have the student make some assumptions in order to avoid some complex topics later on. Most commonly this is...
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SMA Connector Footprint Design for Open Source RF Projects
When you first start out in the PCB layout game and know just enough to be dangerous, you simply plop down a connector, run a trace or two, and call it a hack. As you learn more about the finer points...
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Using FreeCAD to Replace OEM Parts
As much as we might all like it if manufacturers supported their products indefinitely with software updates or replacement parts, this just isn’t feasible. Companies fail or get traded, technologies...
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Trebuchet Sends Eggs Flying
Without any sort of restrictions on designs for trebuchets, these medieval siege weapons are known to send 90 kilogram projectiles over 300 meters. The egg-launching trebuchet contest that...
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Better 3D Prints, Courtesy of a Simple Mass-Produced Bracket
On the “hack/not-a-hack” scale, a 3D printed bracket for aluminum extrusions is — well, a little boring. Such connectors are nothing you couldn’t buy, and even if you insisted on printing them instead,...
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